Expelled Plagiarizing Harvard?

Um, having watched the new video on the site, they either ARE using the Harvard animation OR they have created an exact replica. When I saw it, it was immediately recognizable as the Harvard animation.

A university coercing people with legal muscle from seeing the true of interworkings of a cell?

Then they’ve already lost.

I seem to recall that P-Zed noticed a similarity to the Harvard XVIVO animation in a post of his a month or two ago. In that post, he thought it WAS the XVIVO animation, but in another post, backed off those allegations and said the animation was similar but it wasn’t the Harvard animation. I just cannot recall where I saw his comments. Does anyone else recall this???

I’m sure it is basically reversed engineered animation. I believe Miller has admitted as much. If they didn’t examine the copyright angle — then they will have to die by the rules of the game. Which would be disappointing.

I think the point is that the truth seems to be a problem for Harvard — that is, the truth in the hands of the wrong people.

The game is over — the paradigm has shifted, we are just seeing a period of readjustment.

“I just cannot recall where I saw his comments. Does anyone else recall this???”

Umm, perhaps on his blog where he posts all of his stuff?

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyn....._expel.php

His original claim was that they actually USED the Harvard animation. Then after comparing them side-by-side, he decided that it wasn’t actually the same video, it was just a shameless rip-off (which can be determined by the fact that they made the same mistakes as in the original Harvard video, chose to show AND HIDE the same structures and processes, and even used the same basic “camera” angles.)

With tickets already available online can the film actually be prevented from being released? Is it physically possible at this point to remove the clips? I hope there is some good news on this soon as it threatens to really ruin my day.

They’ve got to come up with something to drag the Expelled producers to court over…might as well be the cell animation. They’ve tried a few other angles already…none have panned out for them.

But, come on people, a cell’s a cell…I mean if you’re making a computer generated animation, I’d assume that you’re going to see some similarities between them.

It wouldn’t matter if the animations were significantly different…if they were dragged to court, they’d most assuredly come up against some blazingly liberal judge just waiting to be showered with accolades from the “scientific community” and looking to dethrone JJ from his current reign as Mr. Intellectual (or rather Mr. Plagiarism himself).

Never ever a dull moment folks..

I wouldn’t worry too much, having a university cull scientific research from the public — because “they might get the wrong idea.” Is absolutely priceless.

The little people just can’t handle the Mass in english, or the sacred texts in the vernacular. You couldn’t purchase that kind of malignant hypocrisy for all the tea in China.

“I think the point is that the truth seems to be a problem for Harvard — that is, the truth in the hands of the wrong people.”

No kidding…that animation is all over the internet and on youtube of all places. Harvard didn’t seem the least bit concerned until an ID proponent showed it.

Truth is, that when people really contemplate the inner life of a cell, you cannot miss the design….*that’s what worries them*.

wnelson:
XVIVO’s animation is freely available on their web site (http://www.xvivo.net/press/harvard_university.htm) and on youtube. It’s hard therefore to argue that they are doing this to prevent people from seeing it (especially since Expelled producers want to charge for their version). I guess they do want to be in control of how it’s used, especially in for profit activities.

Also, XVIVO is a private company (see http://www.xvivo.net/) and not part of Harvard. It apparently took them, in collaboration with a team of Harvard scientists, more than a year to generate the animation, so it’s understandable that they are proprietary about it.

Just suppose, hypothetically, that they did copy the XVIVO product extensively. Irrespective of all the other issues, would that be morally wrong?

“Irrespective of all the other issues, would that be morally wrong?”

For-profit plagiarism?

Umm, I’m going to go out on a limb and say ‘yes’.

Andrea: I’m sure XVIVO knows which side their bread is buttered on. There’s no sense in being naive.

And no, I don’t have a problem with them shutting the film down. If Promise didn’t play by the rules, then that’s that.

Maybe the ID movement needs to walk away, start the long process of getting funding, endowments, etc., and do their own thing. Let the old institutions rot.

Here’s what I don’t get. There seems to be some disagreement, as expressed by Gods iPod, as to whether or not the Expelled clip is really identical to the “Inner Life of the Cell” video. Why should there be?

