Erik Moeller wrote: Clear as mud. :-D 1. If the suggestion is to imply that the simplest way to be sure to conform with the license is to list all authors, the phrase is semi-redundant, when connected that way, with the word "and". To be clear in that case, it should be put: <quote> b) a link to an alternative online copy which is freely accessible in a stable form which conforms with the license. This is easiest done by including a list of all authors, </quote> (I added that "in a stable form" because I think it is useful) That way it is clear that listing the authors is a means of conforming with the license in the most easy and clear form, rather than doing some extra hurdle beyond that. But then the question comes clear - what is the point of linking to an alternative online copy, if you are going to give the full list of authors anyway? What are the key characteristics in wikipedia beyond the attribution information, that reside in the online copy, that you would have the reusers point their readers at? 2. If your intent is to say that an online copy that conforms with the license would list the authors (as being the simplest case), I would suggest a clearer phrasing on the lines of: <quote> b) a link to an alternative online copy which is freely accessible in a stable form which conforms with the license. A conformant copy would give correct attribution to the authors, which is simplest done by listing all the authors. </quote> (By the way, this would be my much preferred legalese form of expressing what is right, purely personally.) 3. If the intent is to maintain a stipulation that conforming to the license can be done by satisfying a significantly lower threshold than supplying the authors, but since we are doing that "more onerous route", every other sad site should do the same; well I simply disagree, and that phrasing merely reads petulant and doesn't even get the point across. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

2009/3/13 Erik Moeller &lt;erik(a)wikimedia.org&gt;rg>: It is vitally important that that be the case, otherwise you could have two mirrors each linking to each other with neither listing the authors, which is not "attribution" is any meaningful sense of the word. I don't under Jussi-Ville's objections - there must be a misunderstand somewhere.

2009/3/14 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen I think you misunderstand what we're discussing here. We're talking about what forms of attribution are acceptable for people using our content under CC-BY-SA. We're saying that attribution by URL is acceptable for people using the content under CC-BY-SA.

Thomas Dalton wrote: But who says it's "our" content? Maybe another wiki wrote articles about every Ukrainian action hero or all butterfly species in Zambia, under CC-BY-SA, and we imported articles from there into Wikipedia. And then someone mirrors Wikipedia. Why should that mirror get away with just crediting Wikipedia's URL for each article? And what if this mirror site is another wiki (such as Wookieepedia) that also creates new content and gets mirrored? Why should the next mirror not get away with just crediting Wookieepedia's URL for each article? Jussi-Ville used the analogy with books (the content) and libraries (the websites, or what I previously called the space between the copies [1]). Mirrors are copying the books. But is Wikipedia's website (as opposed to its content) really a book, or is it just another library? [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-March/050824.html -- Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se

2009/3/13 Anthony &lt;wikimail(a)inbox.org&gt;rg>: Thanks; I've removed the word "such" to clarify. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

Erik Moeller wrote: First, allow me to apologize if my first reply was a bit flip and perhaps not useful in tracking down where our source of differing viewpoint lies. Any Wikimedia hosting website will never be a "copy" in the sense of you being able to link to it to satisfy the intent of the CC-BY-SA license. (Much as a library is not a book.) And if it were a possibility to mislead our reusers to think that were actually the case, that would be a very bad thing indeed. The only thing *on* wikimedia websites that does satisfy that currently is the history of articles; a direct link into the history is sadly the only option available. I think it is way cool that people are thinking of innovative ways of formatting that information (in ways that would for instance cut out the often inflammatory edit summaries), but that is for the future. It would be astonishingly brash to expect that content that is CC-BY-SA would in most cases be attributed to their rightful authors via our site. I am frankly surprised you even raise the notion. Share Alike means that Wikimedia isn't privileged in any shape or form in the chain of copyleft. If I can ask of anything, I ask you please not to try to break that chain. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

2009/3/14 David Gerard &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: If the people producing the mugs want that they are free to produce a version of the history on their servers or more legally more solid include a sheet of paper with a complete list of authors with the mug. -- geni

2009/3/14 David Gerard &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: I figure a regular URL which will survive speech is a good thing. The best way to compliance is to make it really easy. Bug filed: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17981 - d.

