All, CNN this morning was reporting that the Vatican has decided to assert copyright on basically all papal communications (speeches, encyclicals, etc.) made by every pope during the last 50 years, with the exception of "the news media." I don't know how much material we might have that could fall afoul of this new declaration, or whether the Vatican would consider Wikipedia and Wikisource under that umbrella, but someone more familiar with Catholic information in Wikimedia areas should probably get involved. I don't know if there's any reason to think the Vatican would be willing to grant a PD or GFDL licensing exception for Wikipedia. The spokesman said that "newspapers have the right to publish texts as news" (such as encyclicals), presumably because there's no profit made specifically from their use. But I'm not sure how this would apply to WP or WS. -k http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/ap/2006/01/25/ap2475804.html _______________________________________________

All, CNN this morning was reporting that the Vatican has decided to assert copyright on basically all papal communications (speeches, encyclicals, etc.) made by every pope during the last 50 years, with the exception of "the news media." I don't know how much material we might have that could fall afoul of this new declaration, or whether the Vatican would consider Wikipedia and Wikisource under that umbrella, but someone more familiar with Catholic information in Wikimedia areas should probably get involved. I don't know if there's any reason to think the Vatican would be willing to grant a PD or GFDL licensing exception for Wikipedia. The spokesman said that "newspapers have the right to publish texts as news" (such as encyclicals), presumably because there's no profit made specifically from their use. But I'm not sure how this would apply to WP or WS. -k http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/ap/2006/01/25/ap2475804.html _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l