Talk:Light rail
Does the author have permission to post this? [1], [2] --maveric149
Yes, as far as I know 1. http://www.rinbad.demon.co.uk/ca_rail.htm -- from their FAQ
Copyright policy?
Copyright © 1992-2000. The copyright of the pages on this site belongs to us, but you may make copies for personal use. If you reproduce any of the material in any electronic or paper publication whether for profit or otherwise, please acknowledge the source as Rinbad.
2. The data is public data from National Transit Database, APTA (an association of public agencies) copied it themselves and formatted it in html, which was copied and cited, does that formatting matter?
Their statement:
Copyright© 2001, American Public Transportation Association; All Rights Reserved. Permission to use, copy and distribute documents and related graphics from this World Wide Web server ("Server") is granted provided that (1) the above copyright notice appears in all copies and that both the copyright notice and this permission notice appear; (2) use of documents and related graphics available from this Server is for informational and non-commercial purposes only; (3) no documents or related graphics available from this Server are modified in any way, and; (4) no graphics available from this Server are used, copied or distributed separate from accompanying text. Any rights not expressly granted herein are reserved by the American Public Transportation Association. The American Public Transportation Association shall not be liable for any damages whatsoever, including but not limited to direct, indirect, or consequential damages, arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of information available from this Server or links provided from this Server to other servers or websites.
Just as I thought -- these conditions are not compatible with the GNU FDL. The above notice can be deleted by anyone any time a wiki and no provision of the FDL can prevent commercial redistribution. Attribution on a wiki is also not possible. The material needs to be either extensively rewritten or removed. --maveric149
I have no problem in principle with rewriting LRT article (Rinbad piece), but
"Wikipedia and Nupedia's use of the GFDL began in January, 2001, and has won the project the support of Richard Stallman of the FSF. See [1]. It has long been the understanding of Wikipedia principals (Jimbo Wales and Larry Sanger at least) that, as in the case of Nupedia (see [2] and [3]), links back to original Wikipedia articles would be required from anyone who used Wikipedia articles. (Jimbo confirms that Stallman agreed that the license permits this. [4]) Wikipedia principals have, recently, finally gotten around to making this requirement explicit for Wikipedia (as it has been for Nupedia), which has caused some controversy. (See the Wikipedia-L archives and /Talk.)"
So if Wikipedia's GFDL allows it to insist that others links back to it, it is quite inconsistent to not allow other licenses to require that Wikipedia refer back to it. I realize that since anyone can edit, anyone can delete notice, but that seems an implementation problem, that Wikipedia may face if another Wiki type site cites its articles. (Rinbad clearly just wants acknowledgment, and implicitly allows profit distribution).
I suspect APTA is blowing smoke about their copyright, but I am still plowing through National Transit Database to find the original table. I agree there is a problem with not allowing commercial reproduction if their copyright is valid. But if it is public data than the point is moot.
As I thought, APTA took the data from: http://www.ntdprogram.com/NTD/NTDData.nsf/2000+TOC/Table20/$File/t20_32.html (or equivalent tables in previous years) The National Transit Database Table 20 and basically deleted all the lines not dealing with LRT (and a few redundant columns) to create the specific table.
Is that copyrightable?
Can I take someone else's data and remove some and get a new copyright? Can I change a font and get a new copyright?
Nope -- making those types of changes along with any changes that are not a complete rewrite are called "derivitive works" and are covered by the original copyright (no new copyright was formed since the terms of the original copyright cannot be followed by this wiki or be re-licensed under the GNU FDL). So the list has to be removed and the stub for this article has to be rewritten. You can use the same information in the rewrite - but it must be said in a different way and presented in a way that does not substantially reflect the creative work of the original author. If you don't get around to this, I will provide a rewritten definition that I prepared for work (also based in part on the definition you provided but rewritten to conform to copyright law).
Also, even if the the original info for the table was from the FTA (thus in the public domain) APTA modified and added to it. Their modifications and choice of additions (even if they were also PD) is under automatic copyright protection in the US. The table in the / page is exactly the same as the one linked anyway - so providing an external link to it has the same effect. I will go ahead and remove the content from the / page and add the page to page titles to be deleted for a final review by another administrator. We are all learning here, so I hope this does not cause undue hard feelings. :)--maveric149
My questions were rhetorical and aimed at APTA not wikipedia. APTA modified the FTA public domain table by deleting rows, thus creating a derivative work, and then claimed copyright on it. (Its like copying part of a phone book, but only numbers beginning with '9'). Since you agreed with my point that this is invalid, APTA does *not* have a copyright on the table -- regardless of what they claim.
WRT the LRT article (not the table), the rules RINBAD put forth a definition looks a lot like copyleft to me, simply asking for notification of original source. I noted earlier, that wikipedia asks for exactly the same thing in its redistribution.
ALSO AS A SIDE MATTER - There probably should be some integration of the Tram and Light rail articles, Trolley and Street car already redirect.
Their choice on what to delete and include in their own table is a copyrightable derivitive work -- and the "FTA" tables are obviously formatted differently in HTML and come from a .com domain, which in combination with the lack of an obvious copyright renunciation, places great doubt on their public domain status. The table that was inputed into wikipedia was very obvously a minor HTML port of the exact APTA table and not the "FTA" table. --maveric149
AFAIK Tram and Light Rail are not the same thing. Eg, the Docklands Light Railway in London. A quick google search (results below) confirms that it would be more accurate to say Tram is a type of light rail which runs on roadways.
It seems this article needs replacing anyway. I'll look into it some more and get back to it. -- Tarquin
- "Tram" seems to mean more different things than "subway" (which is either a form of urban railroad, or a pedestrian underpass). Consider the "tram" up Victoria Peak in Hong Kong (an old funicular railway) and the "Roosevelt Island Tramway" in New York City (a cable car system). Vicki Rosenzweig
The Dayton System looks more like an electric bus than a light rail since it doesn't actually have rails. --DavidLevinson