On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 3:39 PM, Ray Saintonge &lt;saintonge(a)telus.net&gt; wrote: Indeed, would I be violating the GFDL if I open the box, throw away the paper, but keep the mug... On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 2:13 PM, Magnus Manske &lt;magnusmanske(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote: This would still give the wrong data if the page has been moved to [[Xenu (Scientology)]] and the [[Xenu (disambiguation)]] is moved to [[Xenu]], which isn't a totally unreasonable outcome. You'd have to use something like: http://en.wikipedia.org/authors/46634 as an alias for: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46634&action=history or have it forward to something like this better yet if it can be tweaked to accept a `page_id` parameter instead of a title (ideally made part of the software proper): http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Contributors.php?wikilang=en&wi… Would this rely on the `rev_minor_edit` field or something more sophisticated? I see too many false positives and negatives to this approach, but I guess that's somebody else's problem? —C.W.

2009/3/15 David Gerard &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: Wikimedia is not a party to the license therefor it's FAQ is of no relevance. The answer again goes to the license text. "You must...keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide ,reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author". The mug maker could lose the case on the grounds that the license made it clear that it is the person who is doing the reuse who has to provide the credit and attempting to do it via third parties is not legitimate. However any guidelines the foundation uses must be as robust as possible otherwise rather than being a significant part of the free content movement wikipedia ends up as the copyright equivalent of a radioactive mess no sane person would touch. -- geni

2009/3/15 Charlotte Webb &lt;charlottethewebb(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: No. Only if you then give the mug to someone else, make copies and give those to someone else or err publicly perform the mug. -- geni

Ray Saintonge wrote: Print the list on the base of the mug in a 2 pt font; satisfies the requirements, and doesn't compromise whatever effect you wish to achieve by the gift. Although, if such a gift could "threaten a love-life", either I've missed your satirical intent, or something else needs attention.

2009/3/16 Ray Saintonge &lt;saintonge(a)telus.net&gt;et>: I think that can be resolved by invoking the rule: "It's only illegal if you get caught." It's completely inconceivable that the copyright holder(s) would find out about your private gift to your girlfriend (unless she tried to sell it after a messy breakup, perhaps...), so you are really only answerable to your conscience.

2009/3/15 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen &lt;cimonavaro(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: Presumably you mean to have a ".org" in there? I think the summaries are necessary, though - they are where we put details of where non-original content has come from. You can't just attribute the content you are reusing to the appropriate Wikimedians, you need to attribute it to the actual creators.

2009/3/15 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen &lt;cimonavaro(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: That would be great, if it can be made to work. Unfortunately there is no standard way of writing attribution edit summaries, so automation is going to be difficult. Semi-automation, as you say, might be possible for those summaries that include links (a person would need to determine if they are attributions, but that's easy enough - a couple of seconds a summary with a decent number of people helping out could get it done is a reasonable amount of time), but what about content taken from offline sources? Probably extremely rare, but can we risk failing to correctly attribute even one or two sources?

2009/3/10 Sage Ross &lt;ragesoss+wikipedia(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: I've revised it in: http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Licensing_update&oldid=1422… Essentially, I'm looking for a wording that applies roughly the same standards to text and multimedia, while recognizing that most multimedia works we have today are single-author works. The idea is that if you're talking about a true collaboration between multiple authors, you could attribute it in the same way in which you would attribute a Wikipedia article (by linking to the source), whereas if it's essentially the work of one or very few authors, you have to name them. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

Whilst I concur that we need to address more of the specifics, I would disagree that the proposal should incorporate rigidity about the link text itself. There are various contexts which this will potentially accompany, and I cannot imagine that there is a one-size-fits-all link title. - Chris On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 5:03 AM, Brian &lt;Brian.Mingus(a)colorado.edu&gt; wrote:

