You can introduce yourself in the comments to "Welcome to LessWrong".

I'm not sure your mathematics example is accurately characterized, though - I would have guessed that the question arose from some historic tree-falling-in-a-forest discussion.

It looks correct to me, but I'm not an experienced judge of such things.

You're right - most of them are, so far as I can tell, in the generalizing-incorrectly category. I'll make an edit.

Aside: Welcome to LessWrong! Feel free to introduce yourself. (I see you are already reading through a lot of the backlog - hope you're having fun!)

Regarding your point, I think it is important to figure out why they are proposing an incoherent concept - while it is sometimes because they are trolls or postmodernists (but I repeat myself edit: not really - the motives are different), it is more often because they are generalizing incorrectly from their mental experience.

Now that is very interesting - I had heard of such cases, but I wasn't thinking of them when I spoke. They derive from the very common (legally incorrect) idea that derivative works are always illegal, of course.

Unfortunately, it isn't really a defense for me - I felt, as I spoke, that I was engaged in false rhetoric, because I didn't believe what I was saying.

I would post a link on the latest Open Thread - I don't believe an explicit protocol exists.

Issues, Bugs, and Requested Features - I think I found it through recent comments when I found it.

You're right - according to this PDF on copyright.gov, the requirement is that

a derivative work must be different enough from the original to be regarded as a new work or must contain a substantial amount of new material. Making minor changes or additions of little substance to a preexisting work will not qualify the work as a new version for copyright purposes.

Edit: Outside the US, of course, the rules may vary.

This article no content. It reads like the author saw one example (few PhDs on Chinese genomic sequencing project), thought, "hey, I can write a column on this!", and was off to the races.

The sad thing is that there might be something there if you were willing to do the analysis that the author didn't. Otherwise it's just open-thread material.