Talk:Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc.

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 August 2019 and 27 November 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Valcam1128.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:48, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

trademarkandcopyrightlawblog.com

Lethargilistic, can you please explain the basis for your belief that this source is reliable? Unless I'm missing something, it seems to fall pretty squarely into WP:BLOGS. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:58, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• Kluft, David (April 24, 2018). "Star Athletica and the Expansion of Useful Article Protection: Copyright Office Permits Registration of Automotive Floor Liner". Trademark And Copyright Law. Foley Hoag, LLP. Retrieved May 15, 2018.

--Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:58, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

I would admit it under the "expert sources" exception in WP:BLOGS. The publisher, Foley Hoag, is a well-respected law firm with expertise in the area. We'd still need to be on guard against bias, of course -- Foley represents clients who have particular positions -- but I don't see any issue with taking it as a WP:RS. TJRC (talk) 22:15, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

TJRC, the problem with the expert exception to WP:SPS is that it requires the author to have work that has been published in the relevant field by reliable third-party publications. Has David Kluft been published be reliable third-party publications? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 04:55, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Per TJRC. It is not a personal blog. It's the organization's blog on the topic, and I'd say it fits all three exceptions to the rule you're citing. 1) It's a collaborative site and the writer is credited to a credentialed staff member, a partner at the firm. 2) The content is clearly subject to editorial's control and the writers are professionals. 3) The author has been widely published by third parties in regards to copyright, though feel free to ignore the examples from this blog if you wish. Additionally, although this is not an argument as to the source's overall reliability, the article itself is a synthesis of cases demonstrating points relevant to Star Athletica. This one is important enough to include in the WP article because it's, in some sense, a new liability introduced by the decision of this case. Because the designs were not eligible for copyright before, there was no incentive to hide any utility; now that they are copyrightable, there's a notable possibility for mistakes or outright fraud to lead to criminal damages. It's a new dimension to the area. Proving the same conclusion by going to those cases could be considered OR to a certain extent (someone in the case did mention the criminal possibilities), so I'm far more inclined to link to this outside expert rather than citing this point to the cases. lethargilistic (talk) 05:02, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand the relevance of your points (1) and (2), but I'll accept (3), thanks for pointing out the author's publication history. (I didn't see that.) Normally in these situations we use in-text attribution. I'll add it. Next time please follow WP:BRD. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:14, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Point 1 of lethargilistic's comment refers to the first exception at WP:UGC: "Content from a collaboratively created website may be acceptable if the content was authored by, and is credited to, credentialed members of the site's editorial staff." The second point relates to the following exception: "Some news outlets host interactive columns they call "blogs", and these may be acceptable as sources if the writers are professional journalists or professionals in the field on which they write, and the blog is subject to the news outlet's full editorial control." The left side of the article webpage lists two "Blog Editors", so presumably there is editorial control over the content. That said, the author of the article is one of those two editors, so may not have been held to the blog's full editorial control. However, the WP:UGC exceptions don't say that all of the criteria must be met and so points 1 & 3 should be sufficient to use the article as a source. AHeneen (talk) 17:32, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Prior belief

Lethargilistic, we need a source that says it was widely believed that clothing designs were uncopyrightable before we can say that. I don't think that's correct. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:18, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

• I'm gathering them, but I realized an assumption that might need addressing somehow. When I say "clothing" in this context, I'm talking about ordinary clothing you would find in the store. One of the (possibly oversimplified) reasons it was considered uncopyrightable was because its form was determined by the body intended to wear it. That implies that if you were to have created "clothing" for an imaginary creature, then the design on it would have had no real utilitarian concerns and would have certainly been copyrightable art before Star Athletica. Obviously, we'd have to find someone talking about that sort of thing to actually include it in the article, but put that aside. I'm not sure if such an abstract point is worth a footnote explaining the assumed, narrower-than-that meaning of "clothing" in this case or if such a thing would be too pedantic. lethargilistic (talk) 17:26, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

The content that needs verification isn't whether clothing designs were copyrightable before Star Athletica. The content that needs verification is whether it was widely believed that clothing designs were copyrightable before Star Athletica. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:51, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

