Mailing List Archive

On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 11:49:12AM -0700, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Marco wrote:
> > No, you lose much more. You can not easily combine the content of two
> > "free" encyclopedias and get something that is "free". You can not copy
> > images from the English Wikipedia to the German Wikipedia anymore because
> > the "fair use" right works not this way in Germany.
>
> What? Since when has the German Wikipedia moved to a German-based server?
>
> Well, I know for a fact that it hasn't so German law has no bearing on the
> legality of having "fair user" (per US law) images on the German Wikipedia.
>
> However, those people who are subject to German law may be legally barred from
> uploading such images. But there are plenty of German-speaking Wikipedians
> living outside of Germany to do this.

There would be a problem if they wanted to distribute Wikipedia in Germany,
as a mirror, on CDs, printed etc. We really don't want to lose such right
just to have 0.1% more images.

> (Brion Vibber <vibber@aludra.usc.edu>):
>
> I'm all in favor of putting them on a separate server with a separate
> database and *not* embedding those images inline into articles, but
> allowing explicitly external links to those images which users would have
> to follow knowingly.
>
> nonfree.wikipedia.org, anyone?

That's certainly an option to which I wouldn't object if it came to
that. I still think it's a bit paranoid, but at least it would retain
our ability to collect and describe useful information even if it did
hamper its display a bit.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC

On Fri, 30 May 2003, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> > (Brion Vibber <vibber@aludra.usc.edu>):
> > I'm all in favor of putting them on a separate server with a separate
> > database and *not* embedding those images inline into articles, but
> > allowing explicitly external links to those images which users would have
> > to follow knowingly.
> >
> > nonfree.wikipedia.org, anyone?
>
> That's certainly an option to which I wouldn't object if it came to
> that. I still think it's a bit paranoid,

You *will* submit to CopyrightParanoia... you *will* join the collective!
:D

> but at least it would retain our ability to collect and describe
> useful information even if it did hamper its display a bit.

Great. As an intermediate step, how about we go ahead and add a
license-compatibility field or two to the image table and upload form (and
at some point go looking through old images to mark the ones known to be
PD or GFDL).

Then if we do decide we need to, we can slurp them out separately later or
change their display style.

What I think I'd like to see instead of the blanket "the copyright holder
has agreed to X" checkbox -- which encourages sloppiness -- is to have the
following:

( ) I, the uploader, created this file and own the copyright.
( ) I got this file from somewhere else:
[URL_or_citation_of_source___________]
and
( ) This file is public domain (has fallen out of copyright, was never
copyrighted, or has been explicitly put in PD by the author)
( ) This file is licensed under GFDL
( ) Copyright owner gives permission to reproduce for
non-commercial/educational purposes only
NOTE: [concerns over distribution, prefer free files]
( ) This file is used under 'fair use' claims without permission of the
copyright holder. NOTE: [concerns over distribution, prefer free
files]

Source is something that people are _supposed_ to put in the description,
but it often doesn't get done. If we can reject uploads that don't have a
source listed, this should encourage better documentation. (A true
paranoic would require this of all text edits too, but people at least
_seem_ to be less inclined to plagiarize text, and other people are a lot
less tolerant of it when it's found, so I think our current procedures are
sufficient for a good-faith effort in text-land.)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Brion-

> Great. As an intermediate step, how about we go ahead and add a
> license-compatibility field or two to the image table and upload form (and
> at some point go looking through old images to mark the ones known to be
> PD or GFDL).

I'm for it. The resulting form contents should probably be saved in the
image description, so they can be edited. I agree with the NOTE: ..., a
relevant link to [[fair use]] should probably also be added.

Regards,

Erik

On Friday 30 May 2003 20:49, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Marco wrote:
> > No, you lose much more. You can not easily combine the content of two
> > "free" encyclopedias and get something that is "free". You can not copy
> > images from the English Wikipedia to the German Wikipedia anymore because
> > the "fair use" right works not this way in Germany.
>
> What? Since when has the German Wikipedia moved to a German-based server?
>
> Well, I know for a fact that it hasn't so German law has no bearing on the
> legality of having "fair user" (per US law) images on the German Wikipedia.
>
> However, those people who are subject to German law may be legally barred
> from uploading such images. But there are plenty of German-speaking
> Wikipedians living outside of Germany to do this.