I’d love it if someone could post a link to the Inner Life video (I know it was removed from YouTube, but maybe it’s somewhere else?) because I’d like to see it again and compare the two.

Judging from the Expelled clip in the earlier thread, I noticed immediately that certain aspects of the segmented were reminiscent of the “Inner Life” video, but that clearly this was a different video.

Even the details and proportions of that ‘walking’ gizmo struck me as slightly different. Unless there’s been a new version of the “Inner Life” video released, I cannot see that one was copied from another in a way that would violate a copyright.

Gods iPod seems to have an entirely different take, however, so I’d like to see which “Inner Life” video he/she saw.

I see that Andrea posted a link to the video. Thank you!

How typical.

I wonder, could XVIVO be held accountable for the same thing? Random mutation and natural selection just might slap a lawsuit on them.

Jonathan Wells:
“Any similarities between the Expelled animation and the Harvard one are due to the fact that both animations depict many of the same processes.”

But to the warped darwinian mind, you see, anything that is similar to something else HAD TO HAVE COME FROM a common progenitor.

The proof is in the homologies and that’s all the counts.

http://www.xvivo.net/press/harvard_university.htm

JPCollado:
I think the irony is that the XVIVO authors claim that the very close similarities between the two animations are due to design, while ID supporters argue that they are the product of sheer chance. (To complicate matters a bit, in this case we would even know who the designer is, and how and why he/she acted, but the principle still applies.)

Thinking of it, perhaps Dr. Dembski may want to apply his Explanatory Filter to the case, so that we can compare the results to whatever the evidence presented at trial will demonstrate. That would be a first!

Harvard probably doesn’t mind if others use their product for free. This is common in open source/freeware software. As long as you don’t use their product for commercial purposes, the author doesn’t care. However, once you tread into the commercial world, you better cough up the dough.

Okay, I just watched all three clips… the two from Expelled and the (abbreviated) “Inner Life” video.

My recollection was correct. (no gloating, though!) This is quite obviously NOT the XVIVO video. Similar? Yes. Does it show some of the same processes? Without question. But it is a new animation. If they are able to shut the movie down because of THIS, then the problems here in the U.S.A. are much worse even than I thought.

This is a naked attempt at exactly what the movie is about. Suppressing the teaching, even in the free marketplace, of a particular idea.

For those of you reading this thread who are sympathetic to the threatened legal action, you ought to be ashamed. You are fascists, plain and simple. You want to SHUT UP an idea that (switch on sarcastic, nasally tone here) you just don’t personally take a liking to. What arrogance. Incredible.

The BIG version:

http://aimediaserver4.com/stud.....arvard.swf

I object to being called a fascist just because I believe in protecting people’s copyright protections.

The fact that it is a new animation is not the issue - no one is claiming that Expelled actually uses the XVIVO animation. The issue is whether, and to what extent, the presentation in Expelled was copied from the XVIVO product.

This is not about suppressing ideas. Of course the Expelled folks are free to talk about the cell all they want. They are also free to learn about the cell from any source they want.

What they are not free to do is to just make a copy of XVIVO’s work on the subject and put it in their for-profit movie.

These should be fairly clear distinctions.

“For those of you reading this thread who are sympathetic to the threatened legal action, you ought to be ashamed.”

Is there any reason NOT to expect XVIVO to react when they spend over a year and tons of money producing a video, and then someone–with whom they are at philosophical odds no less–takes their hard work, makes a blatant-but-mediocre copy, and passes it off as their own *for profit*?

I just watched both “walking” sequences, and you’ll notice that in the XVIVO video the scene begins with a close-up of the walker then pans from left to right. IN the Expelled version, the scene pans in from the opposite side (from right to left), so the scene sequence isn’t even the same. I don’t think they have a case, as it was obviously not copied. Similar yes, but similarity without copying isn’t protected, as far as I know.

It would be like a musician saying “My song is G-C-D and his is D-C-G; plus they were both played on acoustic guitar at the same tempo.” No. As long as the work in question wasn’t “sampled” meaning copied mechanically (it was an original creation) and there are differences between the two, you cannot claim copyright infringement.

