Renata St wrote:
> I am not objecting to publishing Wikipedia. If someone wants to put an
> honest effort into producing Wikipedia CDs/DVDs/books -- more power to them.
> But please label in big clear letters "copied from Wikipedia" on the cover
> for everyone to see. I know German Wikipedia was published on a DVD -- I
> have zero objections to that. I also know that the "book extension" to
> mediawiki was added exactly for this purpose. But in this particular case I
> think it's rather abusive.
>
> Renata
>
Wading into this discussion with a firesuit, I'd like to point out that
my own experience in publishing a book based on content from a Wikimedia
project (in my case it was the print publication of the Wikijunior Big
Cats book on Wikibooks) I had a pretty nasty response from the WMF board
in regards to the use of any Wikimedia trademark that I am gun shy from
even mentioning that the content might have even a mention of a
Wikimedia "trademark" like "Wikipedia".
I'll admit that I made some mistakes in creating that book, including an
assumption that the WMF could be listed as one of the "authors" and the
nebulous issue of the use of the working title of the book on Wikibooks,
which used the name "Wikijunior" prominently on the cover (presumably
one of the invariant sections under the GFDL.... depending on how you
interpreted that clause). Even so, the deliberate actions of the WMF
board in this case killed this particular effort to independently
publish on paper content from at least one Wikimedia project.
I acknowledge that about the only real asset that the WMF has to work
with in terms of fund raising is the licensing of their trademarks.
Unfortunately, even now, the formal WMF policies in terms of when and
where these trademarks might legitimately be used by 3rd parties without
formally entering into a legal contract with the WMF is quite ambiguous
and more akin to wondering what the legal limits of using any commercial
trademark like "Coca-Cola" might be (is this even an illegal use of
trademark)?
From this experience, it is to me no small wonder that somebody trying
to republish content from Wikipedia might even have some formal legal
advise to simply not even mention that the content came from Wikipedia
or any other Wikimedia website, and try to abide by the most strict
interpretation of the content licensing (GFDL/CC-by-SA, ect.) that does
exist.
In my case, I would like to acknowledge the role of the WMF and the
specific projects like Wikipedia, Wikinews, or Wikibooks that
publications like this came from. But once burned, it becomes hard to
come back and try again.
No, I am not affiliated with Alphascript either, although it sounds like
something I wouldn't mind trying to duplicate at some point in the
future. As I said, I even tried.
-- Robert Horning
____________________________________________________________
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http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2241/fc/BLSrjpYbk8p42wmusnomBznPalOWFuy7YCuE5JzOMZoqO9Pz0bKTxAC6Xvy/
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> I am not objecting to publishing Wikipedia. If someone wants to put an
> honest effort into producing Wikipedia CDs/DVDs/books -- more power to them.
> But please label in big clear letters "copied from Wikipedia" on the cover
> for everyone to see. I know German Wikipedia was published on a DVD -- I
> have zero objections to that. I also know that the "book extension" to
> mediawiki was added exactly for this purpose. But in this particular case I
> think it's rather abusive.
>
> Renata
>
Wading into this discussion with a firesuit, I'd like to point out that
my own experience in publishing a book based on content from a Wikimedia
project (in my case it was the print publication of the Wikijunior Big
Cats book on Wikibooks) I had a pretty nasty response from the WMF board
in regards to the use of any Wikimedia trademark that I am gun shy from
even mentioning that the content might have even a mention of a
Wikimedia "trademark" like "Wikipedia".
I'll admit that I made some mistakes in creating that book, including an
assumption that the WMF could be listed as one of the "authors" and the
nebulous issue of the use of the working title of the book on Wikibooks,
which used the name "Wikijunior" prominently on the cover (presumably
one of the invariant sections under the GFDL.... depending on how you
interpreted that clause). Even so, the deliberate actions of the WMF
board in this case killed this particular effort to independently
publish on paper content from at least one Wikimedia project.
I acknowledge that about the only real asset that the WMF has to work
with in terms of fund raising is the licensing of their trademarks.
Unfortunately, even now, the formal WMF policies in terms of when and
where these trademarks might legitimately be used by 3rd parties without
formally entering into a legal contract with the WMF is quite ambiguous
and more akin to wondering what the legal limits of using any commercial
trademark like "Coca-Cola" might be (is this even an illegal use of
trademark)?
From this experience, it is to me no small wonder that somebody trying
to republish content from Wikipedia might even have some formal legal
advise to simply not even mention that the content came from Wikipedia
or any other Wikimedia website, and try to abide by the most strict
interpretation of the content licensing (GFDL/CC-by-SA, ect.) that does
exist.
In my case, I would like to acknowledge the role of the WMF and the
specific projects like Wikipedia, Wikinews, or Wikibooks that
publications like this came from. But once burned, it becomes hard to
come back and try again.
No, I am not affiliated with Alphascript either, although it sounds like
something I wouldn't mind trying to duplicate at some point in the
future. As I said, I even tried.
-- Robert Horning
____________________________________________________________
Workers Compensation Legal Advice. Click here
http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2241/fc/BLSrjpYbk8p42wmusnomBznPalOWFuy7YCuE5JzOMZoqO9Pz0bKTxAC6Xvy/
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