O.k. you can circumvent this, but I wouldn't even be allowed to tell someone
outside of Germany to do this for me.

But this is not my main point. I say that by allowing "fair use" pictures we
violate the GFDL and our content is not "free" anymore. Citing Axel Boldt:

"Illustrating an article by adding a photo creates a derivative
work, therefore the whole has to be put under GFDL, therefore it cannot
be fair use material (or anything besides public domain or GFDL)."


We are not allowed to derive from "Fair use" images and even the intuitive
rule:

"free" article + "free" article = "free" article

is not true anymore (because the new free article might contain that many
images that the result is not covered by "Fair use" anymore).

Therefore we are violating the GFDL and/or we give up the important idea of a
"free" encyclopedia. In my humble opinion a few images simply are not worth
this. At least I thought that the "free" in "Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia" is an important and fundamental principal.

best regards,
Marco


--
Marco Krohn
Theoretical Physics
University of Hannover

Erik Moeller wrote:
> > Great. As an intermediate step, how about we go ahead and add a
> > license-compatibility field or two to the image table and upload form (and
> > at some point go looking through old images to mark the ones known to be
> > PD or GFDL).
>
> I'm for it. The resulting form contents should probably be saved in the
> image description, so they can be edited. I agree with the NOTE: ..., a
> relevant link to [[fair use]] should probably also be added.

This seems like something that all parties to the "fair use" debate
can agree -- to have a license-compatibility field or two in the image
table and upload form, such that we can clearly describe why we think
we can have such-and-such an image on the website, and giving guidance
to re-users.

--Jimbo

Brion Vibber wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>Brion Vibber wrote:

>>>So by analogy "Linus Torvalds style pragmatism" might provide for a
>>>third-party filter program that inserts non-FDL images into Wikipedia
>>>articles on a reader's computer as they're loaded. ;)

>>Like a web browser?

[.Brion then gives several objections that seem reasonable.
But I'll comment on the ones that seem least so.]

>* the kernel-module combination is never redistributed
>* the article-image combination is redistributed by local saving,
> hardcopy, mirroring, or format conversion of the articles unless
> careful effort is made to avoid including the image (which the article
> includes programmatic commands to include)

So the article-image combination is never redistributed now
(given that the images aren't included in the downloaded tarball --
I believe that this what began the discussion this time around).
When I say that we need to separate out the fair use pics from the free ones,
I mean precisely to prepare for such redistribution in the future,
where we may (in some cases) have to strip out the nonfree pics.

>Most importantly, the paradigm of separate text and image files is simply
>a technical limitation of the HTML format used. If Wikipedia were
>distributed in PostScript, PDF, MS Word documents, RTF, or the printed
>page, there would be no such separation.

Right, so maybe we'd have to strip them out if it were distributed thus '_`.

>>The problem, it seems to me, isn't that we use the images,
>>but that we pretend that we're using them under the GFDL.

>Either we are, or we're violating the license of every article that
>someone has modified by putting a non-GFDL picture into it.

This I don't agree with at all. When I submit GFDL text to a page,
and somebody creates a modified version of that with [[Image:Foo]] in it,
then they're definitely not violating the GFDL license of what I wrote.
They just said "[[Image:Foo]]" next to it!
The "technical limitations" are quite relevant here --
they're actually one way that HTML is much better than the printed page!

>>Our fair use images should be treated as *auxiliary*.

>I'm all in favor of putting them on a separate server with a separate
>database and *not* embedding those images inline into articles, but
>allowing explicitly external links to those images which users would have
>to follow knowingly.

All right, maybe that will make everybody happy.
I can live with it, I think.

>>It should ''never'' be vital to an article that we include an image,
>>if we can help it, not only for distribution but also for accessibility.

>Thanks! This removes the sense of urgency that drives some people to add
>non-free images knowing they are not compatible with the project's goals.
>Hopefully they'll stop immediately. :)

That said, sometimes we can't help it.
Consider all the arguments presented in recent debates
for why [[Clitoris]] needs good photographs and drawings.
^_^


-- Toby

Marco Krohn wrote, quoting Axel Boldt:
> "Illustrating an article by adding a photo creates a derivative
> work, therefore the whole has to be put under GFDL, therefore it cannot
> be fair use material (or anything besides public domain or GFDL)."

