User talk:Alex43223

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Enjoy! ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:02, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Copying from other websites

I'm afraid I've reverted your recent mass additions to Emma Watson and Lindsay Lohan, because they appeared to be a simple copy, with minimal reformatting, of the "Personal quotes" sections of these actresses' IMDb entries. Although it is a noble effort to collect all quotes that might be found, simply copying everything from a copyrighted work like IMDb is illegal under U.S. law, which Wikiquote must abide by. While quotes themselves cannot necessarily be copyrighted by secondary sources like IMDb, their selection and presentation can be, so just bringing them over, even with citations, is not enough to avoid legal problems.

Two ways to prevent problems are:

1. First, make sure you do you best to organize whatever selected subset of discovered quotes (from all sources) into one of the many reasonable mechanisms currently in use at Wikiquote: chronological (favored because it encourages proper sourcing), alphabetical (easy to do), topical (somewhat controversial but useful), etc. This puts a Wikiquote "stamp" on the quote collection.
2. Second, find better sources than IMDb for the quotes, even if you start with that site. IMDb's quote database is riddled with errors, as I can personally attest to after years of tweaking it myself. Copying material without finding closer, more reliable sources not only makes our collection less accurate, it makes it easier to bring copyvio charges. Many references works include small, mostly harmless errors that allow the copyright holders to discover illegal copying. The net effect of IMDb's own inaccuracies makes copies of its material easy to detect.

I hope you find this information useful. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:33, 17 December 2006 (UTC)