Mailing List Archive

On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 11:44 PM, John at Darkstar <vacuum@jeb.no> wrote:
[snip]
> The main problem with the GFDL is how to clearly identify the work as
> licensed under GFDL. Today this leads to the printing of the whole
> license text, but the only thing necessary is identification of the
> license in a clearly visible manner.

One of the proposed FSF GFDL revision drafts had a size threshold for
triggering the requirement to reproduce the license text.
(http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/gfdl-draft-1.html; 6a)

Informing people of their rights is important: Since if they don't
know them they might as well not have them. If the license text is
well written, or at least has a good preamble, then including it can
go a long way to further understanding of Free content (it's not just
no cost!), unfortunately the FDL isn't clear and don't have a clear
preamble. But the GPLv3 very much is and does, so it can be done.

Including a single license copy squeezed onto a page along with 1000
pages of information is pretty non-burdensome, even in printed form.
Certainly no worse than all the other random overhead pages a book
typically contains.

The thresholds in the proposed draft may be probably too low to remove
this burden (it was something like 20k words or 10 pages), but it's an
indication that the general approach may be acceptable to the
drafters.


> Rethink the whole problem, whats necessary is to be able to identify a
> work and as part of this be able to identify the license and other data.
> Perhaps something like an ISBN-number for any authored work, and then
> some kind of magic site that can act as a broker between those who need
> additional information and those who deliver such information. This
> could be a step further than today, not only identifying which license a
> particular work uses, but also licensing of previous version and how it
> relates to other parts of a collection of works.

Hm. Well it would have to be Universal, and it purpose is Locating
Resources, so we could call it a ULR! This seems somehow familiar. ;)

More seriously, a clearing house would be interesting and very useful.
But I think in terms of providing licensing information it still makes
sense to always tag along: "year, basic attribution; license" if
nothing else. A clearing house identifier would be bonus.


The other *must solve* issue is the gratuitous incompatibility with
similar but different licenses: You can't create a new work that is
derived from both third-party FDL content and third-party CC-By-SA
content while strictly conforming with the licenses. (many people
would call this the most significant problem with the FDL today,
thought it's also true of all other existing copyleft free content
licenses)

I think that almost everyone agrees that you ought to be able to do
this (the most negative thing I've seen said about it is that you
ought to respect the most restrictive of the combined terms in this
case), and there are a number of ways to address this. My preferred
way is to just have the licenses explicitly enumerate compatible
licenses and the rules for combined works. GPLv3 addressed the
compatibility question in a different way, but it was addressed
successfully there, so again it has been proven that it can be done.

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Thomas Dalton writes:

> There is a difference between being aware of an issue and knowing how
> that issue affects each jurisdiction.

Hey! Thanks for letting me know about that!

> While copyright is largely harmonised, does that include moral rights?

More or less.

> The thing with experts is that you often need to contact them in order
> to find out if there is anything worth contacting them about.

This had never occurred to me!


--Mike



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Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
>
> The other *must solve* issue is the gratuitous incompatibility with
> similar but different licenses: You can't create a new work that is
> derived from both third-party FDL content and third-party CC-By-SA
> content while strictly conforming with the licenses. (many people
> would call this the most significant problem with the FDL today,
> thought it's also true of all other existing copyleft free content
> licenses)
>
> I think that almost everyone agrees that you ought to be able to do
> this (the most negative thing I've seen said about it is that you
> ought to respect the most restrictive of the combined terms in this
> case), and there are a number of ways to address this. My preferred
> way is to just have the licenses explicitly enumerate compatible
> licenses and the rules for combined works. GPLv3 addressed the
> compatibility question in a different way, but it was addressed
> successfully there, so again it has been proven that it can be done.
>
>

As I understand it (correct me if I am wrong), one of the
salient problems with "close but no cigar" license compatibility
is that a license either *is* "viral", or it *is not*. And getting
by that is near impossible in a way that is coherent.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

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On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 12:26 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
<cimonavaro@gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> As I understand it (correct me if I am wrong), one of the
> salient problems with "close but no cigar" license compatibility
> is that a license either *is* "viral", or it *is not*. And getting
> by that is near impossible in a way that is coherent.

Nope.

Basically you can't be compatible and not expose yourself to some
weaknesses in the other license: You're exposed to the risk that the
other is two permissive if you follow a "allow any act permitted by
either" combination, or too restrictive if you follow a "allow only
acts permitted by both", or some variant depending on how the
combination permission is constructed. If both licenses are copyleft
(what you're calling viral) then you may end up in a case where
further downstream works must be under the combined licenses, unless
that situation is specifically avoided in *both* copyleft licenses.

...But if you consider compatibility to be important (and I think
everyone can agree that it's at least somewhat important some of the
time) then your only other alternatives are getting both works dual
licensed or both re-licensed under a single license. Neither of which
should be better than the controlled exposure.