I’m not a lawyer, so I’d like to hear from someone who knows the law better. But dealing with record companies on sample clearance, I can tell you that a “cover version” is not treated the same as a “sample” in music law. I’d guess tha same applies to other forms of media.

I have worked as both a teacher and curriculum director in a public high school, and I have worked on both specific plagiarism issues and more general plagiarism policies.

One common problem that we have is that some kid copies some material, a paragraph to a whole article, from a website (Wikipedia is popular), and then goes through and changes some words, possibly omitting some stuff, maybe moving a sentence or two around, and then hands it in as his own work without any citation.

That is plagiarism. That is cheating. It is copying (not verbatim, but substantially in both specific content and in general structure), and we flunk them for it.

Should we not? Should this be acceptable?

BarryA?

Jack Krebs wrote:

“I object to being called a fascist just because I believe in protecting people’s copyright protections.”

That’s nice, but no one’s calling you a fascist because you believe in protecting copyrights.

But if you want to contrive a copyright infringement where none exists for the sake of suppressing an idea that you don’t personally like, then you are a fascist.

The only way that XVIVO can claim that this is really a copy of their video is if they also claim that their animation is not true-to-life. As has been pointed out here in an earlier comment, if both videos represent something that is accurate and true-to-life, then inevitably they will have many things in common.

A reasonable person with no axe to grind would recognize this plain fact and wouldn’t consider legal action against someone else who also wanted to depict these biological processes and ended up depicting some of the same things and in a similar fashion. In fact, they would expect that to happen if indeed they were confident that their video was true-to-life.

But all that goes out the window when folks wish to suppress Intelligent Design and, at the same time, protect their own precious reputations.

It makes me sick.

So Trout, is there any level of similarity between the XVIVO product and what eventually shows up in Expelled that would lead you to say that Expelled had copied, and that they were wrong to have done so? Is there any line here that could be crossed, in your opinion?

Creep into thy narrow bed,
Creep, and let no more be said!
Vain thy onset! all stands fast.
Thou thyself must break at last.

 Let the long contention cease!
Geese are swans, and swans are geese.
Let them have it how they will!
Thou art tired; best be still.

 They out-talk’d thee, hiss’d thee, tore thee?
Better men fared thus before thee;
Fired their ringing shot and pass’d,
Hotly charged—and sank at last.

Charge once more, then, and be dumb!
Let the victors, when they come,
When the forts of folly fall,
Find thy body by the wall!

Relax, guys — they’re only stopping a movie. You can’t stop the signal.

Jack Krebs wrote:

“One common problem that we have is that some kid copies some material, a paragraph to a whole article, from a website (Wikipedia is popular), and then goes through and changes some words, possibly omitting some stuff, maybe moving a sentence or two around, and then hands it in as his own work without any citation.”

Apples and oranges.

For this to be comparable, the producers of the Expelled clip would have to have access to the animation files themselves, in whatever software was used to create them, where they could then go in and edit them, using the same models, etc. but changing vantage points, colors, etc. But it’s clear that, using the “imperial walker” as an example, that the same models aren’t even used. This is a new animation through and through.

I wouldn’t have any problem with the assertion that the “Inner Life” video provided a measure of ‘inspiration’… meaning that the Expelled producers wanted to show similar things in a similar way for a similar effect. But that’s not plagiarism.

Folks, the extent of apparent similarity of the videos is just a minor part of the story here, little more than a hint (and of course if you are trying to avoid a copyright infringement suit, you are not going to make an exact copy).

The work that went behind each of these animations in terms of analysis of the published scientific data, selection between alternative models, three-dimensional modeling of individual proteins, complexes and organelles, kinetic representation of processes, all the way to the methods for computer-generated rendering, can be easily examined by experts to establish if primary and independent sources were used to generate the Expelled version. That is the intellectual property XVIVO wants to protect, not just the pretty pictures (which are, by the way, not what the inside of a cells actually would look like if we could directly peer into it in real time, as any biologist knows, so they are not “true-to-life” but an artificial and selective representation of reality).

There really isn’t much leeway there: it took XVIVO a large effort to make their movie, and a similar amount of effort would be expected from anyone trying to produce similar results independently. Anything else is copying.

