Is Eric Weinstein's copyright protection of Geometric Unity in the spirit of Science?

Question

In (Dr.) Eric Weinstein's Geometric Unity: Author’s Working Draft, v 1.0 he has a footnote on the first page:

The Author is not a physicist and is no longer an active academician, but is an Entertainer and host of The Portal podcast. This work of entertainment is a draft of work in progress which is the property of the author and thus may not be built upon, renamed, or profited from without express permission of the author. ©Eric R Weinstein, 2021, All Rights Reserved.

I am perturbed by the phrase "may not be built upon". Perhaps I do not understand what this phrasing means in context, however prima facie it strikes me as preferring control over the idea rather than its growth.

I do not have anything to add to Eric's ideas, but let's exemplify hypothetically. Let's say that I have found a choice of 'ship in a bottle operator' that accomplishes what Eric Weinstein had hoped for, but also resolves any potential issues with complexification. It seems that in Eric's view, even with citation to his work, I should not publish such a development of his ideas unless he has given it an explicit approval.

Does Eric's stance go against the scientific spirit of seeing farther on the shoulders of giants and academic freedom?

Answer 1

The author holds copyright and is, in essence, claiming "all rights reserved". But he can't claim more than what the copyright law protects.

You can't "own" ideas, but your expression of them can be protected by copyright. Patent law gives a limited (in time) exclusive right to exploit the idea, but not ownership of the idea itself.

Priority of discovery is a matter of etiquette, and should be acknowledged, but, again, doesn't imply ownership. Acknowledgement protects against claims of plagiarism.

Most likely here is that if you just avoid copyright infringement you can do what you like with extension. But cite the work, of course.

Note, however, that, for most purposes, copyright is a matter of civil law unless you try to mass produce someone else's copyrighted work. Being in the right doesn't necessarily mean you can't get sued. Some IP owners are relentless with lawsuits and can make claims beyond the law - a form of intimidation. It can be expensive to defend yourself against even an unjust lawsuit.

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For a more explicit answer, I find it hard to impute a motive to him. The language is a bit strong (stronger than usual), but it has no real world effect other than to reserve all rights. In fact, this is one case where keeping it private might have been a better option, whereas sharing it is more in the "spirit" of science.

Answer 2

It should be noted that all this notice does is to re-state the rights and restrictions that are already the default ones by law. In other words, it does not actually have any effect.

The rights and restrictions would be exactly the same if this notice was not present.

Also note that everything you write, for which you do not explicitly grant additional rights will have the same rights and restrictions. That is the reason why Stack Overflow, Inc. requires you to license all content you create on this site to them, for example.