My question wasn't about that. It was about whether the article's definition of clothing is sufficiently clear. But, since you put it that way, I'm also not sure what you mean by distinguishing between the truth of a fact and belief of that fact. Because my intention was to establish the fact that Star Athletica's reasoning was common, and I'm not sure if you're looking for something specific for that. I'm looking at previous case law like FOGA v. FTC or the note in Baker v. Selden about tailors, the metric ton of legal scholars responding to the conclusion that fashion designs are copyrightable with "?????", and Congress's repeated refusal to pass legislation to cover fashion designs with copyright. Would a number of such sources be sufficient, or are you looking for something else? Like, for example, are you interpreting "widely believed" as including the general public that doesn't know much about copyright? Because, if so, then it needs a rewording in addition to the citations, because that's not the intent. lethargilistic (talk) 18:21, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

I think you're engaging in what's known as original research. We can't rely on things like comments in which scholars write "?????". If we're going to say that it was widely believed that clothing designs weren't copyrightable, then we need a secondary source that actually says that, such as a pre-Star Athletica newspaper or law review article that says, "Most people believe that clothing designs aren't copyrightable." If your intention is to speak specifically about legal scholars, then in addition to the secondary sourcing, we'd need to change the content to make that clear. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:30, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

A good rule of thumb is that if your personal legal expertise is required to write the content, then you're probably engaging in original research. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:32, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

I wasn't looking at it that way. I was trying to find a number of different kinds of sources to run by you to find out what combination you thought would be best. Anyway, I think the Copyright Office's opinion of the time would be best, because their opinion is as standard as it gets. So, how about this? I suspect the brief might need a Bluebook citation, but I couldn't figure out how to do that offhand.

• Star Athletica claimed that clothing designs were uncopyrightable, a view shared by the United States Copyright Office, while Varsity claimed provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976 afforded for copyrighted clothing designs.

Those sources verify the proposed content, and the Copyright Office's prior position seems noteworthy. Thank you. However we still have an OR problem. Those are both primary sources and we're trying to reduce the number of primary sources, not increase the number. (WP:PRIMARY: "Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them.") If the most of the article was based on secondary sources then I'd support that sourcing. But as things currently stand I cannot. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:42, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that someone first be required to rewrite the entire article to follow a policy better before otherwise editing the article? That is not an appropriate standard to judge adding this sentence by. That's an argument for the article staying as is, unless a third party is going to swoop in to do that research. I'm not because, right now, I was only interested in improving the lede as you had requested. In the long run, the article should be changed to follow WP:PRIMARY and the citations directly to the case opinions should be minimized, but that is not a reason to cut valid information now, especially in light of how few different sources are even in the article to begin with. lethargilistic (talk) 21:48, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Well, the fact that the Copyright Office sided with Star Athletica seems worthy of mention, but not important enough to include in the lead section. Beyond that, what I'm suggesting is that we take a different approach and start cleaning up the extensive OR. That process will lead to a refocusing of the article to reflect the independent, published analyses, and this content will probably fit in naturally at that point. I'm not suggesting that the article should stay the way it is, in fact just the opposite. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:24, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

• Lethargilistic, can you please explain how the source you added verifies this content? The quote doesn't say anything about the copyrightability of clothing designs, and I can't find anything in the source about them either. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:22, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
  • The original Copyright Act was limited to "maps, charts, and books" and nothing else. That expanded to musical works and then non-writings for amendments to the Act of 1831 and then the Act of 1909, but I don't think the full story of copyright's expanding scope is necessary here. Just an acknowledgement that, at the start, they were not copyrightable is fine. lethargilistic (talk) 20:08, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Then we need a source that actually says that. The cited source does not. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:21, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

A source that says only maps, charts, and books were copyrightable is a source that says something that was not a map, chart, or book was not copyrightable. lethargilistic (talk) 20:26, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Ok there are multiple problems with that statement, but perhaps the most straightforward one is, why are we including anything about the 1790 Act? This is not an article about the copyrightability of useful articles in general... it's an article about a 2017 case that was interpreting the 1976 Act. There were 3 copyright acts before that, and none of them are relevant to this article. By simply referring to "originally" we confuse the reader. I for one thought you intended that sentence to refer to the 1976 Act. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:12, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

It's relevant because clothes were not covered by United States copyright from 1790 until this case in 2017, which is why this case was such a big deal for the fashion industry. The core of the case is that the 1976 Act changed this fact after 200 years, but the article skips the technicalities of copyrightability expansion in the middle because that would be extraneous. Originally, they were not copyrightable. This case made them copyrightable.