That is not the kind of attribution that I have in mind, either. I think what we need are guidelines as to what links should or should not be saying, but we need to make it so that people can style it in a manner appropriate for the work they are using it in. - Chris On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 5:27 AM, Brian &lt;Brian.Mingus(a)colorado.edu&gt; wrote:

Brian wrote: I share this worry. At a minimum we should require that the person coming up on the link understand what it is. That is that somewhere behind the curtain there is a list of authors that can be got at, no matter how many clicks they have to do to get at them. I will not actively say that I support the idea that just linking to the source (as opposed to linking into history) is sufficient, but if that is the method used, it (the link text) damn well better make clear that the authors are in the history of that source article page, and not in the plaintext. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

2009/3/11 Bence Damokos &lt;bdamokos(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: I think a distinction needs to be made between an aggregate of small changes, or a single small change. I'm not sure this distinction needs to be made more explicitly in this language, though: if someone has made an aggregate of small changes, they have arguably not made "very small or irrelevant" contributions to an article. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

2009/3/11 Ryan Kaldari &lt;kaldari(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: Removed it from the draft. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

2009/3/11 Erik Moeller &lt;erik(a)wikimedia.org&gt;rg>: Is provideing credit reasonable to the medium or means an additional requirement? Nope. Not as long as the deletion button continues to exist. The GFDL was smart enough to pick that up which is why when it offers computer-network locations as an option for distributing transparent copies the burden is on the person doing the distribution to make sure that the thing will remain accessible at the network location for at least a year. With attribution the situation is more interesting since given the likely age of some new encyclopedia wikians you would need to make sure the hyperlinks continue to be active for at least 150 years (life+70 frequently generates copyrights that long or longer). CC-BY-SA does indeed place limits on how you can demand credit. Problem is that your phase disabled the section in question. On the basis that new encyclopedia wiki doesn't need the added problem of trying to figure out the difference between "reasonable" and "reasonable to the medium and means" scraping the whole section would be a better approach rather than messing with something CC-BY-SA has already delt with. -- geni

2009/3/11 Erik Moeller &lt;erik(a)wikimedia.org&gt;rg>: So you wouldn't have to make a note when you imported wikipedia material even though it couldn't be under the TOS you described. Other than? Don't you remember what happened last time we tried it? -- geni

Erik Moeller wrote: The language of the license does not, but the fact that we are an international operation that works across jurisdictions and not merely under US law, makes it inevitable as a requirement, to satisfy the share alike portion, and allow use across the globe. If somebody were to argue that we have traditionally operated under US law; I would rebut that by clarifying that only pertains to the operation of our site, and the workings of the overarching Foundation which acts as caretaker. Chapters for instance have to comply with their respective jurisdictions laws, and the same clearly applies with content reuse. The content reuse will not be hosted on wikimedia servers, to state the obvious; so in a vast majority of cases Florida law is completely irrelevant, to put it mildly ;-D Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 6:31 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen &lt;cimonavaro(a)gmail.com Unfortunately, 4 out of 5 people disagree with you, and the foundation is probably going to go with majority rules. This needs sorely to be worded something like For offline copies, that would likewise be no attribution at all.

2009/3/16 Michael Snow &lt;wikipedia(a)verizon.net&gt;et>: Indeed. The claim is meaningless and querulous noise. Printed objects commonly have a URL on them these days. Listing a source or history short URL would do the job it's intended to. - d.

2009/3/16 Andre Engels &lt;andreengels(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: You have failed to establish how that makes any difference - it doesn't. The reason for it being there makes no difference as to whether people know what a URL is when they see it in print. - d.

On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 8:55 PM, Michael Snow &lt;wikipedia(a)verizon.net&gt; wrote: It's not the same logic at all. A reference, by the very definition of the term, refers to something outside the work itself.