Patrick,

1. I don’t claim to know if Expelled copied - evidence that there might have been a common source of ideas that both Expelled and XVIVO drew on is pertinent, as might be other kinds of evidence.

2. These are NOT like a AR-15 firing. No one has pictures of the cellular processes shown - deciding how to depict those process in animated form has taken considerable creative work. It’s not like two people painting the same tree.

3. But I’m glad to see that you would find some level of copying unacceptable.

Jack Krebs wrote:

“…is there any level of similarity between the XVIVO product and what eventually shows up in Expelled that would lead you to say that Expelled had copied, and that they were wrong to have done so?”

No. There ARE similarities, of course, but none that would lead me to believe that actual plagiarism took place. Patrick expressed my thoughts very well when he said you can’t just copy/paste these things from a video. I do some 3D modeling and, well, that’s just not how it works.

Again, as Patrick pointed out, there are bound to be similarities if they both are modeling the same subjects.

These people are just trying to shut the movie down because they don’t like its message and they’re embarrassed that they’ve been caught. Simple as that.

This legal threat stunt reeks of National Center for “Science” Education (NCSE) invovlement.

Consider, for example, that a laser printer quality PDF version of the letter was available at the NCSE website mere hours after news broke.

I expect ERV to be hired by Eugenie soon.

The Harvard video in question oozes with “intelligent design” and I suspect the NCSE threatened to Sternberg the scientists involved if they did not play ball. And former NCSE minister of propaganda Wesley Elsberry seemed to be in the know early.

Please see: Legal threats and copyright shakedowns

ERV knew that this was going to break at 12:54 p.m. PT-mafia time, according to comment-150049 for the entry “truth-tickets” at the PT-mafia lair.

Jack Kerbs — That is plagiarism. That is cheating. It is copying (not verbatim, but substantially in both specific content and in general structure), and we flunk them for it. Should we not? Should this be acceptable?

It really depends on the point of the exercise, doesn’t it?

If you are trying to determine whether a student has learned a lesson and by his widespread use of copying he indicates that he has not, it is quite appropriate to mark him down.

And of course, if someone claims someone else’s research as his own for his own personal benefit that is also grounds for sanction.

OTOH, if the goal is to disseminate accurate information for the understanding of all, and if it is obvious that the intent is not to claim someone else’s work as one ’s own (the definition of plagiarism) which appears to be the case in Expelled, then you are complaining about the wrong thing.

Now, there may very well be a copyright issue involved, but even there one ought to avoid getting on one’s high horse about it.

Even if a copyright violation is found, it is almost certain a result of ignorance rather than an intent to deceive.

And what if it is ruled there is no copyright violation? Do you say you are sorry?

Another thing — I suspect that the people upset about this alleged irregularity are just fine with the inherent deceptions in the films of Michael Moore and Al Gore.

What’s worse splicing parts of disparate speeches together to make a living breathing (at the time) person look like he was saying something else to open him to public scorn, or basing an animation on a widely seen free video to reveal a truth to the general public?

Re: Andrea(35)

Correct me if I am wrong, the intellectual property you are referring to are scientific papers in academic journals. These journals are usually available for a fee, and are also made available in University libraries for free. Once published, they are on the open market (i.e. can be references in other papers, used for grounds for future research by another institution, etc.)

A possible explanation could be the producers of Expelled got a hold of these papers by either paying for them or have collected them through academic studies and forwarded them to their animation team to create the video. This sounds perfectly legal to me.

I have a collection of engineering journal articles that I use to do my job. No one has sued me for this. I can’t think of one case in the engineering profession where this happened.

If I can get paid to look up journal articles to use in my design for a client who then uses my design for profit, then using a journal article to create an animation to be used for profit is OK too.

XVIVO uses LightWave, a commericial product anyone can buy and use. And one might expect that this package would produce similar looking models….but…and I have posted this in another thread. The producers would have to show in court all the intermediate modeling and animations steps leading up to the final clip, because it is possible to use a video editing application and simply “doctor” the original a bit, change some colors, etc., which in my opinion, would be a copyright violation.

Guys!

