Mailing List Archive

2009/1/8 Erik Moeller <erik@wikimedia.org>:
> I'd appreciate thoughts & comments.
>

Working from bottom to top:

Most of the answer to "If the migration occurs, will it change what
image licenses are allowed to be used on WMF projects?" is unhelpful.
Historically the foundation has not been involved in determining the
freeness of any given license and this is not something I feel that it
is in a position to get involved in. For example the "However, this
will only happen" is questionable. For example if caselaw evolved to
the point where the GFDL was clearly found to be hard copyleft then
obviously we would have to remove such images even with no change to
CC-BY-SA. I also suspect we have if not more FAL images that GFDL 1.2
only then a similar number and failing to consider both cases doesn't
look ideal.

heh technically the "Does this migration affect both text and images,
or only text?" is in error (GFDL CC-BY-SA 3.0 duel licensed images are
likely not to be effected and legally won't be) but only a
technicality


FSF vs CC? Probably the first section should mention that the FSF is
firmly okey with this. At the moment mostly focuses on what CC have
done.

"How will re-users determine whether or not an article is available under GFDL?"

Could you explain what "licensing guidelines" is going to entail? In
addition where is the "where it was originally published" clause in
CC-BY-SA?

Even more fun if we consider the statement "Wikipedia can release
their newly written text under both GFDL and CC-BY-SA in parallel.
However, if they imported any external material that's available under
CC-BY-SA and not under GFDL, Wikipedia is bound by that."

The use of wikipedia in this sentence doesn't really make sense but
lets assume it is meant to be taken to be read as "people editing
wikipedia"

Now suppose I publish something under CC-BY-SA somewhere other than
wikipedia then import it into wikipedia. I don't have to make any
special mention that I'm importing it but the work would then become
CC-BY-SA only. Your suggested methods provide no way for reuses to
spot that.

I would go onto the rest of the section but I think I have made my
views on the whole duel licensing thing clear.

--
geni

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I'm curious (and not arguing it is the case) why due diligence here does not
involve e-mailing every person who has ever made an edit and has their
e-mail address in their profile.

On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 8:59 PM, Erik Moeller <erik@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Mike & I have made some updates to the Q&A today:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update/Questions_and_Answers
>
> Please let me know or edit the page if you feel further clarifications
> and answers are needed. Otherwise I'll prepare a translation request,
> probably on Friday.
>
> Meanwhile, I'm also working on the actual re-licensing proposal, so
> that we can discuss it with the Board this weekend. One question I'm
> struggling with, and would appreciate input on, is what voting method
> and process should be used to make the decision. I anticipate that it
> will be a simple yes/no vote, possibly with an explicit abstain
> option. I can see two approaches to implement the actual vote:
>
> 1) Use the BoardVote software. It's secure, well-tested and
> well-understood. It's more burdensome to set up, the process for
> counting votes is quite rigorous (accurate but burdensome), and it may
> be overkill for this purpose. Votes are private.
> 2) Use a vote on Meta, like we did for e.g. the Wikinews and
> Wikiversity project launch votes. It's easy, but suffers from edit
> conflicts, and accurate vote counting is hard. Votes are public.
>
> In the second case, the vote result would be less defensible - but
> since it's not a legal necessity to run a vote at all, that might be
> OK. It would be also easier to add comments, have detailed discussions
> on the talk page, etc. Importantly, since this is a complex problem,
> misunderstandings may be common, and in a public vote, they could be
> more easily corrected. In the first case, we could add a prominent
> link to the full proposal, the Q&A and all discussions to the voting
> interface, but it would still be a less wiki-like way of doing things.
>
> I'd appreciate thoughts & comments.
>
> --
> Erik Möller
> Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
> _______________________________________________
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> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>



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On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 4:59 AM, Erik Moeller <erik@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Mike & I have made some updates to the Q&A today:

I saw your answer. Thanks. "Transition period" began at the time of
announcing license migration up to the license migration; so, we are
in the transition period. Conservatively speaking, Wikimedia projects
shouldn't take any GFDL content from similar projects up to the time
when license conditions would be compatible [again] because according
to GFDL 1.3 conditions, no material made under the terms of GFDL can't
be added after [if I remember well] November 1st, 2008. While it
wouldn't be so big deal, it is good to have some official
recommendation like "if you want to do the same license migration,
please express your intention".