You don't have to take my word for it, There is an existence proof:
GPLv3 accomplishes license compatibility with other licenses, not
merely license which allow covered works to be simply re-licensed as
GPLv3.

See:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatDoesCompatMean

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html Section 7

(actually, the AGPL compatibility in Section 13 is basically the type
of compatibility I prefer: Explicit bidirectional compatibility with
defined terms)

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2008/10/21 Mike Godwin <mgodwin@wikimedia.org>:
>
> Thomas Dalton writes:
>
>> There is a difference between being aware of an issue and knowing how
>> that issue affects each jurisdiction.
>
> Hey! Thanks for letting me know about that!

You're welcome.

>> While copyright is largely harmonised, does that include moral rights?
>
> More or less.

The "or less" is the bit you need to worry about, then.

>> The thing with experts is that you often need to contact them in order
>> to find out if there is anything worth contacting them about.
>
> This had never occurred to me!

Perhaps you should try thinking things through properly in future, then.

(NB: Claiming a statement is sarcastic does not making it false. From
your previous email is quite clear that your statements in this email
are true despite the fact that you most likely believe you are being
sarcastic.)

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On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 11:11 PM, John at Darkstar <vacuum@jeb.no> wrote:

> I've asked about this some time back, and the answare was that Wikipedia
> is a collection of independent work, meaning each one of them has to
> list the principal authors of that work. The collection as such is a
> database and may or may not be a work in itself.
>

1) Who told you that? 2) Can the names be combined into a single list? I
don't see why not.

Also, a failure to state the principal authors does not release any
> later work from giving due attribution. The attribution is a property of
> the work itself and not for some random copy of the work, that is each
> copy has to give due respect to the authors of the work not the authors
> of the previous copy.


Absolutely agreed. My longstanding interpretation of the GFDL was that
attribution of all (non de-minimus) authors was required, in the section
Entitled History. Considering moral rights laws and the ethical principles
behind them, I still believe this is the correct interpretation, and that
the phrase "as given on its Title page" should be interpreted to apply only
to "publisher of the Document".
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> Absolutely agreed. My longstanding interpretation of the GFDL was that
> attribution of all (non de-minimus) authors was required, in the section
> Entitled History. Considering moral rights laws and the ethical principles
> behind them, I still believe this is the correct interpretation, and that
> the phrase "as given on its Title page" should be interpreted to apply only
> to "publisher of the Document".

If memory serves (it's been a while since I read the license
properly), the "5 principal authors" thing is for re-use, the
"preserve the section entitled history" thing is for modifications.
The two are different uses of the license. If you're just using the
content as is it's far easier than if you're modifying it.

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On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 8:38 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>wrote:

> > Absolutely agreed. My longstanding interpretation of the GFDL was that
> > attribution of all (non de-minimus) authors was required, in the section
> > Entitled History. Considering moral rights laws and the ethical
> principles
> > behind them, I still believe this is the correct interpretation, and that
> > the phrase "as given on its Title page" should be interpreted to apply
> only
> > to "publisher of the Document".
>
> If memory serves (it's been a while since I read the license
> properly), the "5 principal authors" thing is for re-use, the
> "preserve the section entitled history" thing is for modifications.
> The two are different uses of the license. If you're just using the
> content as is it's far easier than if you're modifying it.


Nope, they're both for modifications. If you're just making a verbatim
copy, you preserve any attribution in the original as a natural part of not
making any modifications. Of course, in the case of Wikipedia, the original
isn't properly attributed in the first place.
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Thomas Dalton writes:
>
>>> While copyright is largely harmonised, does that include moral
>>> rights?
>>
>> More or less.
>
> The "or less" is the bit you need to worry about, then.

Wow, thanks.

>>> The thing with experts is that you often need to contact them in
>>> order
>>> to find out if there is anything worth contacting them about.
>>
>> This had never occurred to me!
>
> Perhaps you should try thinking things through properly in future,
> then.
>
> (NB: Claiming a statement is sarcastic does not making it false. From
> your previous email is quite clear that your statements in this email
> are true despite the fact that you most likely believe you are being
> sarcastic.)

I am truly impressed, not only with your exceptional knowledge of
moral-rights jurisprudence, but also with your assessment of my legal
abilities and your insightful interpretation of my comments. It's a
wonder that I ever managed to accomplish anything without the insight
of Thomas Dalton, especially with regard to this tricky copyright stuff.

It's true, Thomas -- I'm a dope, and I need your wisdom to straighten
me out.


