RE: Another CAPS report.

["Veronica Johnson" <93ec31ec1@rewrite.aisboard.org>]

Bob,

I've enjoyed your emails on the CAPS reports.  I'm wondering if you received
any written materials you can share on the copyright issue.  

Veronica Johnson
Howard & Johnson, LLC
906 Olive Street, Ste. 200
St. Louis, MO  63101
314.454.1722
314.454.1911 (fax)
vjohnson@howardandjohnsonlaw.com

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-----Original Message-----
From: owner-aisdiscuss@aisboard.org [mailto:owner-aisdiscuss@aisboard.org]
On Behalf Of Robert Pries 
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2014 8:18 AM
To: AISdiscuss
Subject: [AISdiscuss] Another CAPS report.

First I would like to thank all that have responded so that I know my
reports have been seen.

Another CAPS report;

I believe there are four reasons why people belong to plant societies;
Information, Acquiring Plants, People, and Pride in Service. The most
important of these is information. Before the internet plant societies were
practically the only source of information. Today they are still responsible
for the accumulation of data and its presentation in useable form.
Information is central to our mission as an organization. So it creates
great anxiety when a large part of that information is taken and displayed
on a for-profit web-site making it appear as their own origination. This is
exactly what has been happening with All-Things-Plants (ATP).

Not only was the Iris Register taken but the Checklists for the Daffodil
Society, the Daylily Society and Information from the Royal Horticultural
Society and probably many others. Therefore it was of some interest to all
the societies as to where the legal bounds of copyright lie in this matter.

When this matter was called to my attention, someone e-mailed they have
stolen the Iris Encyclopedia. Upon investigation it turned out that it was
the Register not the Encyclopedia. The evidence for that conclusion is that
a great many of the names in All Things Plants are for irises that do not
exist.
They are the reserved names from the Register. Also descriptions are lacking
for the irises from the 1939 and 1949 checklists just as they are in the
Register but are present in the wiki. B  There are also irises from the
literature in the Encyclopedia that have never been registered and therefore
do not appear in the Register and ATP. Regardless of where the information
was taken it still originated with AIS and should have been so acknowledged
and permission negotiated.

No one has worked harder to establish AIS as the most prestigious source of
Iris information, and so I feel justly aggravated. But copyright law is
still being tested and I try to analyze our options. At the conference a
presentation was made by a New York lawyer who is part of a very large law
firm with a whole section of copyright lawyers. He stressed that he was not
representing his firm or providing us with consul as to what to do. But he
could explain the law that might apply in this case.

All Things Plants is an Information sharing platform. It essentially is a
wiki just like the Iris Encyclopedia. Congress has written special laws for
such sites and ATP refers to these in its terms of usage. Essentially
Congress said that such site can not possibly review everything that goes
onto such a site and therefore has little responsibility for its content. If
something is put up that is objectionable or copyrighted the only recourse
is to write a letter objecting to that entry and the site is required to
take it down. It does not seem feasible to me to send 40,000 letters.
Furthermore descriptions and lists are covered differently under copyright
since there is no copyright on facts.
None the less a verbatim quote of a description would be covered.

What have the other organizations chosen to do? The Daffodil Society and The
Daylily Society have consulted their lawyers and have decided going after
Dave and his creation ATP would not be worth the cost. Instead they have
negotiated with Dave to have their website cited. If one looks at how this
is working it still is not obvious that they are the primary source of
information. And sadly if one clicks on the link to their site one usually
gets only the elemental information with a single image. Dave uses this
image but adds to it so that the source society seems skimpy in what they
offer.

So far AIS has made no agreement or challenge to ATP. At present I think
that is a wise course. I believe the Iris Encyclopedia contains better and
more comprehensive information than ATP. So long as we can maintain that gap
we will continue to be the first choice cited when Iris cultivars are
Googled.
But ATP has many advantages over AIS. It references all plants so there
understandable will be more traffic going to that site. Also ATP is not just
a checklist, but a blog, a chat group, and other things. I see this as
somewhat of a cold war arms race. Will AIS be replaced by ATP as an
information source or can we be better and more comprehensive. There can be
a place for both but certainly ATP is an attack on AISbs relevance.



--

Bob Pries
Zone 7a
Roxboro, NC
(336)597-8805

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