The other acts are irrelevant and the article does not mention them. The reason I mentioned them to you in this conversation was to preemptively explain why I don't think the article needs an explanation of how the concept of copyrightability grew to eventually include clothes. lethargilistic (talk) 21:29, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

If we're going to include the state of copyright law in 1790, which I most definitely do not think we should do, then we need to explain that we're talking about the state of copyright law in 1790, and explain how that has anything to do with Star Athletica. If its relevance is that the law remained the same in this regard for over 200 years, then we must say that, with supporting references. A citation to a 1790 statute can't be used to describe the state of the law prior to Star Athletica, explicitly or implicitly, especially when the governing act was replaced three times in the intervening period. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:37, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Original research

This article has a fundamental flaw in that most of it is our own interpretation of a primary source, namely, the Supreme Court opinion. This makes it original research. We need to overhaul the article so that it relies mostly on secondary sources and avoids its own interpretations of the opinion. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:29, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Primary sources ≠ original research.

Relevant guidelines

The second and third sentences of WP:OR are: "The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist. This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources." From the WP:PSTS section of that page: "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources. All analyses and interpretive or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary or tertiary source, and must not be an original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors. Appropriate sourcing can be a complicated issue, and these are general rules. Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are appropriate in any given instance is a matter of good editorial judgment and common sense, and should be discussed on article talk pages. A source may be considered primary for one statement but secondary for a different one, and sources can contain both primary and secondary source material for the same statement." Here's the policy for using primary sources (leaving one bullet point not relevant here): Policy: Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source. Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them. Since articles about novels/movies/plays have a plot overview section, I searched for any relevant policy or Wikiproject guideline about how they should be referenced and found Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction, in which two sections are relevant: Sourcing and quotations The plot summary for a work, on a page about that work, does not need to be sourced with in-line citations, as it is generally assumed that the work itself is the primary source for the plot summary. However, editors are encouraged to add sourcing if possible, as this helps discourage original research. If a plot summary includes a direct quote from the work, this must be cited using inline citations per WP:QUOTE. Sometimes a work will be summarized by secondary sources, which can be used for sourcing. Otherwise, using brief quotation citations from the primary work can be helpful to source key or complex plot points. Analysis and interpretation Presenting fictional material from the original work is allowed, provided passages are short, are given the proper context, and do not constitute the main portion of the article. If such passages stray into the realm of interpretation, per WP:PRIMARY, secondary sources must be provided to avoid original research. Plot summaries cannot engage in interpretation and should only present an obvious recap of the work. For example, we cannot state anything about whether the top remains spinning or topples at the end of Inception. Even small details that might be clear on a word-by-word or frame-by-frame analysis – steps well beyond the normal act of reading or watching a work – should be considered original research and excluded from such articles. If a vague plot element is later clarified by the work's creator, this can be included in the summary as long as a citation to this clarification is provided. Independent secondary sources that make analysis or interpretation of a work but without any correlation with the creator should be discussed in a separate section outside of the plot summary and not confused with the presented plot summary. Those guidelines are useful to consider.

Just because the decision is the subject of the article doesn't mean that it is a primary source in all contexts. The SCOTUS decision is a secondary source when it describes the case background, including what the lower courts decided and arguments made by the parties (ie. SCOTUS summarizes the important elements of the lower court's decisions), and factual (not descriptive) statements about the relevant law. For these, using the decision as a source for the case background is ok because the court filters out details that are relevant to their decision-making process. However, descriptive statements about the relevant law can be an inappropriate WP:BIASED source because the way background law is described can be influenced by the outcome of the case, not so much of an issue in this article but far more problematic in controversial civil rights cases where differing sides may describe the past intentions/state of case law in a way that suits their outcome.