--Mike





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On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 4:59 PM, Mike Godwin <mgodwin@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> Thomas Dalton writes:
>>
>>>> While copyright is largely harmonised, does that include moral
>>>> rights?
>>>
>>> More or less.
>>
>> The "or less" is the bit you need to worry about, then.
>
> Wow, thanks.
>
>>>> The thing with experts is that you often need to contact them in
>>>> order
>>>> to find out if there is anything worth contacting them about.
>>>
>>> This had never occurred to me!
>>
>> Perhaps you should try thinking things through properly in future,
>> then.
>>
>> (NB: Claiming a statement is sarcastic does not making it false. From
>> your previous email is quite clear that your statements in this email
>> are true despite the fact that you most likely believe you are being
>> sarcastic.)
>
> I am truly impressed, not only with your exceptional knowledge of
> moral-rights jurisprudence, but also with your assessment of my legal
> abilities and your insightful interpretation of my comments. It's a
> wonder that I ever managed to accomplish anything without the insight
> of Thomas Dalton, especially with regard to this tricky copyright stuff.
>
> It's true, Thomas -- I'm a dope, and I need your wisdom to straighten
> me out.
>
^

Thomas, Mike, as much as I'm amused by this debate, can we drop this
here? It's getting unproductive, really.

Thanks,
Michael

--
Michael Bimmler
mbimmler@gmail.com

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Anthony skrev:
> On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 11:11 PM, John at Darkstar <vacuum@jeb.no> wrote:
>
>> I've asked about this some time back, and the answare was that Wikipedia
>> is a collection of independent work, meaning each one of them has to
>> list the principal authors of that work. The collection as such is a
>> database and may or may not be a work in itself.
>>
>
> 1) Who told you that? 2) Can the names be combined into a single list? I
> don't see why not.

*is* should be *can be* in the first sentence.

The person, the actual name is insignificant, said that such a
collection is an independent work and should be attributed as such
together with attribution for each contained work. It is also possible
to interpret it as a database, sort of special notation in
"Åndsverksloven" (http://www.lovdata.no/all/hl-19610512-002.html#43) -
law about artistic works or intellectual property or something like that
- it gives the database protection as if it is a work of art. It is not
obvious which one is most suitable for Wikipedia. An interpretation as a
database seems more on line with WMF being an isp.

I don't think it really says anything about attribution for the content
of the database, but §6, which does not apply to a database says; Er det
to eller flere opphavsmenn til et åndsverk uten at de enkeltes ytelser
kan skilles ut som særskilte verk, erverver de opphavsrett til verket i
fellesskap. If there are two or more creators for a work of art and none
of the contributions can be singled out as independent works, they will
collectively own the "copyright". I use quotation as opphavsrett is not
similar to copyright but its close enough. Note that the articles in
Wikipedia is clearly independent works that can be singled out, which
means they should be attributed individually.

Attribution can be organized any way appropriate as long as it is
according to "good practice. The same § 3 says this "The rights after
the first and second paragraphs can not be released, unless the use of
the work in question is limited after the nature and scope." That is, a
license that does not request attribution can't be used in such a
manner, you may use it but still you will have to attribute the authors.
It is although possible to say that a limited use can be done without
attribution, lets say someone printing out a single hardcopy.

> Also, a failure to state the principal authors does not release any
>> later work from giving due attribution. The attribution is a property of
>> the work itself and not for some random copy of the work, that is each
>> copy has to give due respect to the authors of the work not the authors
>> of the previous copy.
>
>
> Absolutely agreed. My longstanding interpretation of the GFDL was that
> attribution of all (non de-minimus) authors was required, in the section
> Entitled History. Considering moral rights laws and the ethical principles
> behind them, I still believe this is the correct interpretation, and that
> the phrase "as given on its Title page" should be interpreted to apply only
> to "publisher of the Document".
> __

My guess is that a history link should exist if appropriate, if
necessary at a the original publisher/isp/whattever (WM-site) but
prinsipal authors should be attributed anyhow at copies.

John

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Hoi,
I find it interesting to see how this thread is being weaved. If I read Erik
correctly, he is asking us what appropriate attribution is. He is asking any
and all observations. What I find is a thread about existing legalities.

When we observe the current practice, you find that people attribute by
referring to Wikipedia. This is an effective way of providing access to any
and all the people who have contributed to what has been used. When you read
the byzantine requirements under the different licenses, you have to be a
lawyer to understand them properly and there is no tooling to help you
define such things as "principal author" or the five most significant
authors.

If all we can do is discuss how things are currently legal, then we are not
looking for something that works practically. It is for practical reasons
that I wonder about the number of trees that have to be felled to attribute.
Certainly when you have a print of all the Wikipedia articles on the popes
of Rome and all the Christian saints and martyrs, you have a long list of
articles that may all need their own attribution. When you approach these
articles as a single work, you do no justice to the individual article and
its authors.

