Talk:Licit and Illicit Drugs

Conflict of interest

My name is Lane and I am Wikipedian in Residence at Consumer Reports. I wrote the original draft of this Wikipedia article and then submitted it to review through the Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation, because the Wikipedia community advises that people with a conflict of interest should not publish articles related to their organization without getting review from other Wikipedia community members.

I expect that others will agree that this article meets general notability guidelines as the subject of the article has been the subject of multiple third-party publications. At the same time, my COI gives me the usual bias that all people with a COI have, so I encourage anyone else to check this article and guide it to be aligned with Wikipedia's own voice. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:43, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

The article looks fine to me. TealHill (talk) 04:22, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Possible addition

The cover of the book has some statements of support printed on it. I hesitated to add this because it is sort of self-published. From another perspective, these statements are useful for showing connection to contemporary thinkers. Here is some proposed text which could be added to the article.

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The book itself published statements of support from John Kaplan, author of Marijuana, the New Prohibition; and Norman Zinberg, author of Drugs and the Public.

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Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:28, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Copyright status

I was curious to find out the book's copyright status. So I investigated.

The physical book's copyright page, as well as this source, indicate that it's copyrighted by Consumers Union — not by Mr. Brecher.

The book was probably in print for two decades or so,[1] but has now probably been out of print for a few more decades.

Consumers Union doesn't publish open content,[2] and in fact it has a "No Commercial Use" policy.[3]

US copyright law is complicated. The book was published way back in '72. Based on the results of this calculator (requires Flash), it looks like the book will enter the public domain 95 years after it was first published.

Even when a book has been out of print for decades, it still remains copyrighted. This is because the publisher could still theoretically reprint it or start to sell electronic copies.[4] Or it could update the book and release a new edition. If copyright law allowed you to copy the book without asking permission, this would reduce the value of the text and reduce the publisher's incentive to do such things.[5]

The US still doesn't have good orphan-works legislation,[6] for various reasons.[7] But, even if it did, it would still require asking permission if the rights holder is still around.

So I think I shall do so, below.

TealHill (talk) 17:49, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

TealHill I understand everything you are saying and doing. As a Wikipedian, I look at these same issues for lots of works. Yes, as you say, the book is out of print and the only available legal way to access it is by acquiring a used copy. Yes, as you say, this book will be under copyright till 2063. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:42, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Question about permissions

Dear @Bluerasberry:

As I mentioned above, this book has probably been out of print for decades, but it's still copyrighted by Consumers Union.

I have access to a physical copy, as well as a searchable corrected OCRed copy, of the full text of the book.

I'm thinking that maybe I'd like to copy and paste part or all of Chapter 12 of the book (plus the associated endnotes) into a reddit.com post. The chapter is entitled: "The 'heroin overdose' mystery and other occupational hazards of addiction". I know that, if I go here and then here, there's a (multi-page) form I can fill in with my permissions request. But it looks like that form might only be for Consumer Reports, not for other Consumers Union publications such as this book.

I may be able to paraphrase the content in question, but it would be nice to be able to simply copy and paste it instead. How much hassle would it be for you to get me permissions to do this? Would it be an easy, five-minute thing for you to do, or would it be a long and complicated thing?

Yours truly,
TealHill (talk) 17:50, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

@TealHill: It would be complicated.

As a Wikipedia contributor, I advocate to Consumer Reports that if the organization owns content of high interest which is not available online and which the organization has not used in decades then the organization should share it. From one perspective, it seems like doing this would be a way to make an impact without additional cost. Before I came to this organization I thought that this would be an easy argument to make. While I still think that someday it will be easier for Consumer Reports and other organizations to do this sort of thing, right now this is not possible for me to arrange, and the situation is more challenging than I previously imagined.

In some ways the publishing industry is baffling because it is a paper-based institution now in a digital world. In other ways, and in this case, I find Consumer Reports' position to be sensible because there are some really difficult questions which the organization would have to address before making content like this more available. The best response that I can think to give you at this time is that I really appreciate your show of interest, and that I also want to make this content available, and that I am exploring the issue to the extent that I am able to do so, but behind the scenes I have come to be aware of barriers which I recognize as legitimate problems to doing what you say. Consumer Reports will not make this content available online for the foreseeable future.

I really appreciate you speaking up and I will pass your request on to others in Consumer Reports to advance the conversation both for the sake of this and all other organizations facing the same issue. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:50, 10 May 2017 (UTC)