As for the "Opinion of the Court" section, I think it is very important to cite directly to the opinion rather than to secondary sources. Why? Because secondary sources—especially news articles—can oversimplify what the decision said or the reasoning behind the decision or leave out important nuances/facets to the decision and I think a lot of care needs to be taken to distinguish between the decision and analysis of it. When there are citations directly to the portion of the opinion being supported it helps us ensure that the wording of the section accurately reflects what was actually said in the opinion. In controversial topics, it is especially important, because authors in news outlets typically regarded as neutral (ie. not just Fox News or MSNBC) and even scholarship about the decisions are often biased. A later court case may summarize a previous case, but that summary may be erroneous or biased to suit the outcome...after all, many SCOTUS cases are reversals of lower court rulings! Here's a 4-page SCOTUS decision reversing a lower court ruling because the latter had interpreted two SCOTUS opinions to conclude that one had implicitly overruled the earlier decision when it fact it only created a limited exception.

Bottom line: Primary sources ≠ original research. Using the decision as a source is not always an inappropriate use of a primary source and in the section about the opinion, it is preferable for verifiability, prevent errors from being introduced, and to prevent the editor from selectively using secondary sources to introduce a bias into the way the case is described. AHeneen (talk) 03:27, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

You're entitled to that position, but it is contrary to WP policy. "Primary sources ≠ original research" is a straw man; I never suggested that we should scrub the article of all primary sources. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 15:53, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

What exactly is contrary to WP policy? AHeneen (talk) 02:16, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Two things: (i) interpreting primary sources and (ii) basing large passages on them. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 04:08, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

I never said that primary sources can be used to interpret the opinion and the policy about primary sources, which I quoted, says "be cautious about basing large passages on them", not an absolute ban on large passages based on primary sources. I also explained...in the absence of a compelling reason/guideline to the contrary...my reasoning for the appropriateness of using the decision as a primary source. If you're not content without a guideline explicitly supporting that reasoning, I can start a proposal to have MOS:LAW#Citations and referencing amended to add something about the appropriateness of using decisions as a primary source, but if I do, don't complain that I'm forum shopping. AHeneen (talk) 08:20, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

That's a funny way to state your views, since you just removed a non-interpretive sentence because it was based on a primary source. lethargilistic (talk) 08:12, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

The policies behind that particular removal were WP:NOTEVERYTHING and, to a lesser extent, WP:NPV. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:45, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

If that was why you removed it, you would have said so. That's gaslighting. Please explain how a source from a group of people who were upset by the decision violates WP:NPV or WP:NOTEVERYTHING in a section about reactions to the decision. lethargilistic (talk) 22:10, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand how that's gaslighting, but please assume good faith. I'll put my explanation in a new discussion. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:52, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

I have been assuming good faith. This has been a solid week of hounding and unproductive Wikilawyering, and I'm officially tired of it if you can't even see that saying one thing in the edit summary and then citing two different policies here when called on it is gaslighting. Feel free to post your further explanation, and I will consider it on its merits, but I am sick of this. lethargilistic (talk) 23:00, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

I also think the case should be rewritten to not rely solely on the original source. The decision is fairly straightforward, so analysis in the opinion section isn't too much of a problem, but going to secondary sources will prevent the long passages problem and focus the material to mostly what lawyers and other observers have actually been interested in. If you have some advice on how to better balance primary/secondary, or an example article with an opinion section based mostly on the primary source to use as an example of what you're trying to advocate, I'm interested. Since I'm bothering to write it, that will probably get us farther than pounding the rules at each other. Again. lethargilistic (talk) 08:34, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Sure. Community standards apply to all articles, but if you want to find a list of cases that pass the Featured Article threshold, you can find a number at Portal:Law. I looked at the first SCOTUS case on the list, Afroyim v. Rusk, and it's a good example. The "Opinion of the Court" case does indeed cite the primary source material, but it doesn't rely on it also cites a number of secondary sources throughout. The Background section relies mostly on other sources as well. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:02, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

