Thursday, February 09, 2012

Law Blogging

In never never admit you are wrong land, there has been a recent outbreak of IAAL, Steve Mosher went into lawyer mode
Is the IPCC a legal entity? capable of entering into a legal agreement? Now we know that individuals can enter into contracts and corporations can. they can both have the intention to enter into a legally binding agreement with legal obligations and consequences. Can the IPCC? If the IPCC cant be held to FOIA law because its an extra legal entity, can it enter into contracts or even own a copyright?.
and Lucia brought out her parsomatic
Also, there are questions about what precisely, they have copyright in. As the authors are not employees of ‘ “THE” IPCC’inc, the work can’t be “work for hire”. The review comments are… what? Did the reviewers transfer copyright ownership to ‘ “THE” IPCC’inc? If so, is ‘ “THE” IPCC’inc the sole owner, or do the reviewers co-own with ‘ “THE” IPCC’inc? All these would be interesting questions if ‘ “THE” IPCC’incany UN document — draft, not draft, obtained by hacking etc. is going to fall under fair use for comment most of the time. So whatever case against copying they want to make US copyright law isn’t going to help them much.
So Eli wrote the IPCC copyright office
Do the authors of IPCC reports assign copyright to the IPCC? In the case where they are employed by governments do the governments agree to this?
and got a reply
Thank you for your message. Please note that the material covered in the IPCC reports cannot be attributed to one single author and therefore the issue of individual copyrights is not relevant.
Best regards,

17 comments:

  1. Funny. In order to do science, one has to share many of the results and methods. This raises the philosophical question that if one is employed in commercial research in natural sciences with strict copyright restrictions, is it science?

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  2. Seems like the UN, which the IPCC is part of, generally asserts a copyright:

    "5.1 Pursuant to the established copyright policy of the Organization
    (ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.2), all published materials of the Organization are generally
    copyrighted, with the exception of parliamentary documentation and public
    information material not offered for sale. That includes all intellectual property in
    the form of text, photos and captions, maps and labels, databases, directories,
    copyrighted public information materials, software, audio-visual materials and
    documentation."

    http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/UN/UNPAN006342.pdf

    As for Mosher saying an agreement on an exchange of value for consideration isn't a contract, I think he needs to sit in on a contracts class.

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  3. Hmmm. I go to the IPCC website and see this:


    Unless otherwise stated, the information available on this website, including text, logos, graphics, maps, images, audio clips or electronic downloads is the propriety of the IPCC and is protected by intellectual and industrial property laws.

    You may freely download and copy the material contained on this website for your personal, non-commercial use, without any right to resell or redistribute it or to compile or create derivative works there from, subject to more specific restrictions that may apply to specific materials.

    Reproduction of figures or short excerpts of IPCC material is authorized free of charge and without formal written permission provided that the original source is properly acknowledged, with mention of the complete name of the report, the publisher and the numbering of the page(s) or the figure(s). Permission can only be granted to use the material exactly as it is in the report. Please be aware that figures cannot be altered in any way, including the full legend. For media use it is sufficient to cite the source while using the original graphic or figure. In line with established Internet usage, any external website may provide a hyperlink to the IPCC website or to any of its pages without requesting permission.

    For any other use, permission is required. To obtain permission, please address your request to the Secretary of the IPCC in a signed letter with all relevant details using official letterhead and fax it to: +41 22 730 8025. All communications by mail should be addressed to:

    IPCC Secretariat
    World Meteorological Organization
    7bis Avenue de la Paix, P.O. Box No. 2300
    CH-1211 Geneva 2,
    Switzerland

    All e-mail communications should be addressed to Ms. Sophie Schlingemann, Legal and Outreach Officer.

    -- --- -- ---
    I then look at the section marked "organisation" and find that the IPCC was setup by the UNEP and WMO as an international scientific body.
    Now I appreciate lukewarmers have to muddy the waters as much as possible, but you'd think they would do some research first.

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  4. anthrosciguy10/2/12 1:03 PM

    No fair actually looking for answers! You're supposed to simply agree that there is a controversy, etc.

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  5. Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd.

    Can't say I'm a fan of Mosher and I think Lucia is usually wrong and completely overconfident about everything she says.