If Promise co-opted Harvard’s research, then it’s a done deal — I’m sure if XVIVO wants more work from Harvard they’ll do what they’re told — or maybe just score some points. If it was about the money, they’d be asking. But they’re not. Neither the researchers nor animators want this in an audience-friendly format.

Regardless, take the hit, rub some dirt on it, and get back in the game! By the time the next movie comes out, the complexities of what we know about the cell will likely have increased by an order of magnitude.

Meanwhile Harvard will get a black mark for suppression — and the public’s understanding will react to that suppression — if only viscerally.

They can’t win.

A possible explanation could be the producers of Expelled got a hold of these papers by either paying for them or have collected them through academic studies and forwarded them to their animation team to create the video. This sounds perfectly legal to me.

Of course, if the Expelled people did and can document all the footwork from the evidence in the primary literature to the generation of the final product, then they are in the clear. As I said, it should be pretty straightforward: if the case goes to court, there should be piles and piles of notes, papers, files of intermediate production stages that will be subpoenaed, the computer animator(s) and cell biologist(s) Expelled employed will testify, etc.

Neither the researchers nor animators want this in an audience-friendly format.
Friendlier than freely available for anyone, you mean?

Andrea:

No — “friendly” as in friendly to the idea that we have souls.

Dembski already has this pulled on him.

Jack *is* a fascist…

*snicker*

[Don't ban me, Dave. I couldn't resist.]

Way to take the high road, ftk.

You’ll probably say “just joking,” but if I cared at all I’d expect an apology.

So my question is, will the producers of “Expelled” cower to this silly threat, or will they thumb their noses and let the movie show? And when will we know that?

Naturally, these are rhetorical questions only… I don’t expect that anyone here could answer authoritatively.

The XVIVO amination is a stylised representation of the molecular processes. A diagram. Tracing over a diagram and using different colours does not make it an original work.

As has been mentioned, the animation is on the Internet and can be viewed - it is not being suppressed. That does not make it public domain and permit its use in a for profit movie.

How similar is it?

O’Leary wrote (in #48):

“Intellectual property law only protects the intellectual property created.”

So, if somebody published a book entitled The Spritual Nervous System, and you discovered upon reading it that it had the same chapter titles, the same sequence of ideas, and the same text, but with every third word changed, you wouldn’t consider this to be theft of your intellectual property?

So my question is, will the producers of “Expelled” cower to this silly threat, or will they thumb their noses and let the movie show? And when will we know that?

I think they’ll show it anyway. I doubt XVIVO could win substantial damages for Premise independently making a (strikingly) similar video. It is like when Mad TV does spoof music videos; they slightly alter the melody and change enough things to legally protect themselves. I’d think it is the same here.

Ms. O’Leary:
I am quite sure that if someone copied a book of yours, changing a few words and correcting a few adverbs, printed it in a different font, and claimed that whatever original idea you may have had was now in the public domain, you would argue differently.

As for the Wright Brothers, they did in fact apply for a patent on their work (not on the idea of a flying machine, which of course had been around for centuries, but on the details of how to make one actually fly in a controlled fashion, IIRC), and won some patent infringement cases based on it.

After reading Andrea’s comment (#19), has anyone else considered the possibilty that Expelled could use this for a publicity stunt?
i.e.
“Go ahead and sue! You’ll just be making our point for us that you’ll do anything to squelch ideas you don’t support. And we ‘prove’ that ‘our’ video was ‘designed’ by us.”

(Or something like that.)

Now I fully support copyright laws, and in fact, I would expect Expelled to pay any damages that could be proven. But, hey, that might be worth the price?

@Allen in 51:

The videos are not the same. I mentioned earlier, the shots are different (from different angles), the panning is different, etc, which shows that the video was created independently. In your example, two thirds of the text would be the same and would be an identical copy. That is the difference: there is nothing in the Premise video that is an actual copy.

Andrea @54:

See my comment 56.

I haven’t seen the videos in question yet (downloading now, I’m on dial-up).

However I gather it’s fairly evident that the XVIVO video was used as reference for the Expelled video.

It’s not that difficult to model from reference: Sharpie Model. I’m not sure it can be considered unethical. While the XVIVO video is certainly a creation of the developer, the subject matter is an artistic impression of a biological process.