Really, why are we not talking about how this is to WORK for the people that
will use our data.. Please remember that this is what we do it for.
Thanks,
GerardM

On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 9:46 PM, Erik Moeller <erik@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> The GFDL has specific attribution requirements that were designed for
> software manuals. What's appropriate attribution for a wiki, where a
> page can have thousands of authors, and a collection of pages is very
> likely to? I would like to start a broad initial discussion on this
> topic; it's likely that the issue will need to be raised more
> specifically in the context of possible modifications to the GFDL or a
> migration to CC-BY-SA.
>
> The relevant GFDL clause states: "List on the Title Page, as authors,
> one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the
> modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of
> the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors,
> if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this
> requirement."
>
> Most people have chosen to ignore the "principal authors" requirement
> and to try to attribute every author instead because there's no
> obvious way to determine who the principal authors are. I remember a
> few years back that Anthony tried a completely different approach,
> where he created a full copy of Wikipedia (under the assumption that
> it's a single GFDL work) and attributed it to five people on the
> frontpage. Anthony, please correct me if my recollection is incorrect.
>
> The community process that has developed with regard to GFDL
> compliance on the web has generally tacitly favored a link to the
> article and to its history as proper credit. But, for printed books,
> publishers have generally wanted to be more in compliance with the
> letter of the license. So, the Bertelsmann "Wikipedia in one volume"
> includes a looong list of authors in a very tiny font.
>
> Is that practical? How about Wikipedia articles on passenger
> information systems (screens on subways, airplanes)? How about small
> booklets where there isn't a lot of room for licensing information?
> Should a good license for wikis make a distinction between print and
> online uses?
>
> I haven't heard anyone argue strongly for full inclusion of the
> _license text_. But I'd like to hear opinions on the inclusion of
> username lists.
>
> My personal preference would be a system where we have a special
> "credits" URL for each article, something like
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/credits/World_War_II
>
> which would list authors and also provide full licensing information
> for all media files. If we had a specific collection of articles, the
> system could support this using collection IDs:
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/collection_credits/Bertelsmann_One_Volume_Encyclopedia
>
> (These URLs are completely made up and have no basis in reality.)
>
> The advantage that I see of such an approach is that it would allow us
> to standardize and continually refine the way we display authorship
> information, and benefit the free sharing of content with a very
> lightweight process. The disadvantage (if it is perceived as such) is
> that if we would officially recommend such attribution in printed
> books, individual contributors would be less likely to see their
> username in print. But we might see more print uses because it would
> make the attribution more manageable.
>
> It's also conceivable to require full author attribution for printed
> collections of a certain length or printed in certain quantity. (The
> GFDL has "in quantity" rules, but they do not seem to apply in any way
> to the authorship information.)
>
> Aside from what the legal implications of any given approach are, the
> first question I think that needs to be answered is what's desirable.
> Thoughts?
> --
> Erik Möller
> Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
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2008/10/21 Mike Godwin <mgodwin@wikimedia.org>:
>
> Thomas Dalton writes:
>>
>>>> While copyright is largely harmonised, does that include moral
>>>> rights?
>>>
>>> More or less.
>>
>> The "or less" is the bit you need to worry about, then.
>
> Wow, thanks.
>

Worse than that. Technically most EU countries should have identical
moral rights clauses. Implementation of the clauses is inconsistent
and in many cases there is a lack of caselaw (although the lawsuit
over changing a bridge design failed).

For the average wikipedian on the ground the issue is less one of what
you can handle or find people to handle (I generally assume that the
foundation can deal with pretty much any copyright issues should it
have to) but how much attention we should be paying to moral rights at
all. At the moment we mostly ignore them (along with most non
copyright related IP stuff) but we don't know if this is a long term
viable approach.

--
geni

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2008/10/21 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>:
> Really, why are we not talking about how this is to WORK for the people that
> will use our data.. Please remember that this is what we do it for.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>


Problem is there are rather a different set of scenarios where
different standards are likely to be popular:


==Text==

Text from wikipedia can have a very large number of authors and in
many cases the work is a derivative of the work of every single
author. So lets look at the various uses for wikipedia text.

*Reproduction of a single article. In this case having to include an
author list longer than the article is a real problem. So people may
advocate being allowed to include a straight URL where the author list
can be found.

*reproduction of a collection of articles as a book (say a book on WW2
British submarines). In this case including a complete authorlist
while potentially rather uninformative would certainly be possible. A
URL would likely be regarded as a poor replacement.

*reproduction of an article in a non GFDL environment (say a single
article in a magazine). For a normal article a complete authorlist
would be possible but would tend to break down for WW2

*use in a power point presentation. Doesn't really matter. Whatever
requirements you put in place people just jam in a couple of slides at
the end with the stuff on it and rapidly shuffle past them.

*Recorded to vorbis/tape/mp3/45 whatever. Not too much a problem (with
the posible exception of the 45). There are various bits of text
reading software around that could read through the complete author
list although most people would stop listening there.