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> 1) Use the BoardVote software. It's secure, well-tested and
> well-understood. It's more burdensome to set up, the process for
> counting votes is quite rigorous (accurate but burdensome), and it may
> be overkill for this purpose. Votes are private.
> 2) Use a vote on Meta, like we did for e.g. the Wikinews and
> Wikiversity project launch votes. It's easy, but suffers from edit
> conflicts, and accurate vote counting is hard. Votes are public.

I'd vote for the BoardVote method - I'd say deciding what license
we're releasing things under is more important than electing board
members, so it doesn't seem like overkill to me.

Other decisions that need to be made regarding the vote are suffrage
and what level of majority is required.

Options for suffrage are many - you could say just 1 edit is required
on the grounds that anyone with a single edit is directly affected by
this proposal, so why shouldn't they be able to vote on it? You could
use the same suffrage requirements as board votes, since they are
commonly taken as a definition of community membership for the purpose
of votes. You could even weight votes by number of edits (one vote per
edit sounds like a bad idea to me but weighting by log(edits) may be
worth discussing).

As for majority required, I would say something more than 50% should
be necessary. We traditionally favour the status quo in pretty much
everything we do (except, for some reason, with the 3RR, I've never
understood that... but that's a discussion for another time and
place). Also, if we say 50% is all that's required and the result
comes out as 50.3% or something, you should know it's going to cause
massive drama (if we chose 60% and the results is 60.3% there is still
going to be plenty of drama, of course, but hopefully less). I'd go
with a requirement of 60%, but that's really just a number plucked out
of thin air, I welcome suggestions from people with actual reasons!

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On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 12:54 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>wrote:

> As for majority required, I would say something more than 50% should
> be necessary. We traditionally favour the status quo in pretty much
> everything we do (except, for some reason, with the 3RR, I've never
> understood that... but that's a discussion for another time and
> place). Also, if we say 50% is all that's required and the result
> comes out as 50.3% or something, you should know it's going to cause
> massive drama (if we chose 60% and the results is 60.3% there is still
> going to be plenty of drama, of course, but hopefully less). I'd go
> with a requirement of 60%, but that's really just a number plucked out
> of thin air, I welcome suggestions from people with actual reasons!


I'd say 100%, because you shouldn't purport to take away someone's right to
attribution without their permission.
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2009/1/8 Anthony <wikimail@inbox.org>:
> On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 12:54 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> As for majority required, I would say something more than 50% should
>> be necessary. We traditionally favour the status quo in pretty much
>> everything we do (except, for some reason, with the 3RR, I've never
>> understood that... but that's a discussion for another time and
>> place). Also, if we say 50% is all that's required and the result
>> comes out as 50.3% or something, you should know it's going to cause
>> massive drama (if we chose 60% and the results is 60.3% there is still
>> going to be plenty of drama, of course, but hopefully less). I'd go
>> with a requirement of 60%, but that's really just a number plucked out
>> of thin air, I welcome suggestions from people with actual reasons!
>
>
> I'd say 100%, because you shouldn't purport to take away someone's right to
> attribution without their permission.

We discussing a move to CC-****BY****-SA, attribution is still
required. I'm not an expert on the attribution requirements of
CC-BY-SA (I've just read them, but it isn't entirely clear to me
whether Original Author is, in the context of a wiki, just the latest
editor or all editors), but it seems clear to me that we can require
people to link back to Wikipedia (in particular, the history page) so
that everyone is, at least indirectly, attributed. Given that that's
how most people are using the GFDL anyway, I really don't see the
problem.

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On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 2:30 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>wrote:

> 2009/1/8 Anthony <wikimail@inbox.org>:
> > On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 12:54 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com
> >wrote:
> >
> >> As for majority required, I would say something more than 50% should
> >> be necessary. We traditionally favour the status quo in pretty much
> >> everything we do (except, for some reason, with the 3RR, I've never
> >> understood that... but that's a discussion for another time and
> >> place). Also, if we say 50% is all that's required and the result
> >> comes out as 50.3% or something, you should know it's going to cause
> >> massive drama (if we chose 60% and the results is 60.3% there is still
> >> going to be plenty of drama, of course, but hopefully less). I'd go
> >> with a requirement of 60%, but that's really just a number plucked out
> >> of thin air, I welcome suggestions from people with actual reasons!
> >
> >
> > I'd say 100%, because you shouldn't purport to take away someone's right
> to
> > attribution without their permission.
>
> We discussing a move to CC-****BY****-SA, attribution is still
> required.
>

Maybe, but that's not what the FAQ says.

