Legal Commentary

?People Raised By Delaware?

By Orin Kerr

I recently learned that a book has been published about me. Ok, more like a book has a chapter on me. Ok, it?s not really a book, it?s probably more of a booklet. And the part about me is around one page. 

But you?d probably never know that if you saw the Amazon.com page for People Raised by Delaware: Cedella Booker, Orin Kerr, Tom Gallagher, William L. Nelson, George David Cummins, Robert B. Brandeberry, Chris Watson. Here?s the cover:

Now before you rush out and buy your copy ? only $14.14, and eligible for free shipping with Amazon Prime ? my understanding is that the ?book? is really just a collection of Wikipedia entries. Apparently there used to be a Wikipedia entry, ?People Raised By Delaware? , which had links to people raised in Delaware. The entry no longer exists because of the obvious error of using ?by? instead of ?in.? Anyway, the ?book? by that title is just a collection of the biographies that happened to be linked to that page when it still existed, all sold by a company ?Books LLC? that lists itself as the ?author.? (You can see a more current example with the current Wikipedia category ?People Raised as Children in the Children of God.? The book version by ?Books LLC? is available here.)

Some random guy on the Internet says this is legal because Wikipedia is published with a Creative Commons license that allows it. Normally I wouldn?t rely on some random guy on the Internet for a legal conclusion like that. But for this particular post, it?s actually kind of fitting, isn?t it?

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on October 20, 2010 (boomark / email).