Post AaCUdLNqprMs2fI0yu by freemo@qoto.org
(DIR) More posts by freemo@qoto.org
(DIR) Post #AaCT52KB5hZ98AeGm0 by vwbusguy@mastodon.online
2023-09-27T17:58:12Z
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Something that irks me: When spellcheckers mark spellings wrong for officially recognized variants.Example: counsellor and counselor are both correct spellings in English (with slight preference for one-l in America and two l's in UK English).Both Cambridge and Miriam-Webster list both. There are several such examples where variant spellings are commonly accepted in American English.
(DIR) Post #AaCT52zIcoSXBht6rw by freemo@qoto.org
2023-09-27T18:00:43Z
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@vwbusguy Thats why spell checkers have US english and UK english dictionaries. If you want it to label both varients as correct then you just load both dictionaries.
(DIR) Post #AaCTaPzv7ldnWs8ZN2 by vwbusguy@mastodon.online
2023-09-27T18:06:26Z
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@freemo I'm talking specifically about American English here:https://proofed.com/writing-tips/8-words-variant-spellings/Not "color" vs "colour". Stuff that are commonly accepted American variants by Miriam-Webster, etc.
(DIR) Post #AaCTje8Bwi85yAPFg0 by freemo@qoto.org
2023-09-27T18:08:05Z
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@vwbusguy Ahh, in that case we are talking about completeness I guess. In that sense I agree, they tend to lack a lot of words, not just the variants.
(DIR) Post #AaCULGvQfn9H0BNVBY by vwbusguy@mastodon.online
2023-09-27T18:14:53Z
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@freemo Here's an example off the top of my head.All of these spellings are recognized in Miriam-Webster, with "aeons" being the only one flagged as being primarily "British" and "Ambience" being the *primary* spelling (ambiance, which the checker accepts, is a recognized variant)
(DIR) Post #AaCUdLNqprMs2fI0yu by freemo@qoto.org
2023-09-27T18:18:09Z
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@vwbusguy Right, but miriam-webster dictionary is copyrighted... your spellcheck I suspect is open source and even if it isnt likely doesnt have licensing on a dictionary nearly as complete as miriam webster... That may very well be part of the problem. As I said i often notice it has a lack of completeness even outside of variants.
(DIR) Post #AaCVTp7jVXwdKym5cu by vwbusguy@mastodon.online
2023-09-27T18:27:39Z
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@freemo Miriam Webster dictionary was first published in 1847 based on Webster's dictionary from 1806. Newer entries are copyrighted, sure, but these words have long been in the public domain.
(DIR) Post #AaCVnjNgZJvVJnjFoW by freemo@qoto.org
2023-09-27T18:31:16Z
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@vwbusguy Words are always in the public domain, dictionaries arent...If all they did was import the 1806 dictionary you would have tons of incorrect words that have since been removed fromt he language in modern times... So thats not a solution. Also the latest miriam webster is copyrighted, ALL of it... the fact that every single word in it is int he public domain doesnt mean the dictionary itself is in the public domain, it isnt, nor are entries that are archaic.
(DIR) Post #AaCW1oldL6nu4seCqO by vwbusguy@mastodon.online
2023-09-27T18:33:47Z
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@freemo Spell checkers don't normally ship definitions, do they? Recognized common spellings are necessarily in the public domain. How can you retroactively enforce copyright on common word spellings?
(DIR) Post #AaCWToB97Z7OMQvZzM by freemo@qoto.org
2023-09-27T18:38:49Z
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@vwbusguy Common spellings are in the public domain.. that doesnt mean you can aquire them through a copyrighted source.What I cant do is take a dictionary copyrighted in 2023, and scrape it and pull out all the spellings... In fact what i also cant do is take a 1807 dictionary and a 2023, scrape them both and only use entries that overlap between the two... Since i used a copyrighted dictionary, 2023 to compile that information it would be in violation, even if the data extracted is from the public domain.The reasoning is simple, the dictionary **isnt** copyrighting the words themselves, it is copyrighting its curation.. They assemble experts who review old dictionaries and update them, their research into what word is or isnt still a word and what spellings are valid is what is copyrighted, not the actual word itself.Think of it like this, imagine I wrote a book that was nothing more than a copyrighted list of names of public domain works. Just because the titles and works are in the public domain doesnt mean my list and efforts to make a compilation are in the public domain, it isnt.
