From: jpewther@aol.com   
      
   On Friday, September 28, 2018 at 4:15:01 AM UTC-4, Debra Dee McQueen Freeman   
   wrote:   
   > On Friday, September 28, 2018 at 2:12:05 AM UTC-4, Jud Pewther wrote:   
   > > By the way, what do you people at alt.anagrams think of the claim that an   
   anagrammer has a copyright on each of his/her anagram discoveries? And to what   
   extent are other people allowed to quote them, or claim them as their own,   
   without permission    
   from the author?   
   >    
   > Do YOU want people to quote YOU or    
   > YOUR anagram find and not give YOU   
   > credit and do either without YOUR    
   > permission?   
      
   I generally wouldn't mind at all if people quote anagrams I have discovered,   
   as long as they mention me as the discoverer.  And I am pretty sure that   
   people can make short quotations from any copyrighted work, for critical   
   purposes or whatever, without    
   the author's permission. For example, I am free to quote the words "Gone with   
   the Wind," which is the title of a famous novel by Margaret Mitchell, and not   
   have to worry that I am infringing on her copyright. Because I did mention   
   that these are her    
   words, and I am not pretending these are my original words. And I could   
   probably get away with quoting a whole paragraph or two from her book, as long   
   as I had something critical to say about it, either good or bad.   
      
   I get the impression that you are trying to find fault with what I said in   
   this posting. If so, that is very strange, because just recently you   
   'violated' two other people's 'copyright' on two very good anagrams of   
   "Unrequited love". (And there were no    
   other really good anagrams in your posting.)   
      
   Yes, perhaps you rediscovered these two anagrams. But they had already been   
   discovered by Joe Fathallah and Anna Shefl, the original authors. So if there   
   is any such thing as a copyright on a short anagram (I doubt that there really   
   is), you have    
   violated their copyrights. And I don't think you even apologized to them.   
      
   Not that it's a big deal.  Rediscoveries of short anagrams are bound to   
   happen.  Still, if you are not a totally selfish person, anxious only to grab   
   glory for your own achievements, you will wish to give credit where credit is   
   due. And that means being    
   duly aware of the possibility that other anagrammers have already examined   
   your short subject phrase, and milked it dry of the good anagrams.   
      
   So yes, you should have done a Google search of alt.anagrams for "unrequited   
   love", to see what others had already found, before you claimed any such   
   anagrams as your own discoveries. Google makes it easy to find things like   
   this. So you really have no    
   excuse.   
      
   You could also try a search of the whole Web, using this search term:   
   anagram "unrequited love"   
      
   By doing that, I see right away at anagramgenius.com that one or two more of   
   your "unrequited love" anagrams are rediscoveries. And more copyright   
   violations, if there is such a thing as a copyright on a short anagram. I   
   believe William Tunstall-Pedoe    
   claims some sort of copyright on all anagrams posted at his site. So   
   anagrammers may be giving up some of their own rights to their anagrams by   
   posting them at his site. But I'm not sure about that.   
      
   I suppose one could argue that even if there is such a thing as a copyright on   
   a short anagram, by posting one's anagram discoveries on a site such as   
   alt.anagrams, you are giving up some of those rights.  For Usenet newsgroups   
   are really discussion    
   groups, the way things have turned out. And it is common practice at a   
   newsgroup like alt.anagrams to copy all or part of a previous post in order to   
   post a reply. No one has to give you explicit permission to do that, according   
   to common practice.   
      
   However, to post anagrams you found at alt.anagrams at another location,   
   without permission from the author, might be a little trickier.  But again,   
   people are allowed to make short quotations from any literary work, without   
   getting the author's    
   permission. I do think one should always mention the name of the author.   
      
   Since you, Debra, are especially fond of Bible quotations, try this one on for   
   size:   
   "He who refuses instruction despises his own soul;   
    but he who listens to reproof gains wisdom."   
    -- Proverbs 15:32, Lamsa Bible   
      
   But as I myself know next to nothing about copyright law, I am interested in   
   hearing the opinions of others at alt.anagrams, not just Debra.   
      
   Jud   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)