[Air-l] copyright and ethics considerations

[Danyel Fisher]

> To throw in yet another wrench, do we need to worry about maintaining
anonymity
> when it is always entirely possible that the "John Smith" we are quoting
could be
> any one of a thousand John Smith's out in the cybergalaxy.

A strange question, coming from Christian Nelson.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=christian+nelson

Your smiling mug pops up as the first hit on this particular search. Perhaps
you (and Nancy Baym, and I, for that matter) are pareticularly priveleged.

But it seems to me to be fairly clear that for works which leave behind a
public archival text, and that are associateed with a real- or a
net-identity, we are ethically compelled not to quote them word for word
without proper citation and fair-use provision. Much as I wanted to show
this example with some of Nancy's own work, Google Groups doesn't (yet) go
back to the 1992 that her online work quotes[1], and I don't have a
convenient copy of her book.

This is different, I suppose, than interviews or discussions on private
online social spaces, which are--er, "more" anonymous.

[1] Say, in
http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol1/issue2/baym.html, which includes several
extensive, creative works quoted largely in their entirety.

> How can we breach someone's anonymity by simply
> citing their name when anyone can sign any name to an E-mail with complete
> impunity--i.e., when someone can deny they were a researcher's subject by
simply
> claiming that the researcher quoted an E-mail by someone who
illegitimately used
> the name in question?

Because we shouldn't put people into the position of needing to deny that it
was them that was quoted. ("Um, it came from my email, but really, that two
year discussion about the kinky sex with the researcher HAD to be an
intruder!"). This one seems fairly straightforward, to me: it is easy to
generate more identities, but fairly hard to steal others'.

Danyel
    who is glad he has a name that blends into the background
    and can't be found on google.