Mailing List Archive

> "After the consultation with Wikimedia lawyers I can inform you that
> it is acceptable to import content to our Wiki under the licence
> disallowing its commercial re-use,"

It might be legally acceptable, but I don't personally feel it is
acceptable from a policy point of view. The aim of Wikimedia is to
create and distribute free content. CC-BY-NC is not a free licence
since it can not be re-used commercially, unlike the rest of the
content in our projects.

If e-Polityka.pl have agreed to relicence their content as PD, then I
see no reason that we would not simply use it as PD content rather
than putting NC restrictions on it.

Angela

I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as
I can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it
with restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would
be. If someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love
to hear them.

Andre Engels


On 5/5/05, Tomasz Sienicki <tsca@edb.dk> wrote:
>
> "After the consultation with Wikimedia lawyers I can inform you that
> it is acceptable to import content to our Wiki under the licence
> disallowing its commercial re-use," wrote the admin of one of the
> Wikimedia projects and entered into a co-operation with a certain
> external service (with the aim of importing their content to the Wiki
> under such non-commmercial re-use only licence; although the service
> agreed to relicence their content as PD, the admin suggested CC BY-NC).
>
> My personal opinion is that this goes against the policy of Wikimedia
> and violates the principles crucial to a lot of people who contribute
> to the Wikis. I don't mention names here as I believe it is a
> misunderstanding and that the person in question acts in good faith.
>
> However, I'd like to hear the Board's official opinion: are there
> circumstances under which the above licence is acceptable for
> Wikimedia Wikis (texts)? Is it even debatable?
>
> Thank you,
> [[m:user:tsca]]
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

On Thu, 05 May 2005 15:53:09 +0200, Andre Engels wrote:

> I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as I
> can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it with
> restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would be. If
> someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love to hear
> them.

This concerns Wikinews, currently under PD.

On 5/5/05, Tomasz Sienicki <tsca@edb.dk> wrote:
> On Thu, 05 May 2005 15:53:09 +0200, Andre Engels wrote:
>
> > I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as I
> > can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it with
> > restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would be. If
> > someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love to hear
> > them.
>
> This concerns Wikinews, currently under PD.

In that case it's a matter of what is stated on the page about
licensing information. If everything is automatically considered PD,
it's not possible; if it does not give licensing information, it is.
Still, as Angela says, if we can get it under PD (or CC-BY, CC-SA,
CC-BY-SA, GNU/FDL, GPL or another license not significantly stricter
than GNU/FDL), there is no reason to restrict it further.

Andre Engels

As things are now, Wikinews says "All content of the Wikinews Beta is
in the public domain", so non-PD material cannot be included.

Andre Engels

On 5/5/05, Tomasz Sienicki <tsca@edb.dk> wrote:
> On Thu, 05 May 2005 15:53:09 +0200, Andre Engels wrote:
>
> > I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as I
> > can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it with
> > restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would be. If
> > someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love to hear
> > them.
>
> This concerns Wikinews, currently under PD.

>
> If e-Polityka.pl have agreed to relicence their content as PD, then I
> see no reason that we would not simply use it as PD content rather
> than putting NC restrictions on it.
>
>
That would be a very simple solution.

On 5/5/05, Andre Engels <andreengels@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as
> I can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it
> with restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would
> be. If someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love
> to hear them.
>
> Andre Engels
>
>
> On 5/5/05, Tomasz Sienicki <tsca@edb.dk> wrote:
> >
> > "After the consultation with Wikimedia lawyers I can inform you that
> > it is acceptable to import content to our Wiki under the licence
> > disallowing its commercial re-use," wrote the admin of one of the
> > Wikimedia projects and entered into a co-operation with a certain
> > external service (with the aim of importing their content to the Wiki
> > under such non-commmercial re-use only licence; although the service
> > agreed to relicence their content as PD, the admin suggested CC BY-NC).
> >
> > My personal opinion is that this goes against the policy of Wikimedia
> > and violates the principles crucial to a lot of people who contribute
> > to the Wikis. I don't mention names here as I believe it is a
> > misunderstanding and that the person in question acts in good faith.
> >
> > However, I'd like to hear the Board's official opinion: are there
> > circumstances under which the above licence is acceptable for
> > Wikimedia Wikis (texts)? Is it even debatable?
> >
> > Thank you,
> > [[m:user:tsca]]

It seems to me that this would immediately be a problem for any
Wikimedia content mirror that includes ads. Couldn't that be construed
as a commercial use? Perhaps Wikimedia would not be legally
responsible, since Wikimedia would not be using it for a commercial
purpose, but do we really want to put all the mirrors into such a
position?