This is not valid reasoning. If accurate, then we can't even quote
from copyrighted sources, not even one sentence of quotation, because
all such use is done under a "fair use" doctrine.

Suppose we have an article about a book by Noam Chomsky. We wish to
explain the thesis of the book, and toward that end, we quote a
relevant sentence from the book. This is perfectly valid, and it is
fair use.

What is the situation in German law? You seem to be arguing that
there is no such thing as fair use in German law, but that strikes me
as virtually impossible. Can you give the details?

By the way, I agree with those who say that (a) strictly speaking,
German law is not of primary interest to us, but also with those who
say that (b) if we can make sure that the encyclopedia is
redistributable in Germany, too, that's a good thing, if it doesn't
cost much in terms of content.

--Jimbo

On Sunday 01 June 2003 14:44, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Marco Krohn wrote, quoting Axel Boldt:
> > "Illustrating an article by adding a photo creates a derivative
> > work, therefore the whole has to be put under GFDL, therefore it cannot
> > be fair use material (or anything besides public domain or GFDL)."
>
> This is not valid reasoning. If accurate, then we can't even quote
> from copyrighted sources, not even one sentence of quotation, because
> all such use is done under a "fair use" doctrine.

Sorry, but what has the reasoning to do with the consequences? Only because
the results are bad for us does not mean that the reasoning is not valid.
(Apologizes if I misunderstood you, but I don't see an argument for your
statement that "this is not valid reasoning", please note that I am
non-native speaker).

> Suppose we have an article about a book by Noam Chomsky. We wish to
> explain the thesis of the book, and toward that end, we quote a
> relevant sentence from the book. This is perfectly valid, and it is
> fair use.

Please, nobody doubts that this is "fair use". But others and I doubt that the
result is compatible with the GFDL, in fact it is my opinion that the result
violates the GFDL because we start mixing GFDL content with "fair use"
content, and the latter has a lot more restrictions than GFDL.

> What is the situation in German law?

I think we shouldn't discuss what the situation is in other countries. IMHO
this is irrelevant. The only question it comes down to is:

Is adding "fair use" content to the GFDL Wikipedia compatible with GFDL or
not.

It is my understanding that GFDL is not compatible with "fair use". I'll write
an email to the gnu organization now and ask for help with interpretation.

best regards,
Marco


--
Marco Krohn
Theoretical Physics
University of Hannover

On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 05:44:47AM -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Marco Krohn wrote, quoting Axel Boldt:
> > "Illustrating an article by adding a photo creates a derivative
> > work, therefore the whole has to be put under GFDL, therefore it cannot
> > be fair use material (or anything besides public domain or GFDL)."
>
> This is not valid reasoning. If accurate, then we can't even quote
> from copyrighted sources, not even one sentence of quotation, because
> all such use is done under a "fair use" doctrine.
>
> Suppose we have an article about a book by Noam Chomsky. We wish to
> explain the thesis of the book, and toward that end, we quote a
> relevant sentence from the book. This is perfectly valid, and it is
> fair use.
>
> What is the situation in German law? You seem to be arguing that
> there is no such thing as fair use in German law, but that strikes me
> as virtually impossible. Can you give the details?
>
> By the way, I agree with those who say that (a) strictly speaking,
> German law is not of primary interest to us, but also with those who
> say that (b) if we can make sure that the encyclopedia is
> redistributable in Germany, too, that's a good thing, if it doesn't
> cost much in terms of content.

At least in Polish law, such quotation wouldn't be subject of copyright
law at all. On the other hand, using somebody else's ilustrations without
authorization is plain illegal (there is some procedure that allows you
to use them and send them some standard fee whether they like it or not,
but it doesn't apply in all cases). There are some (mostly explicitely listed,
plus some general principles about others) cases where you
can simply take somebody else's photos (or other stuff) and use them,
but I don't think they're going to be compatible between coutries.
Most of them are about non-commercial usage, so they don't apply to Wikipedia
anyway.

On Sun, 1 Jun 2003, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

> At least in Polish law, such quotation wouldn't be subject of copyright
> law at all. On the other hand, using somebody else's ilustrations without
> authorization is plain illegal (there is some procedure that allows you
> to use them and send them some standard fee whether they like it or not,
> but it doesn't apply in all cases).