I’ve seen many images representative of atoms and molecules, DNA, etc., and they all are somewhat similar. I don’t think that plagiarism has occurred in those cases, nor copyright infringement. Who owns the notion of multicolored spheres connected with cylinders in a double helix shape, slowly rotating and/or panning?

Additionally, no original ideas were duplicated, nor any of the original work used. (If you compared the sundry pre-rendered animation and model files, I’m positive you wouldn’t find much similarity in model topology nor animation timings, number and position of key frames, etc.) This seems apparent from the start.

The above is my impression of a Sharpie. I don’t own the idea of the Sharpie, but I “own” those pixels. Nothing prevents someone from producing a rendering of a Sharpe with similar placement and camera perspective, depth-of-field and lighting. I might not like it if they do, but there’s nothing illegal or unethical about it, AFAICT. However I would only have cause for offense if someone used that very image without my permission.

If it were, however, a model of a subject of my creation, to which I owned patents or copyrights, that would be another story.

I’ll reserve my own judgment until I’ve seen the videos in question, but would be interested in knowing if there’s anything “owned” by XVIVO except for the video and its constituent files. What intellectual property is really in question that’s within the content of the XVIVO video?

According to the letter on the ERV sight XVIVO is claimin that Expelled somehow stole the image through a computer generated means. In other words they didn’t render and animate it themselves. If that is true they shouldn’t use the footage. If the gripe is just that there are similarities, and Expelled does in fact have models, they should change up some of the scenes so that it is not “substantially similar.”

What they don’t have to change is the basic things they are depicting because that is scientific knowledge in the public domain. You can’t copyright facts.

BTW, I am a lawyer who does a fair amount of work in intellectual property, although copyright is really not my thing.

Is the expelled animation still up anywhere? From reading the PZ Myers article and looking at the screenshots, it doesn’t look like XVIVO has a case in my professional opinion. PZ Myer’s claim of shared mistakes also looks very thin since the so-called “mistake” is really one of Myer’s bias. Myers felt that the interactions were depicted to fluidly in the XVIVO animation and should have appeared more stochastic and jerky.

Maybe there is more to it than what I am able to gleen at this point but I don’t have much to go off.

Jehu wrote:

“According to the letter on the ERV sight XVIVO is claimin that Expelled somehow stole the image through a computer generated means.”

Indeed that is the claim. But it appears to me that this would be quite impossible.

Reading the various posts from those who appear to be defending the legal action, two things are apparent: They seem to ignorant of how such things could or could not be copied from a practical, technological viewpoint, and they seem to be Hell-bent to shut the movie down.

They appear to be predisposed to play fast and loose with the word “copy” and to make ill-conceived comparisons which do not correspond with the reality of this situation.

It’s all very unfortunate.

This is an intriguing challenge. If Expelled goes forward, XVIVO will have two options — to press their case, which likely means very expensive and public court proceedings, or to decide that just because they barked, they don’t have to bite.

If they press their case, the Expelled attourneys would probably challenge XVIVO on the accuracy of their depiction. To the extent that their depiction is accurate, it becomes like two people photographing the same landmark, say niagra falls. If their depiction is accurate, the only copying that happened is XVIVO’s copying of nature. The only way that XVIVO could claim copyright infringement is for them to acknowledge that their movie does not accurately represent the original. The latter argument would potentially damage the credibility of their original movie. A catch 22.

However, there is another well recognized method of proving copyright infringement. I remember a famous case years ago between IBM and Phoenix. IBM was vigorously defending the copyright of the bios of the original PC. Phoenix got a programmer who certainly had not seen the original source code. They gave the programmer the “specs”, and sequestered him. In this way they were able to prove that he had not copied IBM’s code. In the same way, if XVIVO could demonstrate that the artists who produced the Expelled footage had first seen their footage, they would have a strong case. If Expelled could demonstrate that the artists had not seen XVIVO’s footage, but gleaned their rendering from the source scientific research, XVIVO would be out of luck.