I'll assume good faith, buuuuuuuuttt the second (Heffernan v. City of Paterson), third (Menominee Tribe v. United States), fourth (Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.), fifth (Regents of the Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke), and sixth (Schmerber v. California) all use the court decisions for all or most of the decision section and most of them use the text of the lower court decisions in the relevant background sections. It's not until Sega v. Accolade (a 9th circuit decision) that there is an exception...this article cites the case decision (without specific page numbers) as a reference along with a secondary source throughout the decision section. AHeneen (talk) 08:20, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

You are correct indeed! It appears to me that several of those articles violate WP:OR pretty badly. (I urge you to strike the "buuuuuuuuttt" as it seems to undercut your statement that you're assuming good faith.) --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:55, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to adding secondary sources, but for the reasons I explained, the primary source to the decision should be kept to promote integrity of the section. While that's not a major problem in this article/case, since it's not controversial, that is important in cases related to controversial topics or parties because secondary sources may word their writings to align with their opinion of the case and say "Justice X said such-and-such" while omitting an important nuance. When I typed "text-source integrity" into the search bar, thinking there would be an article to link, I ended up finding WP:INTEGRITY (via a template page) and think it gives another reason to keep the primary citations to the case. AHeneen (talk) 08:20, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand the relevance of WP:INTEGRITY. That's about the positioning of refs, not about which sources to use. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:59, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Amicus briefs

DrFleischman, United States v. Lara, Heffernan v. City of Paterson, Menominee Tribe v. United States, Sega v. Accolade, Bowman v. Monsanto Co., Berghuis v. Thompkins, Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Ass'n, and Salazar v. Ramah Navajo Chapter all include mentions of amicus briefs. In finding those, I, of course, also saw articles that did not have them, but it was wrong to say that they are simply not notable and remove them. They could be better integrated, perhaps, but I say they should be there. lethargilistic (talk) 20:25, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Every single SCOTUS case has amicus filings. Far more of our articles on such cases have no mention of them. This is because we only include material that's noteworthy, non-trivial, and encyclopedic. In some of the cases you found, amici were filed by state governments, which is generally pretty noteworthy in itself. If you can find secondary sources that discuss these amici then I'd be more open to considering them. As we've already discussed, we need to be focusing much more on secondary sources and less on primary sources. In this case, in fact, no source was provided. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:46, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

A mention of amicus briefs filed by large interest groups is noteworthy in a paragraph discussing the lead-up to the oral arguments. "Far more articles on such cases" aren't as fully developed as the ones that are Featured or Good, and these are precedent enough to prevent categorically disavowing the briefs. That information was referenced to the docket, which is not a problem with WP:PRIMARY because it is a non-interpretive fact that those organizations filed briefs. This does not conflict with our previous messages and the current improvement effort because the goal of that effort is to make the article better follow the primary sources policy. That is the big picture issue: not necessarily systematically removing all primary sources, but removing the article's reliance on them for analysis and big passages.

I think a fundamental difference between your philosophy and mine is that mine focuses on eventual perfection, whereas you would prefer not to include something unless it is already perfect. I take this difference in good faith and I'm trying to accommodate it, but it is difficult when something as minor as this is suddenly an addition to the controversy before I've even begun tackling the key SC opinion passages. Intended or not, this behavior is coming off as an unproductive attempt at supervision rather than a collaboration towards improving the article. lethargilistic (talk) 23:19, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

You might notice that I'm deleting much less than half of what you add. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 00:19, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm not too concerned about the WP:OR aspect of this content. After all it's just a single sentence. What I'm more concerned about is the article being well written and focused on the more noteworthy aspects of the case. We should be directing readers to the most salient points. For articles like this one, that means the summary of the opinion and its impact on the law. The oral argument is really not very important when viewed on a ten-year timeline, and unless an amicus had something particularly important to say, perhaps that was cited by the Court, then readers aren't going to care how many filings there were or which groups submitted them. This is why it's best to follow the secondary sources--writers and editors have already used their professional judgment to decide what's of interest to readers.--Dr. Fleischman (talk) 00:24, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

We can't use our crystal ball to know just what will be relevant in 10 years. Mentioning how one industry/field reacted to the case or gave their input/concern through an amicus filing may be relevant, since it will take a while for the relevance of the case to be assessed. Wikipedia is read by a lot of different individuals, for different reasons, and with different knowledge of SCOTUS procedure. While I disagree that the number of amici is too detailed for a stand-alone sentence, I'm not going to argue over that. However, a paragraph about the concerns and alternative legal arguments raised of amici isn't inappropriate and in such a paragraph, mentioning the total number or total for and total against would be appropriate. Such a paragraph would be useful in this article and wouldn't be too much detail.