*Recorded for conventional radio. Serious problem here. no one is
going to want to waste airtime reading out too long a list of credits
at the same time things like
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=France&action=history would
be rather hard to read out on air.

*use in a computer game. As long as credit in the credit file is
accepted not a problem. In game credit is a bit of a headache.

==Photos==

Photos tend to have fewer authors but tend to be more frequently
deployed in situations where space is a premium.

*postcard. As long as putting credit on the back is accepted not a problem.

*jigsaw. as long as putting the credit on a separate object (in this
case the box) is accepted not a problem

*use in a computer game. As long as credit in the credit file is
accepted not a problem. In game credit may be possible via standard
watermark method

*Use on a T-shirt. There would be space but I have no idea where the
credit should be put.

*Tattoos. I'm not aware of any copyright cases over tattoos.

This is just a start and I haven't yet covered other forms of media
(video sound sculpture etc). I could have a shot if anyone is
interested.
.
--
geni

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Let me make a radical suggestion. One that, for the moment, ignores
all those overbearing legal questions.

Why not assume that the appropriate amount of attribution for a
Wikipedia article is essentially the amount that it has now?

When you look at a Wikipedia article there is no list of authors
(principal or otherwise). There is simply a link to "history", a
statement at the bottom of the page saying that the content is under
the GFDL, and a link to the GFDL. On the Wikipedia page itself, that
is essentially the full extent of the licensing and attribution.

I assume that practically all Wikipedia contributors are comfortable
with recieving this very low level of attribution for Wikipedia
articles.

So, by extension, perhaps the goal should be finding a way to codify
this scheme in a way that works both for us and for reusers. Namely,
making the requirements for redistribution of Wikipedia content to
simply be:

1) A link or reference to the article's history
2) A statement acknowledging the free content license
3) A link or reference to the text of that license

That's very simple and practical. One can add some details regarding
new versions and modifications, but even there I think you accomplish
more by keeping it simple.


Now I suspect there are about three dozen reasons why defining
attribution as simply a link to the history page is legally impossible
and incompatible with the GFDL. But even so, doesn't it make some
sense to start with: How are Wikipedia articles being used? and work
backwards backwards to construct the licensing scheme that best
resembles actual practice while still being legally rigorous?
Wikipedia authors don't seem to want or expect prominent and overt
acknowledgements when writing articles, so why should our licensing
scheme require reusers to add more overt statements than even we
ourselves have?

-Robert Rohde


On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 12:46 PM, Erik Moeller <erik@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> The GFDL has specific attribution requirements that were designed for
> software manuals. What's appropriate attribution for a wiki, where a
> page can have thousands of authors, and a collection of pages is very
> likely to? I would like to start a broad initial discussion on this
> topic; it's likely that the issue will need to be raised more
> specifically in the context of possible modifications to the GFDL or a
> migration to CC-BY-SA.
>
> The relevant GFDL clause states: "List on the Title Page, as authors,
> one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the
> modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of
> the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors,
> if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this
> requirement."
>
> Most people have chosen to ignore the "principal authors" requirement
> and to try to attribute every author instead because there's no
> obvious way to determine who the principal authors are. I remember a
> few years back that Anthony tried a completely different approach,
> where he created a full copy of Wikipedia (under the assumption that
> it's a single GFDL work) and attributed it to five people on the
> frontpage. Anthony, please correct me if my recollection is incorrect.
>
> The community process that has developed with regard to GFDL
> compliance on the web has generally tacitly favored a link to the
> article and to its history as proper credit. But, for printed books,
> publishers have generally wanted to be more in compliance with the
> letter of the license. So, the Bertelsmann "Wikipedia in one volume"
> includes a looong list of authors in a very tiny font.
>
> Is that practical? How about Wikipedia articles on passenger
> information systems (screens on subways, airplanes)? How about small
> booklets where there isn't a lot of room for licensing information?
> Should a good license for wikis make a distinction between print and
> online uses?
>
> I haven't heard anyone argue strongly for full inclusion of the
> _license text_. But I'd like to hear opinions on the inclusion of
> username lists.
>
> My personal preference would be a system where we have a special
> "credits" URL for each article, something like
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/credits/World_War_II
>
> which would list authors and also provide full licensing information
> for all media files. If we had a specific collection of articles, the
> system could support this using collection IDs:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/collection_credits/Bertelsmann_One_Volume_Encyclopedia
>
> (These URLs are completely made up and have no basis in reality.)
>
> The advantage that I see of such an approach is that it would allow us
> to standardize and continually refine the way we display authorship
> information, and benefit the free sharing of content with a very
> lightweight process. The disadvantage (if it is perceived as such) is
> that if we would officially recommend such attribution in printed
> books, individual contributors would be less likely to see their
> username in print. But we might see more print uses because it would
> make the attribution more manageable.
>
> It's also conceivable to require full author attribution for printed
> collections of a certain length or printed in certain quantity. (The
> GFDL has "in quantity" rules, but they do not seem to apply in any way
> to the authorship information.)
>
> Aside from what the legal implications of any given approach are, the
> first question I think that needs to be answered is what's desirable.
> Thoughts?
> --
> Erik Möller
> Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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Hoi,
The question is not what is compatible with the GFDL or CC-by-sa, the
question is what is appropriate. Those lead to different answers. I like
your approach to compare how things work in the real world and what is
stated in a license.