Is Wikimedia syndicating content for a fee? Is that a "commercial purpose"?

All of which says nothing of the more basic problem that m:user:tsca
raises -- GFDL compliance. What happens when someone posts content to
one of the Wikimedia sites and simultaneously claims a more
restrictive license? Does the standard language "by posting you agree
that the content is released under GFDL..." take precedent over the
user's statement that "this content is released under CC BY-NC..."?

I notice that on en:Wikipedia there are templates for such things as
{MultiLicenseWithCC-ByNCSA}} and {{MultiLicenseWithCC-ByNCND}} that
attempt to do just that.

Of course, IANAL...in case anyone had any doubts ;-)

-- Rich Holton

[[W:en:User:Rholton]]

On Thu, 05 May 2005 16:04:31 +0200, Andre Engels wrote:

> as Angela says, if we can get it under PD (or CC-BY, CC-SA, CC-BY-SA,
> GNU/FDL, GPL or another license not significantly stricter than GNU/FDL),
> there is no reason to restrict it further.

No question about it, this case is simple: of course there's no reason
for adopting a non-commercial licence for the content that we can get under PD.

And about some next time, when we can't: it was my understanding that Wikimedia
would not consider non-commercial licences as a rule, not on a case-by-case basis.
I feel Angela's mail has confirmed this.

[[m:user:tsca]]

>
> It seems to me that this would immediately be a problem for any
> Wikimedia content mirror that includes ads.
> Couldn't that be construed
> as a commercial use?

Yes

> Perhaps Wikimedia would not be legally
> responsible, since Wikimedia would not be using it for a commercial
> purpose, but do we really want to put all the mirrors into such a
> position?

Can't they select the content they use ?

>
> All of which says nothing of the more basic problem that m:user:tsca
> raises -- GFDL compliance. What happens when someone posts content to
> one of the Wikimedia sites and simultaneously claims a more
> restrictive license? Does the standard language "by posting you agree
> that the content is released under GFDL..." take precedent over the
> user's statement that "this content is released under CC BY-NC..."?

I am not sure I exactly understand your case, but that would be
dual-licensing. The user would be able to choose the license he prefers
for this content.

--- Tomasz Sienicki <tsca@edb.dk> wrote:
>
> "After the consultation with Wikimedia lawyers I can inform you that
> it is acceptable to import content to our Wiki under the licence
> disallowing its commercial re-use," wrote the admin of one of the
> Wikimedia projects and entered into a co-operation with a certain
> external service (with the aim of importing their content to the Wiki
> under such non-commmercial re-use only licence; although the service
> agreed to relicence their content as PD, the admin suggested CC BY-NC).

Wikimedia lawyers? Since when have we had lawyers? Who the hell is this admin?
Admins do not have any authority to enter into any agreement on behalf of the
foundation without board approval.

> My personal opinion is that this goes against the policy of Wikimedia
> and violates the principles crucial to a lot of people who contribute
> to the Wikis.

Not just opinion, you are exactly right. It is also a clear violation of the
GNU FDL.

-- mav




Yahoo! Mail
Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html

Okay, okay, since the admin in question is me, I think I have to take
action and take part in this discussion.

First of all, yes, I'm the one to blame for everything bad what's been
said. But now, let me explain some things.

'My' decision wasn't final. I proposed to e-Polityka.pl, that either
they can license their content under one of the CC licenses, or the
articles we'll use on Wikinews will be licensed on one of the CC
licenses. There was no final decision which license will be used,
though I have to agree, I proposed CC-BY-NC as the first. I didn't
really gave much thought about it, so I should be blamed here, by even
proposing such a license.

Second - personally, I still wanted to talk with the staff of
e-Polityka.pl and persuade them to use some CC license, the less
restrict it would give, the better.

Third, right now, Wikinews is under PD. This complicates things a bit,
like someone else mentioned, but based on my email and the reply I got
at Juriwiki, a simple disclaimer in the news article should be okay to
use a different license.


On 5/5/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149(at)yahoo.com> wrote:
> Wikimedia lawyers? Since when have we had lawyers? Who the hell is this admin?
> Admins do not have any authority to enter into any agreement on behalf of the
> foundation without board approval.