Just because an amicus brief isn't cited by a majority/concurring/dissenting opinion doesn't mean it's irrelevant, because (nearly always) the Supreme Court exercises restraint and will only reach the decisions necessary to reach. Even if a court stops short of reaching a particular question, those concerns are still worth mentioning in the article (given due weight). An excellent example of this is Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which never reached the merits of the Free Speech or Free Exercise Claims (the anti-religious bias decision was based on the Due Process Clause, not Free Exercise Clause), but where the reactions to the case being heard and public response/media attention before the decision was announced nonetheless are a major aspect of the case and should (and are) discussed in the article. Not all SCOTUS cases receive amicus briefs. The U.S. government will file (sometimes after being requested by the court) an amicus in all cases where a federal law is challenged or a major shift in an area of law relevant to the federal government is possible. The average number of amicus briefs per case is about 10 in the last few terms (over 800 briefs, about 80-90 cases). However, a few high-profile cases (usually about civil rights) get significant attention (50 or 100 plus), so the median is more representative but I couldn't find any recent statistics about the median number of amicus brief (from 1986-1995, the median was 3 and the average was 5.00 (p.12). So 15 amicus brief was a moderately high number for a non-civil-rights case.

As far as something being too detailed, WP:Consensus is a policy just like WP:NOTEVERYTHING. AHeneen (talk) 07:40, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Another straw man argument, as I never edited against consensus. Masterpiece Cakeshop is an appropriate comparator. The amici in that case generated lots of secondary sources, and the relevant section of our article on the case is based on them. It cites USA Today, The Economist, the LA Times, and NBC News. The number of amicus briefs is appropriately given because the USA Today article was specifically about that very issue. It starts with, "In the pantheon of Supreme Court challenges, few have produced the outpouring of support and opposition as has Colorado baker Jack Phillips' refusal to design a wedding cake for a same-sex couple." Do we have a source like that for this case? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:31, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

• In response to the improvement template on the new section, I just want to point out that I'm doing exactly what was requested. Each of the amicus briefs that I have read/included up to now is accompanied by a news article discussing it and establishing notability. The only semi-exception is the Navy's standalone brief, which I included because the accusation of Varsity being a monopoly is a notable part of this story and there is probably no better place to include it without running into NPV issues than an opponent of theirs citing it in their brief. I'm more concerned about how to give equal time to the pro-Varsity amici because—and this is just human nature—we're far less likely to write about things we agree with and the people who would write about those amici would be in favor of the court case whereas the pro-Star side was very afraid of it. lethargilistic (talk) 07:02, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I see what you're doing now, thanks. My only substantive concern here is that our coverage should be proportional to the secondary source coverage. If an amicus brief didn't get any coverage in secondary sources then we should exclude it. Adding primary source-only material to balance between the two sides is an example of creating false balance. As currently written the librarians and IP professors briefs are supported only by primary sources. The section also seems to over-emphasize cosplay; I don't understand the importance of that (primary sourced) FLI sentence about geek fashion and cosplay. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 14:40, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

The "Intellectual Property Professors" were cited by Breyer, and that's why they might stick out as odd. I haven't written their blurb yet. The Law Associations and libraries are probably on their way out of that section due to lack of coverage. The purpose of the FLI sentence was to give them a response to the concerns raised by the Star Athletica supporters. It was to help with equal time because there was just less coverage of Varsity supporters overall, but I don't think it's false balance. The examples in that link are conspiracy theories, and fears of this decision's potential effects on cosplay have been widely reported/reacted to (* * * * * *) Most of those particular links aren't destined for the article because WP:BLOGS (I just quickly looked it up again for this), but it's notable and fair to also represent the views of Varsity supporters on it. There will probably be a bit more for the Reactions section as well once I've done more research specifically for that aftermath section. lethargilistic (talk) 23:19, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Ok, please let me know when you're done or taking a break so I'm not aiming for a moving target. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:46, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

