The Louts' Lament

Eli and the assembled throngs have grabbed the popcorn to follow the Monckton vs. Monckton death match (link for the summary) as M runs onto a field of rakes at full tilt. Rabett Run is pleased to sponsor the next round (boos to he knows who for dragging the bunny back to the canvas.)

SPPI and Monckton have changed their tune, well, not really, the Discount Viscount smarmy with clever so the lede in now reads . . .

"In the July 2008 edition of Physics and Society, a paper by Christopher Monckton entitled Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered caused considerable interest when the Society, which had invited Monckton to submit the paper and then published it, decided a week after publication, and without Monckton's knowledge or consent, to add a prefatory disclaimer to the paper.

Oh, pardon, someone committed truth on their own website without Monckton's permission. How sad. But, of course, Monckton is a member of the British nomenklatura whose behavior is a sure sign of the respect with which he should be treated.

Soon thereafter, a database manager for the American Physical Society, Arthur Smith, drafted and circulated a critique of Monckton's paper. Smith's critique and Monckton's refutation of it are provided here for educational purposes.

Now anyone who teaches learns the limits of copying for "educational purposes" The "educational purposes" here is a fig leaf that Robert Ferguson and Monckton think they have discovered to allow them to copy Arthur's work. Since they are already in receipt of a letter from Arthur Smith which denies them permission to use the text without meeting certain conditions, and those conditions have not been met, Arthur certainly could either sue for infringement, or demand that the web hosting company take the SPPI site down. Monckton and Ferguson evidently still do not understand copyright law. Here are some clues from the University of Texas

The penalties for infringement are very harsh: the court can award up to $150,000 for each separate act of willful infringement . . . .

There is one special provision of the law that allows a court to refuse to award any damages at all if it so chooses, even if the copying at issue was not a fair use. It is called the good faith fair use defense [17 USC 504(c)(2)]. It only applies if the person who copied material reasonably believed that what he or she did was a fair use - as would likely be the case if you followed this Policy!

Unfortunately for Monckton and Ferguson, they are already on notice that their copying was not fair use.

2. If the work is protected, do you wish to exercise one of the owner's exclusive rights?

• Make a copy (reproduce)
• Use a work as the basis for a new work (create a derivative work)
• Electronically distribute or publish copies (distribute a work) . . . .
  

SPPI is not an educational institution offering classes whether in person or by distance learning. The provisions of the TEACH Act do not apply and even if they did, no one is allowed to copy an entire document for which someone else holds the copyright onto their web site without permission. The ice is even thinner at SPPI than in the Arctic.