I'm not an expert on the attribution requirements of
> CC-BY-SA (I've just read them, but it isn't entirely clear to me
> whether Original Author is, in the context of a wiki, just the latest
> editor or all editors),


Yes, CC-BY-SA is extremely confusing on this point. That's another reason
not to use it.

but it seems clear to me that we can require
> people to link back to Wikipedia (in particular, the history page) so
> that everyone is, at least indirectly, attributed. Given that that's
> how most people are using the GFDL anyway, I really don't see the
> problem.


There are very few offline reusers of Wikipedia content. I know of none
that are using more than de minimis portions of my content without
attributing me. If you know of any, please, tell me who they are, and I'll
send a cease and desist to them.

This switch to CC-BY-SA is clearly going to open the door for offline
reusers to use Wikipedia content without attributing authors beyond listing
one or more URLs. In fact, it's quite clear from discussions which have
taken place on this list that this is the main point of making the switch.
The WMF condoning and facilitating such behavior is absolutely unacceptable,
no matter how many people "vote" to do so.

You actually seem to recognize this to some extent, in that you realize that
a 51% vote is not sufficient. But then you randomly pick 60% as a magic
threshold to use instead. You welcomed alternate suggestions with actual
reasons, and I gave you one. 100%, because you shouldn't purport to take
away someone's right to attribution without their permission.

Even Mike Godwin seemed to recognize this principle in his early discussions
on the topic, when he suggested that there would be a way to opt-out of the
relicensing. But my single question which I presented for the FAQ was left
unanswered. How can I opt out?
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Another question: Given the WMF admission in the FAQ that the GFDL has *
never* been followed in re-use of Wikipedia content due to the insane
difficulty of doing so, and given its rampant "illegal" re-use on the web,
and the WMF's ignoring this illegal re-use for years on end, what chance is
there that a court of law would find that the GFDL actually applies to this
content were someone to sue a re-user?

Isn't it true that the efforts to force re-users to appropriately atrribute
the content have not actually asked them to follow the letter of the GFDL?

Is a license that is never enforced truly a license, in the legal sense?

On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 11:04 PM, Brian <Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu> wrote:

> I'm curious (and not arguing it is the case) why due diligence here does
> not involve e-mailing every person who has ever made an edit and has their
> e-mail address in their profile.
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 8:59 PM, Erik Moeller <erik@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> Mike & I have made some updates to the Q&A today:
>>
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update/Questions_and_Answers
>>
>> Please let me know or edit the page if you feel further clarifications
>> and answers are needed. Otherwise I'll prepare a translation request,
>> probably on Friday.
>>
>> Meanwhile, I'm also working on the actual re-licensing proposal, so
>> that we can discuss it with the Board this weekend. One question I'm
>> struggling with, and would appreciate input on, is what voting method
>> and process should be used to make the decision. I anticipate that it
>> will be a simple yes/no vote, possibly with an explicit abstain
>> option. I can see two approaches to implement the actual vote:
>>
>> 1) Use the BoardVote software. It's secure, well-tested and
>> well-understood. It's more burdensome to set up, the process for
>> counting votes is quite rigorous (accurate but burdensome), and it may
>> be overkill for this purpose. Votes are private.
>> 2) Use a vote on Meta, like we did for e.g. the Wikinews and
>> Wikiversity project launch votes. It's easy, but suffers from edit
>> conflicts, and accurate vote counting is hard. Votes are public.
>>
>> In the second case, the vote result would be less defensible - but
>> since it's not a legal necessity to run a vote at all, that might be
>> OK. It would be also easier to add comments, have detailed discussions
>> on the talk page, etc. Importantly, since this is a complex problem,
>> misunderstandings may be common, and in a public vote, they could be
>> more easily corrected. In the first case, we could add a prominent
>> link to the full proposal, the Q&A and all discussions to the voting
>> interface, but it would still be a less wiki-like way of doing things.
>>
>> I'd appreciate thoughts & comments.
>>
>> --
>> 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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2009/1/8 Anthony <wikimail@inbox.org>:
> This switch to CC-BY-SA is clearly going to open the door for offline
> reusers to use Wikipedia content without attributing authors beyond listing
> one or more URLs. In fact, it's quite clear from discussions which have
> taken place on this list that this is the main point of making the switch.