In the end it is about having a license that will work and that can be
enforced because it makes sense for our users.
Thanks,
GerardM

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 6:52 PM, Robert Rohde <rarohde@gmail.com> wrote:

> Let me make a radical suggestion. One that, for the moment, ignores
> all those overbearing legal questions.
>
> Why not assume that the appropriate amount of attribution for a
> Wikipedia article is essentially the amount that it has now?
>
> When you look at a Wikipedia article there is no list of authors
> (principal or otherwise). There is simply a link to "history", a
> statement at the bottom of the page saying that the content is under
> the GFDL, and a link to the GFDL. On the Wikipedia page itself, that
> is essentially the full extent of the licensing and attribution.
>
> I assume that practically all Wikipedia contributors are comfortable
> with recieving this very low level of attribution for Wikipedia
> articles.
>
> So, by extension, perhaps the goal should be finding a way to codify
> this scheme in a way that works both for us and for reusers. Namely,
> making the requirements for redistribution of Wikipedia content to
> simply be:
>
> 1) A link or reference to the article's history
> 2) A statement acknowledging the free content license
> 3) A link or reference to the text of that license
>
> That's very simple and practical. One can add some details regarding
> new versions and modifications, but even there I think you accomplish
> more by keeping it simple.
>
>
> Now I suspect there are about three dozen reasons why defining
> attribution as simply a link to the history page is legally impossible
> and incompatible with the GFDL. But even so, doesn't it make some
> sense to start with: How are Wikipedia articles being used? and work
> backwards backwards to construct the licensing scheme that best
> resembles actual practice while still being legally rigorous?
> Wikipedia authors don't seem to want or expect prominent and overt
> acknowledgements when writing articles, so why should our licensing
> scheme require reusers to add more overt statements than even we
> ourselves have?
>
> -Robert Rohde
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 12:46 PM, Erik Moeller <erik@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > The GFDL has specific attribution requirements that were designed for
> > software manuals. What's appropriate attribution for a wiki, where a
> > page can have thousands of authors, and a collection of pages is very
> > likely to? I would like to start a broad initial discussion on this
> > topic; it's likely that the issue will need to be raised more
> > specifically in the context of possible modifications to the GFDL or a
> > migration to CC-BY-SA.
> >
> > The relevant GFDL clause states: "List on the Title Page, as authors,
> > one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the
> > modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of
> > the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors,
> > if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this
> > requirement."
> >
> > Most people have chosen to ignore the "principal authors" requirement
> > and to try to attribute every author instead because there's no
> > obvious way to determine who the principal authors are. I remember a
> > few years back that Anthony tried a completely different approach,
> > where he created a full copy of Wikipedia (under the assumption that
> > it's a single GFDL work) and attributed it to five people on the
> > frontpage. Anthony, please correct me if my recollection is incorrect.
> >
> > The community process that has developed with regard to GFDL
> > compliance on the web has generally tacitly favored a link to the
> > article and to its history as proper credit. But, for printed books,
> > publishers have generally wanted to be more in compliance with the
> > letter of the license. So, the Bertelsmann "Wikipedia in one volume"
> > includes a looong list of authors in a very tiny font.
> >
> > Is that practical? How about Wikipedia articles on passenger
> > information systems (screens on subways, airplanes)? How about small
> > booklets where there isn't a lot of room for licensing information?
> > Should a good license for wikis make a distinction between print and
> > online uses?
> >
> > I haven't heard anyone argue strongly for full inclusion of the
> > _license text_. But I'd like to hear opinions on the inclusion of
> > username lists.
> >
> > My personal preference would be a system where we have a special
> > "credits" URL for each article, something like
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/credits/World_War_II
> >
> > which would list authors and also provide full licensing information
> > for all media files. If we had a specific collection of articles, the
> > system could support this using collection IDs:
> >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/collection_credits/Bertelsmann_One_Volume_Encyclopedia
> >
> > (These URLs are completely made up and have no basis in reality.)
> >
> > The advantage that I see of such an approach is that it would allow us
> > to standardize and continually refine the way we display authorship
> > information, and benefit the free sharing of content with a very
> > lightweight process. The disadvantage (if it is perceived as such) is
> > that if we would officially recommend such attribution in printed
> > books, individual contributors would be less likely to see their
> > username in print. But we might see more print uses because it would
> > make the attribution more manageable.
> >
> > It's also conceivable to require full author attribution for printed
> > collections of a certain length or printed in certain quantity. (The
> > GFDL has "in quantity" rules, but they do not seem to apply in any way
> > to the authorship information.)
> >
> > Aside from what the legal implications of any given approach are, the
> > first question I think that needs to be answered is what's desirable.
> > Thoughts?
> > --
> > Erik Möller
> > Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
> >
> > Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
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> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 11:57 AM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
> wrote:

> Hoi,
> I find it interesting to see how this thread is being weaved. If I read
> Erik
> correctly, he is asking us what appropriate attribution is. He is asking
> any
> and all observations. What I find is a thread about existing legalities.
>

The appropriate attribution is certainly no less than what was promised in
the first place.

