copyright intellectual-property fair-use
What exactly would count as copyright infringement in a replication paper?
<p><strong>Cross posted from academia.SE</strong> <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/94667/what-exactly-would-count-as-copyright-infringement-in-a-replication-paper">link</a>  </p>

<p>I have been following the review process of a <a href="https://rescience.github.io/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">replication journal</a> </p>

<p>In particular, it has an open review which can be seen. </p>

<p>On a particular submission they are having a debate about <a href="https://github.com/ReScience/ReScience-submission/pull/33#issuecomment-322991110" rel="nofollow noreferrer">whether copying equations and their explanation in a paper counts as copyright infringement</a>.</p>

<p>I would like to ask this question here, since the answer seems non-obvious. </p>

<p>Equations, by themselves, since they are ideas, should be free from copyright infringement. But to have equations, explanations, replica of figures, and discussion, would basically be a copy of the paper, and I imagine that would be copyright infringement. Where exactly can a line be drawn?</p>

<p>Note: There are questions on stack exchange which ask similar questions, but often in context of building up on previous research. Since the point of such a journal is just to replicate, it would seems that the aim is to build a freely available copy of the existing (perhaps paywalled, copyrighted) material, that can be freely accessed, and this is different intent than regular articles.</p>

<p>Also, answers regarding plagiarism aren't much help in this case as the point is to do "explicit plagiarism" with proper attribution.</p>

<p>Copyright protection exists for the (typeset) image of an equation, so you have to recreate the equation (the final output could be indistinguishable from the original when the object is created automatically by a program and you happen to use the same program). Figures may enjoy a more protection, since they involve both the facts reported and the means of expression (rows and columns, order, subgroup, labels). Explanations and discussion (I don't know what distinction you're getting at there) are text from the original article,and those are indeed protected by copyright, which is moderated by the "fair use" exception. There are various claims out there about how much you can quote with the confines of fair use, but nobody really know in the academic context (as far as I know, there is no case law in the US that tests how much quoting you can do in an academic journal). The basic rule of thumb is to quote only when the literal words are required, and otherwise re-express the idea.</p>