That is incorrect and an assumption of bad faith. If you read the
actual Q&A the reasons for re-licensing are very clearly and correctly
stated. The primary and motivating reason for offering content under
CC-BY-SA has always been full license compatibility. The secondary
reason has been the overall complexity of the GFDL which makes it
burdensome for re-users. Full duplication of history sections is only
one aspect of that overall complexity.

That said, it's always been an accepted practice for web use to
attribute by linking to the history. Because CC-BY-SA allows
attribution requirements to be detailed in terms of use, it will make
it straightforward for us to codify attribution requirements in a
manner that is accepted and largely mirrors current practice. In fact,
the language that could be used for this purpose could be very similar
to the one proposed by Gregory Maxwell here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GFDL_suggestions#Proposed_attribution_text

My question for anyone opposed to this approach is this: Do you
acknowledge that there is a problem with GFDL-licensing in terms of
compatibility and ease of re-use, and if so, how do you propose to
solve it? As far as I am concerned, if there is any moral case to be
made here, it's a clear and strong moral case for maximizing
information freedom through license compatibility and clear,
consistent usage guidelines.
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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2009/1/8 Anthony <wikimail@inbox.org>:
> Maybe, but that's not what the FAQ says.

Where exactly does it say that attribution is not required under CC-BY-SA 3.0?


> Yes, CC-BY-SA is extremely confusing on this point. That's another reason
> not to use it.

""Original Author" means, in the case of a literary or artistic work,
the individual, individuals, entity or entities who created the Work"

It's all editors (unless the most recent version is not derived from
previous versions). If you find that "extremely confusing" what makes
you think you are in a position to have informed opinions in this
area? Compared to many issues related to free licenses it is very
simple.


> This switch to CC-BY-SA is clearly going to open the door for offline
> reusers to use Wikipedia content without attributing authors beyond listing
> one or more URLs.

That would depend on the legal system and is somewhat questionable
even then. Arguing that a URL is "reasonable to the medium or means"
in the case of say a book would be tricky to do.

> In fact, it's quite clear from discussions which have
> taken place on this list that this is the main point of making the switch.

Not at all. There are quite a number of benefits. In fact one thing
the switch doesn't do is address the problem that copyright law as we
know it doesn't work to well about 20 authors. Other than MITT and
BSD style licenses all free licenses break down when you throw enough
authors at them.

> The WMF condoning and facilitating such behavior is absolutely unacceptable,
> no matter how many people "vote" to do so.

Ever read the foundation mission statement? See the "disseminate it
effectively and globally" bit. I would regard it as unacceptable for
them not to switch.

> You actually seem to recognize this to some extent, in that you realize that
> a 51% vote is not sufficient. But then you randomly pick 60% as a magic
> threshold to use instead. You welcomed alternate suggestions with actual
> reasons, and I gave you one. 100%, because you shouldn't purport to take
> away someone's right to attribution without their permission.

Reasons that are consistent with reality would probably do rather better.

> Even Mike Godwin seemed to recognize this principle in his early discussions
> on the topic, when he suggested that there would be a way to opt-out of the
> relicensing. But my single question which I presented for the FAQ was left
> unanswered. How can I opt out?

By not editing wikimedia foundation projects other than some wikinews projects.

--
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Anthony wrote:
> There are very few offline reusers of Wikipedia content. I know of none
> that are using more than de minimis portions of my content without
> attributing me. If you know of any, please, tell me who they are, and I'll
> send a cease and desist to them.
>
> This switch to CC-BY-SA is clearly going to open the door for offline
> reusers to use Wikipedia content without attributing authors beyond listing
> one or more URLs. In fact, it's quite clear from discussions which have
> taken place on this list that this is the main point of making the switch.
> The WMF condoning and facilitating such behavior is absolutely unacceptable,
> no matter how many people "vote" to do so.
>

This is a bad thing? Whatever happened to that "spreading free content"
goal we had? Or does that only apply on the internet?

