Attribution

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Copyright law

In copyright law, attribution is the requirement to acknowledge or credit the author of a work which is used or appears in another work. Attribution is required by most copyright and copyleft licenses, such as GNUFDL and CC-by.

Attribution is often considered the most basic of requirements made by a license, as it allows an author to accumulate a positive reputation that partially repays their work and prevents others from claiming fraudulently to have produced the work. It is also regarded a decent sign of respect to acknowledge the creator and thus give him/her credit for the work.

Typically, the only way a person may copy content without providing proper attribution is to ask for explicit permission. According to US law, attribution is not required for a work in the public domain, since the creator has given up ownership of the work. Most European copyright laws, however, advocate that the creator of a work should always be attributed, even after copyright has expired, as a sign of respect.

Wikipedia, Wikinfo and other Wikis

Material from Wikipedia, Wikinfo, Wikinews etc may be freely coppied. Attribution is, however, required.

Psychology

Attribution is also a psychological concept. When people watch the world, they do not see it as a completely random stream of happenings, but tend to attribute meanings to things. So, for example when you see someone fall over, you can attribute this to a stable trait ("clumsiness"), or to a feature of the situation ("banana peel on the floor"), or to random chance ("just one of those crazy flukes"). There are a number of theories about the orderly ways in which people make these attributions (see attribution theory), and there are a number of well documented quirks in the way people make them (see attributional bias, and fundamental attribution error). the process through which we seek to identify the causes of others' behaviour and so gain knowledge of their stable traits and dispositions.

Journalism

In the journalism field, "attribution" is the words used to describe the source of information.

  • In the sentence "The bill passed, according to Sen. Goldwater,"
    • the words "according to Sen. Goldwater," constitute "attribution" of the information.

Attribution also refers to proper names or other words used to identify the source of a quotation.

In the following quotation:

  • "Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together -- mass hysteria," Venkman said.
    • The words "Venkman said" are considered "attribution" of the quote.

Practices in journalistic attribution have evolved for a number of reasons. Some editors feel it is no longer necessary to follow every sentence with "so-and-so said," when it is obvious to the reader where the information originates, although others still conform to this rule. Traditional theories about objectivity in journalism prescribe that no piece of information should go unattributed, except in cases where the information is generally accepted as fact:

  • "The United States is a constitutitional democracy." -- is a generally accepted fact and stating such information would not require identification of the information's source.

However,

  • "Asphalt is the most commonly used material for road construction." -- would seem to be true, but without independent scientific analysis or acquiring such data from a source, is unproven. This piece of information would generally need attribution to a reliable source. In the case of such information coming from a less-reliable source, confirmation of the information from someone more reliable is prudent for a responsible journalist.

As journalism practices develop, more and more information is used without attribution to a specific source. Consider the following passage from the July 25, 2006 edition of Raleigh, North Carolina's News & Observer, by staff writer Sue Stock:

  • Stan Crocker's art gallery on Morgan Street may never have the prestige or drawing power of a big national retailer like Gap or Banana Republic.
  • But it's much more likely that smaller retailers such as Crocker will save downtown Raleigh.
  • Don't expect a Gap or a Macy's to swoop in and single-handedly rejuvenate Fayetteville Street, which opens to vehicle traffic Saturday after years as a pedestrian mall.
  • Downtown revitalization just doesn't happen like that.
  • In fact, the president of the Downtown Raleigh Alliance isn't targeting national retailers at all.
  • "Downtowns have a real challenge with the surrounding shopping centers," said Nancy Hormann. "No one is really going to drive past their local mall to come downtown and shop in the same store they could shop in at their local mall."

In this passage, the sentence "Downtown revitalization just doesn't happen like that" is used without attribution. Without discussing this passage with its author, a reader might assume the writer had other information. A reader might also assume that after getting information from reliable sources, the writer felt confident enough in the statement to regard it as fact. Some editors might argue this piece could be improved by immediately adding specific examples of downtown revitalization projects that failed or succeeded.

If a reader continues to read Stock's piece, it becomes apparent that she had other information from presumably reliable sources:

  • But of course, you should never say never.
  • It's not unheard of for major retail chains from the Gap to Home Depot to open inner-city locations. But most are just experimenting with the idea, and many need to see an established downtown business district before they'll commit.
  • "[National retailers] are not the pioneers," said Doyle Hyett of HyettPalma, a Virginia firm specializing in the redevelopment of downtowns. "They want it to be solid and clean and safe. It's rare to find chain stores, even after you've had the effort going for a while." Even when they do come, "they'll pay high dollar, but they want the best space on the best corner with the high traffic counts," Hyett said.

Stock seems to offer analysis of interviews with Hyett and others to justify her unattributed statements, such as "It's not unheard of for major retail chains from the Gap to Home Depot to open inner-city locations." Despite referring three times to San Francisco, Cal.-based Gap Inc. in her work, Stock does not offer a specific example of a Gap in a downtown location. A reader might assume Stock researched downtown Gap locations and their role in downtown revitalization to use it in the piece. Whatever the case, using the clothing retailer's name without citing a specific example is a form of unattributed information in modern journalism.

See also


References

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