This is also the case in Norway.

-- Daniel

--- Jimmy Wales <jwales@bomis.com> wrote:
> Marco Krohn wrote, quoting Axel Boldt:
> > "Illustrating an article by adding a photo creates a derivative
> > work, therefore the whole has to be put under GFDL, therefore it
> > cannot be fair use material (or anything besides public domain
> > or GFDL)."
>
> This is not valid reasoning. If accurate, then we can't even quote
> from copyrighted sources, not even one sentence of quotation, because
> all such use is done under a "fair use" doctrine.

You only point out an undesirable consequence of my reasoning, but not
why it is invalid.

Axel

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com

--- Brion Vibber <vibber@aludra.usc.edu> wrote:

> ( ) This file is public domain (has fallen out of copyright, was
> never copyrighted, or has been explicitly put in PD by the
author)
> ( ) This file is licensed under GFDL
> ( ) Copyright owner gives permission to reproduce for
> non-commercial/educational purposes only
> NOTE: [concerns over distribution, prefer free files]
> ( ) This file is used under 'fair use' claims without permission of
> the copyright holder. NOTE: [concerns over distribution, prefer
> free files]

My concern is this: a rational copyright holder faced with these
choices will alway choose option 4 (permission for non-commercial
distribution), thereby retaining maximal control. Yet option 4 is the
one most detrimental to Wikipedia's goals, preventing modification as
well as publication in a commercial book/CDROM version.

Axel

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com

On 5/30/03 9:29 PM, "Jimmy Wales" <jwales@bomis.com> wrote:

> Erik Moeller wrote:
>>> Great. As an intermediate step, how about we go ahead and add a
>>> license-compatibility field or two to the image table and upload form (and
>>> at some point go looking through old images to mark the ones known to be
>>> PD or GFDL).
>>
>> I'm for it. The resulting form contents should probably be saved in the
>> image description, so they can be edited. I agree with the NOTE: ..., a
>> relevant link to [[fair use]] should probably also be added.
>
> This seems like something that all parties to the "fair use" debate
> can agree -- to have a license-compatibility field or two in the image
> table and upload form, such that we can clearly describe why we think
> we can have such-and-such an image on the website, and giving guidance
> to re-users.

Fair use bad for Wikipedia...

I have trouble understanding why this discussion is on Wikitech.

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Hash: SHA1

Je Dimanĉo 01 Junio 2003 12:24, The Cunctator skribis:
> I have trouble understanding why this discussion is on Wikitech.

I foolishly made a comment on why an images tarball is not yet available
for converters to play with. From now on I'm keeping my mouth shut
unless I have legal representation present... :)

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux)

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On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 03:24:28PM -0400, The Cunctator wrote:
> Fair use bad for Wikipedia...

Maybe because both meta.wikipedia.org and wikipedia-l
were taken over by issues specific to English wikipedia,
trolls and unimportant stuff ?

The Cunctator wrote:

>Fair use bad for Wikipedia...
>
>I have trouble understanding why this discussion is on Wikitech.
>
Honestly, I hadn't noticed that.
I just hit reply when I want to respond to something, without paying any
attention to which of the mailing lists I'm responding. I assume that
whoever started the thread had some reason for putting it there. :-)

Ec

Marco Krohn schrieb:

>On Sunday 01 June 2003 14:44, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>
>>Marco Krohn wrote, quoting Axel Boldt:
>>
>>
>>>"Illustrating an article by adding a photo creates a derivative
>>>work, therefore the whole has to be put under GFDL, therefore it cannot
>>>be fair use material (or anything besides public domain or GFDL).
>>>
>>>
>>Suppose we have an article about a book by Noam Chomsky. We wish to
>>explain the thesis of the book, and toward that end, we quote a
>>relevant sentence from the book. This is perfectly valid, and it is
>>fair use.
>>
>>
>
>Please, nobody doubts that this is "fair use". But others and I doubt that the
>result is compatible with the GFDL, in fact it is my opinion that the result
>violates the GFDL because we start mixing GFDL content with "fair use"
>content, and the latter has a lot more restrictions than GFDL.
>
Someone can cite Noam Chomsky in a Book, print '(c) Encyclopedia
Britannica' on it, sell it, and of course he doesn't own the copyright
for the citation. Why should it be different with GFDL? It is
self-evident, that a copyright disclaimer applies only to that part of
the work, that is copyrightable.