There probably aren't many offline reusers because they're either
entirely non-compliant and we have no idea that they exist or they want
to be compliant, read the terms of the GFDL, and decide not to bother
with our content.
--
Alex (wikipedia:en:User:Mr.Z-man)

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>> We discussing a move to CC-****BY****-SA, attribution is still
>> required.
>>
>
> Maybe, but that's not what the FAQ says.

Um... yes it is...

>> I'm not an expert on the attribution requirements of
>> CC-BY-SA (I've just read them, but it isn't entirely clear to me
>> whether Original Author is, in the context of a wiki, just the latest
>> editor or all editors),
>
>
> Yes, CC-BY-SA is extremely confusing on this point. That's another reason
> not to use it.
>
>> but it seems clear to me that we can require
>> people to link back to Wikipedia (in particular, the history page) so
>> that everyone is, at least indirectly, attributed. Given that that's
>> how most people are using the GFDL anyway, I really don't see the
>> problem.
>
>
> There are very few offline reusers of Wikipedia content. I know of none
> that are using more than de minimis portions of my content without
> attributing me. If you know of any, please, tell me who they are, and I'll
> send a cease and desist to them.
>
> This switch to CC-BY-SA is clearly going to open the door for offline
> reusers to use Wikipedia content without attributing authors beyond listing
> one or more URLs. In fact, it's quite clear from discussions which have
> taken place on this list that this is the main point of making the switch.
> The WMF condoning and facilitating such behavior is absolutely unacceptable,
> no matter how many people "vote" to do so.

I don't think that's clear at all. I don't know how many authors you
are meant to attribute things to under CC-BY-SA, it may well be all of
them. I need to do more research (or, I need someone to tell me the
answer!).

> You actually seem to recognize this to some extent, in that you realize that
> a 51% vote is not sufficient. But then you randomly pick 60% as a magic
> threshold to use instead. You welcomed alternate suggestions with actual
> reasons, and I gave you one. 100%, because you shouldn't purport to take
> away someone's right to attribution without their permission.

My reason for thinking we need more than 50% has nothing to do with
the acceptability or otherwise of the proposal but rather, as I said,
our tradition of favouring the status quo. Yes, you gave a number with
a reason, thank you for that, I just disagree with the reason.

> Even Mike Godwin seemed to recognize this principle in his early discussions
> on the topic, when he suggested that there would be a way to opt-out of the
> relicensing. But my single question which I presented for the FAQ was left
> unanswered. How can I opt out?

I'm not sure Mike was thinking clearly when he said that - I don't see
any way someone that has made a significant number of edits could
opt-out. The work required in tracing what parts of what articles are
derivative of your edits would make removing your edits infeasible, so
every article you've edited would have to remain under only GFDL,
which dramatically reduces the usefulness of the changeover. And
that's before we consider articles that have been merged and other
means by which text is moved from one article to another.

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On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 5:01 PM, Erik Moeller <erik@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> 2009/1/8 Anthony <wikimail@inbox.org>:
> > This switch to CC-BY-SA is clearly going to open the door for offline
> > reusers to use Wikipedia content without attributing authors beyond
> listing
> > one or more URLs. In fact, it's quite clear from discussions which have
> > taken place on this list that this is the main point of making the
> switch.
>
> That is incorrect and an assumption of bad faith. If you read the
> actual Q&A the reasons for re-licensing are very clearly and correctly
> stated.


I've read your FAQ. I've already read your "declaration of bias" and your
"ideology". I'm not assuming bad faith. I've concluded it.


> My question for anyone opposed to this approach is this: Do you
> acknowledge that there is a problem with GFDL-licensing in terms of
> compatibility and ease of re-use, and if so, how do you propose to
> solve it?


I don't think there's a problem with GFDL-licensing. I think there's a
problem with the fact that the WMF (and before that, Wikia) have refused to
facilitate the application of it.


> As far as I am concerned, if there is any moral case to be
> made here, it's a clear and strong moral case for maximizing
> information freedom through license compatibility and clear,
> consistent usage guidelines.