    One day, the good doctor kindly requested that Lucia post the annual temperatures of the arctic and she angrily refused and banned me from her website.

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  6. Well, you need to understand where Mosher and Liljegren are coming from, and to understand that, you first need to recognize one thing: they're Americans.

    In America, an act can be as legal or illegal as you want, as long as the price is right. Actually the phrase "in America" is redundant, because in America, the whole world is America, and besides if someone doesn't like the IPCC, they can always extradite Rajendra Pachauri, or bomb his house, or both.

    -- frank

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  7. re: Mosher's knowledge of contracts

    Mosher should read the ancient poem of honor and offer that every first year law student is bombarded with.

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  8. That's a classic IPCC non-response. When a group of authors write a paper, one signs a copyright form for the journal on behalf of the others.

    You are right though about the lawyery tactics. Everyone knew that there was no formal legal requirement about not leaking documents, so asking about it was a bit pointless.

    Cantbebotheredtologin.

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  9. Hey, I had a post up and it's gone?

    Maybe it was because I copied over the entire assertion of copyright of everything on the website of the IPCC that can be found by a click or two from the front page of the IPCC?
    Naturally, everything on the website includes the reports.

    Thus making Mosher look like an idiot, but that is normal practise around here.

    And for once I find myself agreeing with Cadbury.

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  10. "Everyone knew that there was no formal legal requirement about not leaking documents, so asking about it was a bit pointless."

    Try "leaking" a copy of Harry Porter and thee Philosopher's Stone for free on the Internet -- under your real name -- and we'll see how that 'argument' washes.

    Copyright means that some people have an unrestricted right to copy a document, and others don't. This is not hard to understand. The idea that any goon who gets any copy of any document can freely "leak" it, well, the idea goes against every reasonable notion of copyright.

    -- frank

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  11. The spam filter appears to be getting more aggressive. Eli will bail out comments as soon as he can. Pls b patient.

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  12. Steve M's idea that all he had to do was get whatever from someone else is known as the Napster fallacy.

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  13. Rent seekers should RTFM.

    IPCC: Principles and Procedures

    Consideration of IAC recommendations
    [...]
    With respect to the confidentiality of draft IPCC reports, the Panel decided at its 33rd Session that the drafts of IPCC Reports and Technical papers which have been submitted for formal expert and/or government review, the expert and government review comments, as well as the author responses to those comments will be made available on the IPCC website as soon as possible after the acceptance by the Panel and the finalization of the Report. However, the IPCC considers its draft Reports, prior to acceptance, to be pre-decisional, provided in confidence to reviewers, and not for distribution, quotation or citation.

    For more information, please see revised Appendix A with its 3 Annexes and the compilations of decisions by the Panel in response to the IAC Review...


    Recognised by, for instance...

    NZCCC: How to become an expert reviewer for the AR5

    AR5 Working Group I First Order Draft Expert Review
    [...]
    Note that all drafts of IPCC reports are confidential; they are made available to expert reviewers solely for the purpose of providing comments that will assist the author teams in revising their drafts. Draft reports are ‘work in progress' that will (and should) necessarily change before they are finalised, and they must not be published or distributed in any other form to allow the authors to work through an orderly process in their writing task.


    I also see that Gallopingcamel confuses the United Nations for the Unites States over at Lucia's.

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  14. Courtesy of gryposaurus:

    > The review procedure and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process.

    http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/IACReportRelease.html

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  15. Oh, and speaking of IAC:

    http://climateaudit.org/2010/06/12/iac-such-as-mcintyre-and-mckitrick/

    Last comment:

    > I’ve been invited by Harold Shapiro to have a telephone interview this week.

    http://climateaudit.org/2010/06/12/iac-such-as-mcintyre-and-mckitrick/#comment-232728

    Let's hope it has been recorded.

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  16. Here's Moshpit:

    > it would appear that they are still stinging over questions asked about the IPCC owning a copyright. Stupid Eli and stupid willard said some nonsense. I’m betting neither have spent much time around the field.

    It would appear that Moshpit has not evidence to say anything over what I sting.

    The point, in a word, is parsomatics.

    Litteralism, Moshpit.

    The trick adolescent use when to break communication channels.

    What a bunch of teenagers.

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