(DIR) Post #AaCXItBgG6K0fCXE0m by vwbusguy@mastodon.online
2023-09-27T18:48:04Z
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@freemo Then pick one of any number of dictionaries in the public domain. I just picked MW as an example. None of the examples I've given are new words or new variants.
(DIR) Post #AaCXVhXmrNmmJgz5hg by freemo@qoto.org
2023-09-27T18:50:23Z
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@vwbusguy Well thats the problem.. anything that is old enough to be in the public domain you cant pick because it will contain inaccuracies since it wasnt updated.Any dictionaries that are modern and released into the public domain are likely far less comprehensive and thus lack the alternatives you want in the first place... this assumes there are any good ones in the public domain to begin with.
(DIR) Post #AaCYgNwkAB8QfxJeC0 by SETIEric@qoto.org
2023-09-27T19:03:32Z
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@freemo @vwbusguy In general list, databases, directories are difficult to copyright unless there is a degree of creativity involved in the compilation. Note "work" or "effort" is not relevant, creativity is.The usual example is recipes. A recipe cannot be copyrighted as it is a set of ingredients and instructions. A book containing a set of recipes can be, primarily because to the text and photos describing the recipes. Yet every recipe in the book is not subject to copyright and may be freely used in other works. A book contains selected recipes from other books does not run afoul of copyright law, provided only the recipes are copied. I'd be surprised if the list of words in a dictionary can be subject to copyright, even if the definitions are.Back when there were phone books, telephone companies tried to protect their lists of names and numbers. Despite the amount of work needed to compile the lists, the lists were not protected because it was not creative work. https://www.justia.com/intellectual-property/copyright/lists-directories-and-databases/#:~:text=A%20work%20must%20have%20at,lists%2C%20directories%2C%20and%20databases.
(DIR) Post #AaCayDtcT7sQcrUKEi by freemo@qoto.org
2023-09-27T19:29:09Z
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@SETIEric @vwbusguy In general list, databases, directories are difficult to copyright unless there is a degree of creativity involved in the compilation. Note “work” or “effort” is not relevant, creativity is.Thats not true, the copyright is automatic and garunteed.. what is hard to do is enforce it. I would need to prove you actually copied from my list, and if you modify your list or the list is short, that can be very hard to do. But if it is clear you literally just copied some list someone compiled.. then yea if that can be proven it would certainly be illegal. The usual example is recipes. A recipe cannot be copyrighted as it is a set of ingredients and instructions.No this isnt true its more complicated than that. A list of food items in and of itself cant be copyrighted. However a recipe can, since a recipe is more than a list of food items but includes how you prepare those food items, and other aspects that make it copyrightable. Therefore will need to have a written description on how to prepare it as well as other information. These written texts ultimately make them copyrightable but it isnt the only aspect that makes it copyrigtable. A book containing a set of recipes can be, primarily because to the text and photos describing the recipes.No that is not why, though it is part of it… The descriptions and other aspects are copyrightable and is one among many reasons a recipe book is.. but here is the rub…. even a recipe book that is itself modern, but every single recipe in it is in the public domain (because they are old enough)… you still cant republish the recipie book and the book itself is copyrighted. Thats because it isnt the descriptions at all that protect it, it is because collections are protected.Now you may wonder, if collections are protected why arent lists of ingredients… Largely because they dont rise to the level of a collection under copyright law. A collection needs to be more substantial than a short list of food items.A dictionary, even if you reduce it to a list of words without definitions, would be substantial enough to fall under the definition of a collection. Much like a book of public domain recipies is, as a collection, copyrighted, so too would a list of curated words that are expansive enough to be an attempt at describing the whole of the english language.