On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 11:42 PM, Michael Snow &lt;wikipedia(a)verizon.net&gt;wrote;wrote: In the context of an encyclopedia or encyclopedia article, what attribution means seems clear, listing the names or the pseudonyms of the authors. That I'm apt to not raise a fuss over a reuser who fails to do this in certain situations (e.g. where that list is just a click away) does not create a slippery slope whereby it is OK for any reuser to omit this list of names in any situation they deem appropriate.

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:01 AM, David Gerard &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: It can't even release my contributions under CC by-sa 3.0, for that matter.

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:09 AM, David Gerard &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: When did I? How did I? Why didn't I know I was doing so?

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:13 AM, David Gerard &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: I've never pressed "submit" on a button which read "GFDL 1.2 or later". Try again.

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Thomas Dalton &lt;thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: It still doesn't. There is a place where it says "Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation", which was added in March 2007. But CC-by-sa is not published by the FSF, and the word "published", according to Wiktionary, is in the past tense (and I have not clicked submit since Version 1.3 was released). So that argument fails in many ways, before even getting to the problems with GFDL 1.3 itself.

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:37 AM, David Gerard &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: So is the trail from GFDL 1.2 to CC-BY-SA. Certainly not in the manner that you interpret that. (b) that edits (in general) released under GFDL 1.2 or later would not In some hypothetical situation, maybe. Not in the present one. The word "moved" (or "move") does not appear in GFDL 1.3 What it says is that "The operator of an MMC Site may republish an MMC contained in the site under CC-BY-SA on the same site at any time before August 1, 2009, provided the MMC is eligible for relicensing." Of course, in the case where that MMC Site's license under the GFDL has been revoked, it's academic. But there's nothing in the GFDL 1.3 which even *claims* that a third party can use the work under CC-BY-SA, and further even if the GFDL 1.3 did make that claim it would be void anyway as CC-BY-SA is not in the same spirit as the GFDL.

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:47 AM, Thomas Dalton &lt;thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: It doesn't say "or later". It says "or [...] later [...]". Immediately before March 2007 it said "GFDL". The full history is at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning&ac… I don't think that's clear at all. In fact, I think what's clear is that if someone is releasing a work under a license, they are not releasing it under a license that doesn't yet exist. It allows an MMC Site (presumably, the WMF) to republish the work under CC-BY-SA. But the WMF has had its rights under the GFDL revoked, and the permission to republish doesn't extend to third parties anyway. Both, and then some.

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:57 AM, David Gerard &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Eben Moglen knows nothing about my intent when I grant a license.

Anthony, If you don't mind, let's be specific. Which edits are yours? (Were you User:Anthony?) Who, if anyone, do you believe is presently infringing your rights such that you feel corrective action is necessary to satisfy your expectations as an author? What action do you want to see taken? As a wiki editor, which existing infringements of your work are most troubling to you? Assuming the licensing proposal is adopted and WMF declares that all of their properties are dual licensed: Are you likely to complain to reusers who rely on that in using work that you edited? Would you seriously consider taking legal action against the WMF or any third party even if they are following the CC-BY-SA license in good faith? It is certainly useful to talk about relicensing in general and abstract terms, since most of the editors involved aren't here to comment. However, for months now you have portrayed yourself as a specifically aggrieved party. That being the case, I would like to know where/why you believe this to be the case, what you have tried to do about it, and what you think we (in the broad sense of the WMF and/or the Wikimedia volunteer community) might do about it to address your concerns. -Robert Rohde

2009/3/16 Anthony &lt;wikimail(a)inbox.org&gt;rg>: And that is where I bid you "farewell".

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 11:25 AM, Geoffrey Plourde &lt;geo.plrd(a)yahoo.com&gt;wrote;wrote: Any later version published by the FSF. Interesting theory. What happens if the Foundation doesn't "move to 1.3"? {{dubious}}

2009/3/16 Geoffrey Plourde &lt;geo.plrd(a)yahoo.com&gt;om>: Michael, could you please moderate Anthony? He's only here to spread FUD. - d.