Expelled my also have a case if XVIVO could reasonably have known of the infringing content significantly before sending the demand letter. It would seem near impossible for Expelled to remove the footage at this late date. Theaters are booked, film has probably already been produced — maybe even mailed. I don’t know if there would even be time to replace the footage with a blank screen or nasty notice.

As far as the Write Brothers and patents go — patents are a fundimentally different cup of tea than copyright. A patent is on a method. No proof that the infringer knew of the patent is required. If the infringer uses the same method as a patent, even if he adds steps, he is infringing.

Dr. WMaD,

If you’re right, then a brilliant play on their part.

One thing is clear: whether or not the animation in the movie meets the criteria of “plagiarism,” I’m sure the producers considered this issue before making the film public. Although XVIVO’s suit couldn’t have been predicted with certainty, the producers certainly must have considered the possibility.

What a delicious irony the suit creates! If we simply “let the facts speak for themselves,” they seem to support a design inference, and are seamlessly incorporated into an ID-friendly film. The animation makes the point–in spades–that ID isn’t based on a “gaps” footing, but considers the evidence.

I’m inclined to agree with Graceout that any damages or settlement costs Premise ends up paying to XVIVO are likely to be offset by the publicity the suit creates. I only hope the NYT picks it up! (Graceout, I hope U don’t sue me for building a little on your idea! )

Before you think the producers of EXPELLED are idiots, you might think that they are chess players who have seen several moves ahead.

Awesome!! That is really clever on their part to contrive the video so that they will get sued by Big Science. They have entrapped Harvard in a web of their own creation!

Gentlemen, how do you get a new thread started on this site. I found the following article on livescience: “Shock: First Animal on Earth Was Surprisingly Complex”
http://www.livescience.com/ani.....nimal.html

This needs a dialog!

The only way that XVIVO could claim copyright infringement is for them to acknowledge that their movie does not accurately represent the original. The latter argument would potentially damage the credibility of their original movie. A catch 22.

Got them in a vise!

Davescot:
XVIVO has no standing.

Peter Irons must not be much of a legal scholar as easily as you outflanked him.

For instance, have you ever thought who stood to gain the most from the Machine Video featured at UD a week ago? . . .

Sure. Richard Dawkins. Before 90 percent of the country thought of him as the Family Feud guy with rest thinking he was an obnoxious English guy from Oxford.

Now, everyone knows him as Dawk the Dick.

Oops! This thread is moving so quickly that I didn’t see Dr. Dembski’s post before mine went up. Sorry! (So sue me… )

Like I said…

This is also creating awareness for the original video.

Very clever.

DaveScot wrote:

“Anyone else find it amusing that the second paragraph which was meant to start out with a lawyerly…”

Yes, I spotted that right away and posted my own snide comment in the earlier thread. Such an error really made me question whether this whole thing wasn’t just a prank. Like one of those e-mails you get from Nigeria.

Too funny.

Although I must admit it’s no more embarrassing than the fact that in one of those clips posted on the other thread, Dr. Dembski’s name is spelled wrong.

I sure hope they fixed that in the final edit. If I see that error when I go to the theater in a couple of weeks, well, that’s just embarrassing.

The end of the one I just watched says “©2007 Rober Lue and Alain Viel, Harvard University”

Just for the sake of completeness we need to know XVIVO has indeed filed the letter the NCSE is publishing as “in the name” of XVIVO and Peter Irons.

Given the spelling error Troutmac found it is possible the NCSE was had. Given Josh Rosenau works there, that wouldn’t surprise me.

But it would be good to check.

Given Harvard owns the copyright and not XVIVO, this is possibly a hoax to make the NCSE look like idiots.

I’m not asserting that the NCSE are idiots, however. Someone once confided to me they thought Eugenie Scott was as smart as Satan, if so, then the letter could be legit, but I’m not so sure.

Not a comparable situation, Dave; off topic; and I’ve never said I was offended about anything (except ftk calling me a fascist.)

I never even said that I think they did copy. I don’t think any of us know enough, based on the short clips in question, to know.

Were you this offended when Judge Jones was caught plagiarizing some 90% of his science “opinion” straight from an ACLU brief?

Well, if this goes to court, maybe this time we’ll get a solidly conservative judge appointed by President Bush, rather than some ACLU loving liberal.

