Re: Another CAPS report.

["Jim Morris" <1005@rewrite.aisboard.org>]

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Bob,
 
Excellent presentation!  This is certainly a major topic for our  
Intellectual Properties committee to pursue.
 
Jim Morris
President
American Iris Society
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In a message dated 7/30/2014 8:18:06 A.M. Central Daylight Time,  
101p@rewrite.aisboard.org writes:

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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