(DIR) Post #AaEV377Mt2LBdtmtaS by SETIEric@qoto.org
2023-09-28T17:32:14Z
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@freemo @vwbusguy Copyright is automatic on works that are subject to copyright, (i.e. creative works.) Works that are not creative are not subject to copyright, automatic or otherwise. You can copyright a program you wrote to create a list of prime numbers. You cannot copyright a list of prime numbers, no matter how much effort it takes to compile. Even novel ordering (say by the number of 9s in the decimal representation) doesn’t make the list creative. Writing a novel featuring the numbers on the list is, on the other hand, creative.But if someone extracts the numbers from the novel and makes a list of them, the list is likely neither a copyright violation nor can it be copyrighted. Or a list of the first word of every paragraph for that matter, although the copyright holder could try to convince a jury that there was something original and creative about the words and their order, and financially harmful about its publication. I think they would lose.Since “Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co.” effort is not a criterion for copyright. The work must be creative and original. An alphabetical list of English words probably falls below that threshold even though a dictionary containing even a subset of those words is well above it.Of course, in the US you can sue anyone for anything, and even if you don’t care about winning you can still cause a lot of financial pain. The law doesn’t need to be on your side if the money is.
(DIR) Post #AaEWkvPFtIUC12boDw by freemo@qoto.org
2023-09-28T17:51:19Z
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@SETIEric Copyright is automatic on works that are subject to copyright, (i.e. creative works.) Works that are not creative are not subject to copyright, automatic or otherwise.You are of course correct that copyright is only automatic on things that are copyrigtable. You are also correct that some lists are not copyrightable, but to claim lists as a whole are not is completely false… Collections, even if everything collected is in the public domain, are covered (automatically) by copyright. However what qualifies as a collection depends partly on its substantiability and other factors… A list of food items in isolation isnt copyrightable, for example… But a list of public-domain recipies, the list itself IS copyrightable even if the individual items in it are not on their own. You can copyright a program you wrote to create a list of prime numbers. You cannot copyright a list of prime numbers, no matter how much effort it takes to compile.This is actually also false, and a counter example. While not all prime numbers (like 3 or 5) can be copyright, and not all list of prime numbers can be copyrighted (like 3,5,7) it would be false to claim you can never copyright a list of prime numbers… Not only can you copyright a list of prime numbers, but it has been done, and defended successfully in court.For example in 2001 someone was charged with breaking copyright law by publishing a list of only two prime numbers. These primes were effectively the private key needed to decrypt DRM information on DVDs. Despite being a list of two prime numbers, because it was substantial according to the legal definition, it rose to the level of copyright status.There are tons of legal examples of prime numbers, and numbers in general being copyrighted. They are called “illegal numbers”. Writing a novel featuring the numbers on the list is, on the other hand, creative.As pointed out while this writing would also be copyrighted it is not needed for something to be copywritable. Collections alone can be copyrightable, though a mere list is not necessarily copy-writable unless meeting the legal definition which requires among other things for it to be “substantial” But if someone extracts the numbers from the novel and makes a list of them, the list is likely neither a copyright violation nor can it be copyrighted.Nope this would absolutely be a copyright violation… Just as copying from a collection of public domain recipes by repeating the same collection or a subset that was directly copied from the book would be a copyright violation. Or a list of the first word of every paragraph for that matter, although the copyright holder could try to convince a jury that there was something original and creative about the words and their order, and financially harmful about its publication.This would be considered a derivative work, and thus illegal under copyright. Putting somethingin list form doesnt give you a work around on copyrights. Since as we covered collections that meet the legal definitions are copyrightable, this includes lists.. even a list of just 2 numbers in one case I cited. Since “Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co.” effort is not a criterion for copyright. The work must be creative and original.Yes effort alone is not enough, the definition of when a collection is substantive enough to grant copyright is a bit complicated.You can read about the legal criteria for a collection to be substantial enough to be allowed copyright here, but it is clearly stated that collections are themselves copyrightable:https://copyright.gov/eco/help-collective-work.html@vwbusguy