WeißNix

On Sun, 1 Jun 2003, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> What is the situation in German law? You seem to be arguing that
> there is no such thing as fair use in German law, but that strikes me
> as virtually impossible. Can you give the details?

I don't know about German law, but in the Dutch law the equivalence of
fair use only holds for quoting in "an announcement, review, polemic or
scientific treatise" (modulo inaccuracies of translation).

Andre Engels

Why are we so stuck on the GFDL? Are we (as a community) opposed to
operating under another (though equally free) license that is more
specific about quoutes and such?

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr@bomis.com>

On Mon, 9 Jun 2003, Jason Richey wrote:
> Why are we so stuck on the GFDL? Are we (as a community) opposed to
> operating under another (though equally free) license that is more
> specific about quoutes and such?

Love it or hate it, we're pretty much stuck with it. Since we don't
require contributors to assign copyright of their work to any central
entity, switching licenses would require the permission of everyone who
has contributed material.

With thousands of contributors, many of whom are known only by a transient
network address and plenty of whom may be long gone and uncontactable, it
would be impractical to get such permission for the entire encyclopedia.
Hypothetically one could fork a new Wikipedia base using only material by
people known to have agreed to a license change, but it would be an
enormous amount of work to sort through it, and then you've got to redo
all the stuff that's missing.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Understood...

But how does that "enourmous amount of work" compare to the legal
situation that everyone (or maybe half of everyone) seems to think we
are in now.

Also, is this really a Wikitech topic to begin with?

Jason

Brion Vibber wrote:

> On Mon, 9 Jun 2003, Jason Richey wrote:
> > Why are we so stuck on the GFDL? Are we (as a community) opposed to
> > operating under another (though equally free) license that is more
> > specific about quoutes and such?
>
> Love it or hate it, we're pretty much stuck with it. Since we don't
> require contributors to assign copyright of their work to any central
> entity, switching licenses would require the permission of everyone who
> has contributed material.
>
> With thousands of contributors, many of whom are known only by a transient
> network address and plenty of whom may be long gone and uncontactable, it
> would be impractical to get such permission for the entire encyclopedia.
> Hypothetically one could fork a new Wikipedia base using only material by
> people known to have agreed to a license change, but it would be an
> enormous amount of work to sort through it, and then you've got to redo
> all the stuff that's missing.
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l@wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr@bomis.com>

Jason Richey wrote:
> But how does that "enourmous amount of work" compare to the legal
> situation that everyone (or maybe half of everyone) seems to think we
> are in now.

Well, I don't think we're in any particular legal situation. The
license is confusing and confining, but not terribly so.

This discussion is making my head spin... Let me see if I can get the
basics in order for myself (please, let me know if I don't have it
right):

* Everyone basically agrees that the text (not including quotes, which
I don't intend to discuss here) of Wikipedia is okay, even if the
text refers to an image that is fair use.

* Everyone agrees that The en Wikipedia has some images that we are
legally allowed to use (on the website) under fair use assuming that
we don't claim they are GFDL.

* Most everyone agrees that there is little chance that we can get the
copyright holders of every image to switch to a GFDL license. This
said, some people say that we can't distribute the images with the
GFDL products, as it would violate the license.

* Most everyone has decided what they think, and will argue his/her
opinion until the cows come home (and then some).

If I understand correctly, the problem is most evident when we
consider printed formats (like grandma's encyclopedia). I don't think
that anyone has argued that we can distribute fair use images if we go
to a printed (combined) work. So, fair use images should not be in a
printed version.

This said, it seems reasonable to say that articles that *NEED* an
image should have GFDL images only. Articles that benefit from images
should use GFDL images or shouldn't talk about the images (don't say
"image below" or the like) as fair use images will not appear in a
printed version.

As I understand it, there are people who would argue that this is
unacceptable, and that some articles *NEED* an image where no GFDL
images is available. I'd love to hear of 1 or 2 possibilities where
an article is unacceptable without an image, and where a GFDL picture
or drawing would not suffice.

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr@bomis.com>