From: Niranjan Patel (niranjan.patel@worldnet.att.net)
Date: 09/26/03-02:06:31 PM Z
It seems to me that people are mixing up what is legal and what is ethical.
They do not always go hand-in-hand. Copyright is a legal issue. In order
for someone to violate your copyright you need to have "copyrighted" the
material which most contributing here do not. While it may be unethical to
use someone else's ideas in a book without properly acknowledging the source
(here the editor/publisher is probably as guilty as the author) it is not
necessarily illegal. You could lose your job, lose respect among colleagues
or may be no one will offer you a new book deal (unless you work at New York
Times, that is) if you are caught plagiarizing material that is not legally
protected by a copyright. But I doubt if you will have civil liabilities.
I guess if one has a unique knowledge about something and is worried
that someone if going to rip it off, one should try to publish as original
work first instead of putting it out on the list.
Niranjan.
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