It could probably be tightened up, but this is the form that I'm aiming at. The points from the United States are so specific because the majority opinion cited those ideas. lethargilistic (talk) 05:45, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Cosplay

I removed a sentence about cosplay, citing an amicus brief, because it lacking a secondary source. Apparently there were 15 amicus briefs filed in this case. Including this one, and not the other 14, is non-neutral as not all viewpoints are being fairly represented. In addition, there's no indication that the amicis' viewpoint is sufficiently noteworthy. It simply wouldn't be encyclopedic to summarize the position of every amicus. Both of these policy issues are solved if we can find a secondary source to support the material. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:01, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

• The amicus brief represents a reaction to the case by multiple interested groups, and it was placed in the reactions section. Multiple international organizations' views on how the decision may affect them is certainly as noteworthy as lawyers' general opinions on the outcome. A simple statement in the article that they were concerned cited to a document in which they detailed those concerns is not a violation of the article's neutral point of view. Moreover, you know that you were the one who removed mentions of the other amicus briefs (see also the above section), so please don't cite their absence in this article for your argument. If anything, this was a better way to incorporate that information than simply listing the names of the filers, as discussed, and the article is a WIP, so there's no call to require more of the 14 briefs being added all at once. lethargilistic (talk) 23:15, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

The appropriate way to include stuff about amicus briefs is to summarize what the independent secondary sources have to say about them. If the independent secondary sources don't say anything about the amici, then neither should we. This is how content is generally written to comply with WP:NOTEVERYTHING and WP:NPV. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 00:36, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Mentioning that particular amicus brief wasn't a problem. You can't just use WP:NOTEVERYTHING to trim any detail you find unnecessary. The Featured Article of the Day for tomorrow (at time of writing) is Interstate 80 in Iowa. About half to 2/3rds of the route description could be deemed too detailed for anyone to care, yet it passed an FA review. There are many featured articles about roads and most of them contain detailed descriptions and cite a primary source (a map) for much of the description. As for imbalance, one statement about an interested party doesn't make it NPOV. It was in a paragraph about parties concerned of the implications of clothing being given copyright protection. Also, in this case there were more parties that were concerned of the implications of clothing copyright protection than there were in support. NPOV doesn't include giving equal weight to both sides of an issue (see the WP:UNDUE & WP:FALSEBALANCE sections of the NPOV guideline).

@DrFleischman: I'm not really inclined to go about wikilawyering to tear apart every possible way your edits/behavior is inappropriate, but but three Wikipedia POLICY pages (not just guidelines, FWIW) you need to look at are Consensus, WP:NOTPERFECT, & WP:PRESERVE/WP:DON'T PRESERVE. The types of edits you're making don't address material that is seriously problematic. IMO, you should just wait a few days between edits to give Lethargilistic some breathing room (you should also read WP:HOUNDING), then coming back to do any cleanup. No one's going to be harmed because an article isn't perfect for a couple days. Tagging is better than deleting. Try using {{Importance inline}}, {{Primary source inline}} (when primary source is improperly used), and {{Better source}} (where secondary source is preferable to replace a primary source). The template most relevant to you objections is {{Additional citation needed}}, which is used, inter alia, when "the citation provided is to a weak source (primary, tertiary, vague, low-quality) but the claim is not dubious enough to delete outright, and the imperfect source should be retained (e.g. because it was the first to report on the matter and this is significant)". AHeneen (talk) 06:31, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't know if you noticed but I've merely been following our standard BRD practice, and I certainly haven't edit warred against consensus or anything. In any case, if you have a problem with my conduct I suggest we take it to user talk. It sounds more like you just disagree with me. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:22, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

• This issue appears to be resolved with AHeneen's addition of this secondary source. As a lesser matter I think this sentence should be moved somewhere else however. Currently it's in a section named "Subsequent developments," but both the filing and the news coverage were came before the SCOTUS opinion. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:06, 20 July 2018 (UTC)