When we observe the current practice, you find that people attribute by
> referring to Wikipedia.


Copyright violations on the Internet are rampant. So what?
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On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 4:40 AM, Anthony <wikimail@inbox.org> wrote:
....
> Absolutely agreed. My longstanding interpretation of the GFDL was that
> attribution of all (non de-minimus) authors was required, in the section
> Entitled History. Considering moral rights laws and the ethical principles
> behind them, I still believe this is the correct interpretation, and that
> the phrase "as given on its Title page" should be interpreted to apply only
> to "publisher of the Document".

I actually based my only-citing-five-authors-per-article tactic on
advice from Eben Moglen, who as I understood it, felt that as long as
our metric was consistent and we linked back to the history on
Wikipedia, citing all the authors of every article in our print
version was not necessary.

In general, I think part of the trouble with the GFDL as it stands is
that very different interpretations are not only possible but likely
among people who have spent a good deal of time thinking about and
studying it. The intention is clear -- provide appropriate attribution
to the people who wrote the thing you're trying to cite -- but the
implementation is entirely murky. Pity the random person who tries to
reuse content and has to figure out the license...
-- phoebe

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On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 1:07 PM, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>wrote:

> Hoi,
> The question is not what is compatible with the GFDL or CC-by-sa, the
> question is what is appropriate.


Appropriate for what? Are we considering starting a new project, or
something?
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On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 12:52 PM, Robert Rohde <rarohde@gmail.com> wrote:
> Why not assume that the appropriate amount of attribution for a
> Wikipedia article is essentially the amount that it has now?
[snip]

This is basically what is proposed at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GFDL_suggestions but there are a few
differences such as:

# Conventional named attribution be preserved in cases where it is
easy and reasonable to do so.

Consider, we copy an image from RandomFreeContentPhotoHost and stick
it in a Wikipedia article without the author's knoweldge. Joe
publisher takes just that image and uses it in his printed book, and
captions the image "RandomImage (source: Wikipedia.org;
http://.../randomimage.jpg)".

This may well surprise and offend the author, and we'll have to deal
with someone yelling at US saying they revoke the license, and yelling
at the reusers "the license says you must provide attribution!", the
mess here would be doubly compounded if in the meantime we'd deleted
the image and made the publisher look like a liar.

In cases where attribution can be directly provided, we should avoid
the middle-man. This will match people's expectations.

# that history requirement doesn't depend on you linking to a
particular site, but to any that provides the history, which avoids
making a special right for initial ISPs and webhosts

Imagine: Wikipedia turns evil and the entire community moves as a
whole to NotEvilPediaâ„¢. Does it make any sense that NotEvilPedia must
forever direct everyone to the evil Wikipedia forever and always
simply because Wikipedia was the initial webhost for the community?

Of course not, the purpose of needing a history link is to provide
the history information not to invent a new class of content ownership
for ISPs. Anyone with a complete copy of the history should be able
to fulfill the roll.
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On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 9:52 AM, Robert Rohde <rarohde@gmail.com> wrote:
> Let me make a radical suggestion. One that, for the moment, ignores
> all those overbearing legal questions.
>
> Why not assume that the appropriate amount of attribution for a
> Wikipedia article is essentially the amount that it has now?
>
> When you look at a Wikipedia article there is no list of authors
> (principal or otherwise). There is simply a link to "history", a
> statement at the bottom of the page saying that the content is under
> the GFDL, and a link to the GFDL. On the Wikipedia page itself, that
> is essentially the full extent of the licensing and attribution.
>
> I assume that practically all Wikipedia contributors are comfortable
> with recieving this very low level of attribution for Wikipedia
> articles.
>
> So, by extension, perhaps the goal should be finding a way to codify
> this scheme in a way that works both for us and for reusers. Namely,
> making the requirements for redistribution of Wikipedia content to
> simply be:
>
> 1) A link or reference to the article's history
> 2) A statement acknowledging the free content license
> 3) A link or reference to the text of that license

<snip>

Totally agreed with this. See my message upthread. My sample citation
is missing an acknowledgment of the license; add that in and I think
you'd be good to go for most purposes. I think the concept "this came
from a bunch of authors on Wikipedia" makes more sense, intuitively,
as a crediting device than trying to say "this came from JoeBlow9567,
a particular Wikipedia contributor with bits of help from half-a-dozen
other people."