Sure, you're strongly opposed to all types of "intellectual property". Of
course, I can't really figure out why. You say you're not a libertarian,
and you say you're not a socialist. What's your problem with intellectual
property?
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2009/1/8 Brian <Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu>:
> Another question: Given the WMF admission in the FAQ that the GFDL has *
> never* been followed in re-use of Wikipedia content due to the insane
> difficulty of doing so, and given its rampant "illegal" re-use on the web,
> and the WMF's ignoring this illegal re-use for years on end, what chance is
> there that a court of law would find that the GFDL actually applies to this
> content were someone to sue a re-user?
>
> Isn't it true that the efforts to force re-users to appropriately atrribute
> the content have not actually asked them to follow the letter of the GFDL?
>
> Is a license that is never enforced truly a license, in the legal sense?

The license is between the author and the re-user, the fact that the
WMF has tolerated it being violated is irrelevant. You can lose a
trademark by not defending it, but I don't think the same applies to
copyrights, so unless the individual owner can be shown to have said
it was all right not to follow the license to the letter, I don't see
why they can't sue. (IANAL, YMMV, BBQ)

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> I don't think there's a problem with GFDL-licensing. I think there's a
> problem with the fact that the WMF (and before that, Wikia) have refused to
> facilitate the application of it.

What? Wikia predates WMF? News to me...

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I was under the impression that the WMF does hold a copyright over the
entirety of a particular Wikipedia as they offer that collection for
download. And re-users often use these dumps as seeds for their "illegal"
re-use.

http://download.wikimedia.org

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 3:20 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>wrote:

> 2009/1/8 Brian <Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu>:
> > Another question: Given the WMF admission in the FAQ that the GFDL has *
> > never* been followed in re-use of Wikipedia content due to the insane
> > difficulty of doing so, and given its rampant "illegal" re-use on the
> web,
> > and the WMF's ignoring this illegal re-use for years on end, what chance
> is
> > there that a court of law would find that the GFDL actually applies to
> this
> > content were someone to sue a re-user?
> >
> > Isn't it true that the efforts to force re-users to appropriately
> atrribute
> > the content have not actually asked them to follow the letter of the
> GFDL?
> >
> > Is a license that is never enforced truly a license, in the legal sense?
>
> The license is between the author and the re-user, the fact that the
> WMF has tolerated it being violated is irrelevant. You can lose a
> trademark by not defending it, but I don't think the same applies to
> copyrights, so unless the individual owner can be shown to have said
> it was all right not to follow the license to the letter, I don't see
> why they can't sue. (IANAL, YMMV, BBQ)
>
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On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 5:23 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>wrote:

> > I don't think there's a problem with GFDL-licensing. I think there's a
> > problem with the fact that the WMF (and before that, Wikia) have refused
> to
> > facilitate the application of it.
>
> What? Wikia predates WMF? News to me...


The other one :)...Bomis (really, Jimbo, but technically, Bomis).
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On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 5:24 PM, Brian <Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu> wrote:

> I was under the impression that the WMF does hold a copyright over the
> entirety of a particular Wikipedia as they offer that collection for
> download. And re-users often use these dumps as seeds for their "illegal"
> re-use.
>
> http://download.wikimedia.org


The WMF doesn't hold a copyright over the dumps, they merely distribute it
(in violation of copyright law, I might add).
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2009/1/8 Brian <Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu>:
> I was under the impression that the WMF does hold a copyright over the
> entirety of a particular Wikipedia as they offer that collection for
> download. And re-users often use these dumps as seeds for their "illegal"
> re-use.

IANAL, but I think you need to have had a creative input in the work
to hold a copyright to it, what creative input has WMF had is
combining all the articles into one dump?

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Who owns the copyright for the selection, coordination or arrangement of the
dumps?

http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat092303.html

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 3:33 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>wrote:

> 2009/1/8 Brian <Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu>:
> > I was under the impression that the WMF does hold a copyright over the
> > entirety of a particular Wikipedia as they offer that collection for
> > download. And re-users often use these dumps as seeds for their "illegal"
> > re-use.
>
> IANAL, but I think you need to have had a creative input in the work
> to hold a copyright to it, what creative input has WMF had is
> combining all the articles into one dump?
>
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On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Brian <Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu> wrote:
> Who owns the copyright for the selection, coordination or arrangement of the
> dumps?
>
> http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat092303.html
>

You are citing a proposed bill from 2003-04 that never made it to the
floor for a vote.