"Wikimedia lawyers" - it was a mental byway (I'm not sure how to
correctly call it). By this I ment Juriwiki, as the purpose of that
list is to answer legal questions regarding Wikimedia projects. The
truth is, I didn't correctly express the commercial way of
e-Polityka.pl in my email, which brought confusion.

Also, you can't really call this an agreement which had to have the
Board's approval. This was "just" the community's decision, which we
first had to discuss. After all, if e-Polityka.pl would license their
text under, for example, CC-BY, there wouldn't be any problem
regarding the license, right? That's why we didn't contact the
Foundation with any questions, I just personally contacted Juriwiki
(first I was strongly oppose the idea of such cooperation).

Finally, to make my point clear. I have not made any official decision
by myself. Yes, I was wrong with even proposing the CC-BY-NC license,
but as you can see, there isn't any decision on our cooperation, and
it's still being discussed -
http://pl.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Wsp%C3%B3%C5%82praca_z_innymi_serwisami#e-Polityka.pl.
Though it looks like we've made a decision, I haven't moved the
agreement on the article page, I'm still personally discussing it with
the man who contacted us, and I'm trying to persuade them to license
their content in overall by some non-restrictive CC license. But it's
true - if it wouldn't be for this email, we'd probably have their
content under a none-commercial license.

Once again, I'm sorry for all this misunderstanding, as it happened
mainly because of me. I'll post again later, if we'll have an
agreement on another license with the portal.

--
Best regards,
Dariusz "Datrio" Siedlecki

If Jimbo's proposed requirement of having the contributor grant their
copyright to Wikimedia is instituted, then wouldn't this prevent
importing *any* CC-WIKI/other content without having the original
authors agree to these unique terms?

Andre Engels wrote:

>I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as
>I can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it
>with restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would
>be. If someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love
>to hear them.
>
>Andre Engels
>
>
>On 5/5/05, Tomasz Sienicki <tsca@edb.dk> wrote:
>
>
>> "After the consultation with Wikimedia lawyers I can inform you that
>> it is acceptable to import content to our Wiki under the licence
>> disallowing its commercial re-use," wrote the admin of one of the
>> Wikimedia projects and entered into a co-operation with a certain
>> external service (with the aim of importing their content to the Wiki
>> under such non-commmercial re-use only licence; although the service
>> agreed to relicence their content as PD, the admin suggested CC BY-NC).
>>
>> My personal opinion is that this goes against the policy of Wikimedia
>> and violates the principles crucial to a lot of people who contribute
>> to the Wikis. I don't mention names here as I believe it is a
>> misunderstanding and that the person in question acts in good faith.
>>
>> However, I'd like to hear the Board's official opinion: are there
>> circumstances under which the above licence is acceptable for
>> Wikimedia Wikis (texts)? Is it even debatable?
>>
>> Thank you,
>> [[m:user:tsca]]
>>
>>
I don't understand this non-commercial license restriction either.
There is nothing in the GFDL that prohibits commercial redisitribution
of content. The only thing that it does restrict is exclusive
redistribution agreements by anybody (like the Wikimedia Foundation) to
still yet other parties. If you want to take the Wikipedia content and
publish it onto some CD-ROMs and sell them for $20 a piece, you are free
to do that. You are also welcome to make your own website with the
content and put ads or whatever you want... as long as you comply with
the terms of the GFDL (with all of its inviolate portions and whatnot).
You can even publish a set of hardcover books with wikipedia content.
You just have to allow people who get the content from you do be able
to do the same thing with no further restrictions.

Not all "free" licenses are this way, I admit, and there is a certain
group within the free content community that simply doesn't want
commercial licensing. The GFDL does not provide for that sort of
protection, and I would like to know what "Wikimedia lawyers" were
giving this sort of incredibly wrong advise. In addition, I don't know
what sort of scam any admin would be getting involved with that would
give him/her any more authority than is given to anybody else. And it
is indeed a scam for an admin to claim that they could even enter into
any sort of contract over content for anything other than what they
personally have contributed to any Wikimedia projects.

That is the crucial detail you have to remember. If you are the
originator of content, you can "relicense" what you have done to any
other licensing agreement... even EULA's like from Microsoft or
Prentiss-Hall. But that is limited to only what you have personally
contributed, and if it is already in the Wikipedia (for example) the
rest of us still can do whatever is legal according to the GFDL.