It’ll be interesting to see if this does get to court. No doubt the NCSE’s tatic is to naively hope that there is no background research supporting the science depicted in the video that can be used in court to defeat the idea that it’s simple a shot for shot reworking of the original, errors and all. Has anybody done or seen anywhere a shot for shot or split screen comparison?

To clarify my last comment, when I spoke of errors I’m not aware that any significant error has been “copied” but simply that when depicting such processes there will be a large amount of artistic licence when deciding what to show and how to show it. It’s like that scene in “working girl” where how the idea is thought up is just as important as what it is, if you can’t say what inspired you to do it that way….

Well, that’s how it happened in the movie. Maybe they hired it out at the NCSE video night?

Mr scorova

Given the spelling error Troutmac found it is possible the NCSE was had.

TroutMac also found a spelling error in a expelled clip, Dr Dempski. Who’s been had now?

Peter Irons is not an intellectual property attorney. I have previously described Peter Irons on this blog as a militant atheist who doesn’t have a high school level understanding of biology. Peter Irons responded by sending an email to O’Leary accusing me of anti-semitism and asking that my post be removed. The whole exchange was then posted at Pharyngula. So basically I take it that Peter Irons’ modus oprendi is that whenever he has no good argument he makes some unrelated accusation to distract from the real issue. Anti-Semite! Copyright Infringer! The real issue is the complexity of life at the molecular level, the Peter Irons’ red herring is copyright infringement.

“The fact that it is a new animation is not the issue - no one is claiming that Expelled actually uses the XVIVO animation. The issue is whether, and to what extent, the presentation in Expelled was copied from the XVIVO product.”

Actually Copyright law is only going to cover the original production. If someone went and reproduced it themselves then Copyright Law isn’t going to apply. It isn’t a copy.

Unless there is a patent on the process used to create the film, I suspect it will get nowhere.

It isn’t like the Expelled producers are passing off the animation as if it was the XVIVO animation.

This is little more than a legal attempt to censor an idea some people don’t like.

I can just see all the game companies suing each other because they modeled a bridge, a building and deers “just like the other guys did”. There’s no intellectual property available in a 3-D depiction of a real-world object unless it’s a direct copy.

If I see a great picture of the empire state building, and then find a location to mimick the shot, is my photo plagiarism?

Please. They have no case, and no matter what happens, it’s positive publicity for the movie. Can you imagine? “The Truth They Tried To Keep You From Seeing”.

These guys are sinking their own boat faster than we can put holes in it.

I wrote before that I thought this was an example of people with marketing degrees baiting people with science degrees into making big PR blunders.

Is it a unpardonable sin to play tricks on the less intelligent and then laugh at them? I sure hope not!

#63 W. Dembski: “Before you think the producers of EXPELLED are idiots, you might think that they are chess players who have seen several moves ahead.”

Good point Bill. But let us look at this thread. What should we think of people such as andrea and jack krebs, who immediately come here to blame some (hypotetical) copyright crimes?
Gentlemen, this seems just an escalation in the subjects to be expelled …

I think most people here are in agreement that they simply did not watch the Harvard video and then copy it wholesale without any understanding of the science and bio-physics involved in what they were depicting.

I wonder if this latest development will get picked up by Fox news etc any time soon?

Jason

Actually Copyright law is only going to cover the original production. If someone went and reproduced it themselves then Copyright Law isn’t going to apply. It isn’t a copy

I believe reproductions of the effiel tower at night are copyright. Sure, you can take a picture from the street but if you want to publish it in a magazine you owe them $$$!

William:

I can just see all the game companies suing each other because they modeled a bridge, a building and deers “just like the other guys did”. There’s no intellectual property available in a 3-D depiction of a real-world object unless it’s a direct copy.

I belive the issue is more subtle here. It’s more like if you asked people to draw a picture of an atom. People with a lay eductation draw a dot and a circle round it with a dot on it. An atom. As more is learnt, the picture becomes more complex. So the question is not why did they depict that “bridge” in that particlar way when there were innumarable other ways to depict it and still represent the process (just as there are many different bridges that all look different but still are bridges, many ways to depict an atom). It’s an interesting question to be sure.