To the more general point, I would personally argue that Feist v.
Rural [1] applies to the dumps and the selection / arrangement is
ineligible for copyright. Hence, in my opinion, there is no copyright
for the dump as a whole, though the individual articles in contains
are certainly eligible for copyright.

-Robert Rohde

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Telephone_Service

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2009/1/8 geni <geniice@gmail.com>:

> Not at all. There are quite a number of benefits. In fact one thing
> the switch doesn't do is address the problem that copyright law as we
> know it doesn't work to well about 20 authors. Other than MITT and
> BSD style licenses all free licenses break down when you throw enough
> authors at them.


Depends what you call "enough", but the GPL is doing okay.


- d.

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Specifically I cite the historical perspective as laid out by their general
counsel, and not the entire bill. I will read this case.

On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Robert Rohde <rarohde@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Brian <Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu> wrote:
> > Who owns the copyright for the selection, coordination or arrangement of
> the
> > dumps?
> >
> > http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat092303.html
> >
>
> You are citing a proposed bill from 2003-04 that never made it to the
> floor for a vote.
>
> To the more general point, I would personally argue that Feist v.
> Rural [1] applies to the dumps and the selection / arrangement is
> ineligible for copyright. Hence, in my opinion, there is no copyright
> for the dump as a whole, though the individual articles in contains
> are certainly eligible for copyright.
>
> -Robert Rohde
>
> [1]
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Telephone_Service
>
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Anthony writes:

> Even Mike Godwin seemed to recognize this principle in his early
> discussions
> on the topic, when he suggested that there would be a way to opt-out
> of the
> relicensing. But my single question which I presented for the FAQ
> was left
> unanswered. How can I opt out?

My suggestion that editors might choose to opt out was informed by my
strong belief that only a very editors would even want to.
Contributions to wiki projects are already subject to an immense
amount of merger and conflation with other people's contributions, but
I suppose if anyone really felt that the copyrights in *his particular
edits* were being used in a way that violated his intent to license
them freely for others to use, that that person probably would feel
strongly enough to review some or all of his edits and remove them.
Obviously, anyone that passionate about this issue will have the
energy to do this. My expressed view was that we not stand in such a
person's way.

Brian writes:

> Is a license that is never enforced truly a license, in the legal
> sense?

Sure. The fact that GFDL attribution requirements have never been
strictly followed on Wikipedia does not entail that somehow the GFDL
has vanished or doesn't apply. A more lawyerly interpretation of the
facts would be to understand that contributors have some pretty strict
rights to attribution under the (earlier) GFDL that they don't
enforce. A right in copyright that a rights-holder chooses not to
enforce does not normally evaporate for that reason.

Alex writes:

> There probably aren't many offline reusers because they're either
> entirely non-compliant and we have no idea that they exist or they
> want
> to be compliant, read the terms of the GFDL, and decide not to bother
> with our content.

This is absolutely one of the problems this license-harmonization
effort is trying to address. (Another, obviously, is to move towards a
licensing approach that reflects Wikipedia's actual practice.)

Thomas Dalton writes:

> I'm not sure Mike was thinking clearly when he said that - I don't see
> any way someone that has made a significant number of edits could
> opt-out. The work required in tracing what parts of what articles are
> derivative of your edits would make removing your edits infeasible, so
> every article you've edited would have to remain under only GFDL,
> which dramatically reduces the usefulness of the changeover. And
> that's before we consider articles that have been merged and other
> means by which text is moved from one article to another.

I *think* I was thinking clearly -- I didn't mean to suggest that it
would be trivial for an editor massively concerned about the
changeover to remove all his or her edits. Obviously, for some editors
it would be practically impossible. For others it might be possible,
and for still others removal of a few edits or articles might be all
the editor really wants to do.

But I was actually trying to draw some attention to the fact that
claiming copyright interests in particular *edits*, while
theoretically valid under copyright law, are close to absurd in
practical terms. Leaving aside the cases where editors made
substantial additions (or even drafted whole articles) -- the easiest
cases in other words -- I would think that most of the editors who so
radically object to the license harmonization that they want to leave
Wikipedia altogether would be satisfied by opting out of making
further contributions. I'm not sanguine about that prospect -- I
would prefer that they continue on as editors -- but the unwieldiness
and compatibility problems created by our current licensing scheme are
a much bigger problem than that, and a much bigger threat to our
mission.


--Mike





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