--
Robert Scott Horning
218 Sunstone Circle
Logan, UT 84321
(435) 753-3330
robert_horning@netzero.net

This is the problem with jurists, they always answer the exact question you
asked and never the question you meant :)
Don't bother for the bashing regarding your mail, this list is getting so
friendly and peaceful that it's even useless to take care.
Try working out your project a bit more and
Cheers :o

villy ~~JC

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dariusz Siedlecki" <datrio@gmail.com>
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l@wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 7:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Only non-commercial re-use od Wiki content?


"Wikimedia lawyers" - it was a mental byway (I'm not sure how to
correctly call it). By this I ment Juriwiki, as the purpose of that
list is to answer legal questions regarding Wikimedia projects. The
truth is, I didn't correctly express the commercial way of
e-Polityka.pl in my email, which brought confusion.

--
Best regards,
Dariusz "Datrio" Siedlecki
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

*You* don't *have* lawyers, that's for sure. Some lawyers are gathered in a
specific mailing-L called Juriwiki in order to give a volunteer help to
Wikimedia Foundation. It was announced on this list some time ago. Plus I
tried to launch some legal pages on meta.

villy ~~JC

----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149@yahoo.com>
To: "Tomasz Sienicki" <tsca@edb.dk>; "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
<foundation-l@wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 5:38 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Only non-commercial re-use od Wiki content?


| Wikimedia lawyers? Since when have we had lawyers? Who the hell is this
admin?
| Admins do not have any authority to enter into any agreement on behalf of
the
| foundation without board approval.

| Yahoo! Mail
| Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
| http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html
|
| _______________________________________________
| foundation-l mailing list
| foundation-l@wikimedia.org
| http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
|

Hi Dariusz,

thanks for going out and trying to establish content partnerships. I
think a license like CC-BY or CC-BY-SA would be fine if the content is
clearly labeled as such. The problem with CC-BY-NC or similar
"noncommercial use only" licenses is not necessarily incompatibility,
but that they don't fit our established definition of free content, i.e.
far too many uses we want to allow become impossible.

All best,

Erik

On 5/5/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller@gmx.de> wrote:
> Hi Dariusz,
>
> thanks for going out and trying to establish content partnerships. I
> think a license like CC-BY or CC-BY-SA would be fine if the content is
> clearly labeled as such. The problem with CC-BY-NC or similar
> "noncommercial use only" licenses is not necessarily incompatibility,
> but that they don't fit our established definition of free content, i.e.
> far too many uses we want to allow become impossible.
>
> All best,
>
> Erik

Erik,

I'd like to make sure that I understand this clearly, and maybe
someone else will benefit from my asking questions that may seem
redundant...

Isn't it the case that, when someone posts content to Wikipedia, they
are releasing it under GFDL, regardless of any other license they may
also choose to release it under? So, even if the content in question
were clearly labeled as CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, or even CC-BY-NC, it is also
released under GFDL. With the exception of putting something into PD
(or some other less restrictive license than GFDL), it just doesn't
matter what other restrictions may be claimed, it is still released
under GFDL. Excepting, of course, content posted without the knowledge
or permission of the copyright holder.

-- Rich Holton

[[W:en:User:Rholton]]

Okay, that's settled.

http://pl.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Wsp%C3%B3%C5%82praca_z_innymi_serwisami

CC-BY was chosen, and that's final. If anyone has any objections, ask
them now, or it'll be too late.

...

No, just kidding, it won't be too late, but it's better to ask now ;).

On 5/5/05, Richard Holton <richholton@gmail.com> wrote:
> Isn't it the case that, when someone posts content to Wikipedia, they
> are releasing it under GFDL, regardless of any other license they may
> also choose to release it under? So, even if the content in question
> were clearly labeled as CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, or even CC-BY-NC, it is also
> released under GFDL. With the exception of putting something into PD
> (or some other less restrictive license than GFDL), it just doesn't
> matter what other restrictions may be claimed, it is still released
> under GFDL. Excepting, of course, content posted without the knowledge
> or permission of the copyright holder.

Just don't forget we're discussing Wikinews right now, and that's far
away from GFDL.