As for the argument that's cropped up occasionally that most articles
have only a few primary articles -- that is true for many articles but
by no means all, and we need to develop a metric that will work with
all cases, not just many of them. Additionally, as we go along,
Wikipedia pages will simply acquire more authors, not less, and we
need to develop a metric that will work over time. The problem I faced
when citing policies that had thousands and thousands of substantial
revisions is a perfect example of this.

-- phoebe

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On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 1:08 PM, Anthony <wikimail@inbox.org> wrote:
> Copyright violations on the Internet are rampant. So what?

Another point about attribution which we need to be mindful of is the
proposed Orphan Works law in the US which is getting closer and closer
to passing: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s110-2913

I expect it to make attentive copyright holders far more aggressive.
We can expect to get perfunctory complaints about many of our valid
fair use images just as we already receive from trademark holders.

In particular we can expect copyright holders to become more
aggressive with respect to attribution because unattributed (or
incorrectly attributed) copies floating around on the Internet will
cause an effective loss (if only temporary) of copyright protection.

(The orphan works act as currently drafted also has other risks
outside of current topic of discussion, such as the prohibition
against injunctive relief and the pure monetary damages focus which
may wedge copyleft enforcement, at least for works claimed to be
orphaned)

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On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 10:13 AM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 12:52 PM, Robert Rohde <rarohde@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Why not assume that the appropriate amount of attribution for a
>> Wikipedia article is essentially the amount that it has now?
> [snip]
>
> This is basically what is proposed at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GFDL_suggestions but there are a few
> differences such as:
>
> # Conventional named attribution be preserved in cases where it is
> easy and reasonable to do so.
>
> Consider, we copy an image from RandomFreeContentPhotoHost and stick
> it in a Wikipedia article without the author's knoweldge. Joe
> publisher takes just that image and uses it in his printed book, and
> captions the image "RandomImage (source: Wikipedia.org;
> http://.../randomimage.jpg)".
>
> This may well surprise and offend the author, and we'll have to deal
> with someone yelling at US saying they revoke the license, and yelling
> at the reusers "the license says you must provide attribution!", the
> mess here would be doubly compounded if in the meantime we'd deleted
> the image and made the publisher look like a liar.
>
> In cases where attribution can be directly provided, we should avoid
> the middle-man. This will match people's expectations.
>
> # that history requirement doesn't depend on you linking to a
> particular site, but to any that provides the history, which avoids
> making a special right for initial ISPs and webhosts
>
> Imagine: Wikipedia turns evil and the entire community moves as a
> whole to NotEvilPedia™. Does it make any sense that NotEvilPedia must
> forever direct everyone to the evil Wikipedia forever and always
> simply because Wikipedia was the initial webhost for the community?
>
> Of course not, the purpose of needing a history link is to provide
> the history information not to invent a new class of content ownership
> for ISPs. Anyone with a complete copy of the history should be able
> to fulfill the roll.

Dude, now I really want to join NotEvilPedia. But where to host it? Sealand?

Also, agreed with both of these things, though how you determine
whether someone has a full copy of the history or not seems a little
dicey. We should really provide better easily-downloaded metadata for
articles (such as initial creation date, etc). And I would say that in
the photo example the proper credit would be both to the author & to
Wikipedia as source: Randomimage. (Credit: Joe Blow. Source:
Wikipedia.org, http://...randomimage.jpg, licensed under GFDL 11.16,
etc.)

-- phoebe

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Michael Bimmler writes:

> Thomas, Mike, as much as I'm amused by this debate, can we drop this
> here? It's getting unproductive, really.

I confess I am amused too, which is why I indulge myself. It's a bit
as if I were to show up at a programming conference and say something
like "You know, that C++ stuff is very complicated -- it requires a
knowledge of object-oriented-programming principles, you know."

If I were really self-important, I'd repeat this C++ pronunciamento
two or three times, ideally in front of a large group.


--m





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2008/10/21 Mike Godwin <mgodwin@wikimedia.org>:
>
> Michael Bimmler writes:
>
>> Thomas, Mike, as much as I'm amused by this debate, can we drop this
>> here? It's getting unproductive, really.
>
> I confess I am amused too, which is why I indulge myself. It's a bit
> as if I were to show up at a programming conference and say something
> like "You know, that C++ stuff is very complicated -- it requires a
> knowledge of object-oriented-programming principles, you know."
>
> If I were really self-important, I'd repeat this C++ pronunciamento
> two or three times, ideally in front of a large group.

To be more precise, it's as if you showed up to a programming
conference and said that to someone who had just dismissed OOP
principles as unimportant.

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