Talk:Cooperative extension service

Copyright

I've had to remove some of the content from the article. In the first instance, the material appears to duplicate, word for word, material provided by Cornell University. In the second, I was unable to find an exact match for the source, but the style (in particular the references) were very suggestive that it was taken from a similar source. Thus I erred on the side of caution and pulled it out. If it can be shown that the sources are public domain then, obviously, I'd have no hassles with returning them. Similarly, if they could be rewritten such that there was no cause to suspect the origins, that would sidestep any issues too. :) - Bilby (talk) 01:25, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

• The source was clearly indicated in the existing footnote. It is from the statute, which is not copyrightable. To quell your fears, I have put the text as a block quote rather than as a bullet list. This makes it less readable. Racepacket (talk) 04:43, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I've had to remove what you had added back, as removing the suspect material on its own removed the context from the quotes of the legislation that you added, even though they were, themselves, ok. The problem is that the initial source may well be the statute, and yes, that is not copyrighted. However, what has been added to much of this is a summary description from Cornell. For example, in the article we had:

The purpose of the Hatch program is to support "research basic to problems of agriculture in its broadest aspects" by

• establishing and maintaining a permanent and effective national agriculture industry (which includes concern for environmental quality),
• promoting sound and prosperous rural life, and,
• improving the welfare of the consumer (e.g., food safety and nutrition).

This was references to 7 U.S.C. § 361b. The statue does cover some of this:

It is further the policy of the Congress to promote the efficient production, marketing, distribution, and utilization of products of the farm as essential to the health and welfare of our peoples and to promote a sound and prosperous agriculture and rural life as indispensable to the maintenance of maximum employment and national prosperity and security. It is also the intent of Congress to assure agriculture a position in research equal to that of industry, which will aid in maintaining an equitable balance between agriculture and other segments of our economy. It shall be the object and duty of the State agricultural experiment stations through the expenditure of the appropriations hereinafter authorized to conduct original and other researches, investigations, and experiments bearing directly on and contributing to the establishment and maintenance of a permanent and effective agricultural industry of the United States, including researches basic to the problems of agriculture in its broadest aspects, and such investigations as have for their purpose the development and improvement of the rural home and rural life and the maximum contribution by agriculture to the welfare of the consumer, as may be deemed advisable, having due regard to the varying conditions and needs of the respective States.

That's not unlike what is in the article, and clearly the two are related. However, in the Cornell document, we have:

The purpose of the Hatch program is to support "research basic to problems of agriculture in its broadest aspects" by establishing and maintaining a permanent and effective national agriculture industry (which includes concern for environmental quality), promoting sound and prosperous rural life, and, improving the welfare of the consumer (e.g., food safety and nutrition).

This is exactly the same as what was added to the article. Unless it can be shown that the Cornell document is free from copyright, my understanding is that we cannot directly copy its content into the article, even if the document used some material that was not copyrighted. There were similar problems with both "Multi-State Research Projects" and "McIntire-Stennis". - Bilby (talk) 05:29, 14 February 2010 (UTC)