On 3/16/09, Chad &lt;innocentkiller(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Indeed, I think both of you should just leave this thread alone. Anthony, you have stated your opinion on the proposed license migration quite pointedly. I am yet to find someone who agrees. So for now I guess you can only watch what happens and, if you remain disagreeing, sue the WMF. But stop trying to persuade us on this mailinglist. Michael -- Michael Bimmler mbimmler(a)gmail.com

On 16 Mar 2009, at 00:55, Michael Snow wrote: The issue, from my point of view*, is that they do "suddenly become devoid of meaning" as soon as those links stop working. This can happen for a number of reasons, including article moves, deletions, and (<insert deity> forbid) wikipedia.org going away. There are no guarantees that I'm aware of that the links will continue to work for even a decade, let alone the full length of copyright (and, given the tendency to attribute authors even for PD works, afterwards). On the other hand, a local copy of the author list (normally) stays accessible as long as the work does. How does the WMF plan to tackle this problem if attribution-by-link is used? Mike Peel * Note that these points have been raised several times before on this mailing list, but I've yet to see an adequate response, so I figure they deserve raising again.

On 20 Mar 2009, at 08:57, Tim Landscheidt wrote: I'm not talking about references to a text, I'm talking about a copy of the text. That's completely different. Please, give me examples of where text is reprinted with the authors attributed as "[...] et al." or none at all. The whole discussion of coffee mugs is a red herring. That's most likely using a quote from an article, which would fall under fair use anyway and probably wouldn't (or shouldn't) need URL attribution. I'm interested in the cases where a substantial part (or all) of the text is used. Wikipedia has many uses, and I don't think a one-size-fits-all attribution-by-url works, technically nor logically (and possibly not legally, given the debates going on at this mailing list). I'd much rather see a sliding scale of attribution, based on how much of the content you're wanting to reuse and the situation in which you're reusing it. If you're printing a book with wikipedia content, then a full author list is reasonable. If you're using a paragraph online, then perhaps attribution-by-url is appropriate. If you're using a sentence in a news article or on a coffee mug, then attributing "Wikipedia" would probably be OK. So long as the tools for the different levels of attribution exist (the only two lacking are an easy and obvious way to get an author list from wikipedia and a decent history URL), then why not set up a page on wikipedia (et al.) which the community can edit (and debate), defining the levels of attribution required? Mike

On 20 Mar 2009, at 17:03, Ray Saintonge wrote: I was meaning non-Wikipedia text, i.e. existing attribution methods for other works. In the case of eBay, where the use is temporary, attribution by URL seems fine to me. Were it more permanent (e.g. a proper website, or a book), then attribution by author names would seem more appropriate. That's an argument for clear rules, with no relation to attribution. A simple rule saying "if you use this text for that, attribute these authors" suffices and removes any doubt about anyone being sued. Mike

2009/3/20 David Gerard &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: eBay will remove items that violate various rules - they would probably remove something that violated copyright if the copyright holder reported it through the proper channels.

geni wrote: Who will issue the take down order to start with? Properly speaking, the person who issues the order in relation to his own work, so he must identify where his own rights have been infringed. He has no business asking eBay to take down the work of any other contributor to the article. He also needs to establish that his expression has been infringed, and not his contributed information, which is not copyright. If I am one of the other contributors who has personally given permission for my work in the same article to be used I have equal rights to do so as a co-author. I can even issue a put-back order challenging the take down, designating where I want the case heard. I will always have the Merchant of Venice, pound-of-flesh argument on my side. I grant that the ephemeral nature of eBay material seriously diminishes the practicality of the process on that site, but I'm sure that, if necessary, other websites would become known where the material is placed there with the intent of being there longer. I don't characterise taking the matter to court as a risk, but as a pleasure. Some of the possibilities are so remote that I would have to wait until Clint Eastwood dresses in pink chiffon and waves a fairy wand when he says "Make my day!" Ec