--
Best regards,
Dariusz "Datrio" Siedlecki

On 5/5/05, Dariusz Siedlecki <datrio@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/5/05, Richard Holton <richholton@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Isn't it the case that, when someone posts content to Wikipedia, they
> > are releasing it under GFDL, regardless of any other license they may
> > also choose to release it under? So, even if the content in question
> > were clearly labeled as CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, or even CC-BY-NC, it is also
> > released under GFDL. With the exception of putting something into PD
> > (or some other less restrictive license than GFDL), it just doesn't
> > matter what other restrictions may be claimed, it is still released
> > under GFDL. Excepting, of course, content posted without the knowledge
> > or permission of the copyright holder.
>
> Just don't forget we're discussing Wikinews right now, and that's far
> away from GFDL.
>
Ah, well yes, you're right. On Wikinews (at least en.wikinews) by
posting you are placing the contents into the public domain...again,
regardless of any other restrictions you may claim. Right?

-- Rich Holton

[[W:en:User:Rholton]]

Richard-

> Ah, well yes, you're right. On Wikinews (at least en.wikinews) by
> posting you are placing the contents into the public domain...again,
> regardless of any other restrictions you may claim. Right?

When launching Wikinews, we didn't want to settle on an undeniably
flawed license like the GFDL, nor necessarily commit to the "copyleft"
principle, before evaluating the ways in which Wikinews content is
developed and used. The public domain was therefore chosen as the
initial "license" for Wikinews, as it allows us to migrate to any other
license relatively painlessly.

We will likely switch to a variant of CC-BY soon (one which requires
attribution to the wiki, rather than any individual author), which is
more legally sane than the PD.

Because someone posting someone else's material cannot put it in the
public domain without the other person's permission, the click-through
agreement does not apply to such content. The question then becomes, do
we want to remove CC-BY or CC-BY-SA content posted by others? Given the
above, I'd say that it's reasonable to label content under CC-BY as such
and keep it. As for CC-BY-SA, GFDL, etc., the situation is not quite as
clear, but for the sake of interoperability, I'd be inclined to be in
favor of allowing such content when labeled. Wikinews stories are
relatively independent from one another.

If this becomes established practice, it may make sense to amend the
copyright notice to say ".. is in the public domain where not otherwise
noted."

Erik

Erik Moeller wrote:

> The question then becomes, do we want to remove CC-BY or CC-BY-SA
> content posted by others? Given the above, I'd say that it's
> reasonable to label content under CC-BY as such and keep it. As for
> CC-BY-SA, GFDL, etc., the situation is not quite as clear, but for the
> sake of interoperability, I'd be inclined to be in favor of allowing
> such content when labeled. Wikinews stories are relatively independent
> from one another.

This is reasonable, but to be usable it should be restricted to only a
few licenses, and they should be very clearly marked, so it doesn't
become a confusing tangle of licenses for potential reusers.

-Mark

Jack Lutz wrote:
> If Jimbo's proposed requirement of having the contributor grant their
> copyright to Wikimedia is instituted,

I have never proposed any requirement like this.

> then wouldn't this prevent
> importing *any* CC-WIKI/other content without having the original
> authors agree to these unique terms?

No, if the license is a CC-BY and not CC-BY-SA style license, then it
would not. It is true that copyleft doesn't play nicely in most cases
with other licenses. But for Wikinews, there seems to be pretty strong
sentiment against using a copyleft license for various reasons that
strike me as valid.

--Jimbo

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Jack Lutz wrote:
>
>
>>If Jimbo's proposed requirement of having the contributor grant their
>>copyright to Wikimedia is instituted,
>>
>>
>
>I have never proposed any requirement like this.
>
>
>
>
I may be using the wrong term; it's from this:

"The idea is this: contributors agree to release everything under CC-BY
(Wiki version) but they *also* give the Wikimedia Foundation the right
to do anything we like with it." [Wikinews-l] CC Licensing

Once again, dual-licensing can be a solution.

Jean-Baptiste Soufron
CERSA - CNRS, Paris 2
http://soufron.free.fr

Le 5 mai 05, à 21:19, Erik Moeller a écrit :

> Hi Dariusz,
>
> thanks for going out and trying to establish content partnerships. I
> think a license like CC-BY or CC-BY-SA would be fine if the content is
> clearly labeled as such. The problem with CC-BY-NC or similar
> "noncommercial use only" licenses is not necessarily incompatibility,
> but that they don't fit our established definition of free content,
> i.e. far too many uses we want to allow become impossible.
>
> All best,
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>