With regards to copyright protection of photos in galleries under
Australian law, I've just been reading the Copyright Act. Under the
act, an "artistic work" is defined as:
(a) a painting, sculpture, drawing, engraving or photograph,
whether the work is of artistic quality or not;
and several other things.
Section 31 of the act then goes on to state that:
For the purposes of this Act, unless the contrary intention appears,
copyright, in relation to a work, is the exclusive right to...
<snip>
(b) in the case of an artistic work, to do all or any of the following
acts:
(i) to reproduce the work in a material form;
(ii) to publish the work;
(iii) to communicate the work to the public;
If you took the above literally, that would appear to award copyright
protection to photographs of artworks.
However, one little bit of law I picked up recently is that whatever the
literal meaning of specific words in legislation, there is something called
the doctrine of purposive construction, where judges try and figure out
what the law was *intended* to say rather than what it actually *says*.
You might be able to mount an argument that the clear intention of that
reproductions was to protect works where some creative effort was made,
rather than merely protect an exact facsimilie of a creative work now
in the public domain.
But then again, maybe you mightn't: IANAL... :)
I suspect the law in the UK is similar to the Australian situation
and this is what the British National Portrait Gallery is basing its
right to be narky on.
Of course, just because a work might be protected by copyright in
Australia or the UK doesn't mean it's copyrighted in the US - so it
it's quite possible it might be legal for an American Wikipedian to
download and add those Shakespeare images to the gallery, as long as
they're not going to visit the UK any time soon ;-)
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Merkel
robert.merkel(a)benambra.org
http://benambra.org
Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint): I'm a big girl.
Roger Thornhill (Carey Grant): Yeah, and in all the right places, too.
-- "North By Northwest"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
How to gain power at work in the future: Give it away
By HARVEY SCHACHTER
Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - Page C3
The Future of Work
By Thomas Malone,
Harvard Business School Press,
225 pages, $44.95
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040804/CAB…
"Prof. Malone suggests three patterns will occur in the future:
Loosening the hierarchy: When Google Inc. starts a major project, it
doesn't create a huge new organization with lots of management layers,
it sets up a few autonomous engineering teams and sets them loose. The
Wikipedia on-line encyclopedia allows anybody to contribute to it, with
no centralized quality control. "Its success so far shows that amazingly
loose hierarchies can create impressively large and complex results,"
Prof. Malone says."
Hi there,
(I just wrote the same on [[meta:Linking to databases]])
Wikipedia is not a database but an encyclopedia. And MediaWiki is not
designed to manage a relational database. But there are some free
database projects out there that are worth collaborating with. For
instance MusicBrainz and freedb collect information about bands, CDs and
songs. In Wikipedia there are also a lot of articles about bands. Few of
them are already linking to freedb or MusicBrainz. How about
consequently linking Wikipedia and selected free databases? Technically
it's not that complicated. I created an example on en: and de: linking
to MusicBrainz. See the articles [[en:In Extremo]] and [[de:In Extremo]]:
1. Create a template (see [[en:Template:musicbrainz]]
and [[de:Vorlage:musicbrainz]])
2. Start using the template
2.1. Select an article of a band or song
2.2. Search for it at http://musicbrainz.org
2.3. Copy the part of the Permanent Link after http://musicbrainz.org/
for instance "artist/8ebd161e-f45e-41b9-8019-fcbd094c327f.html"
2.4. Add a link to the External Links section using the follwing syntax:
{{musicbrainz|artist/8ebd161e-f45e-41b9-8019-fcbd094c327f.html}}
3. Frequently get a list of all articles using the template
(Wahtlinkshere is your friend) and parse the template links
4. Send the list of Wikipedia article titles and MusicBrainz IDs to
the MusicBrainz guys and convince them linking back to Wikipedia
It's only a little step further to get the following: If I start
listening a CD a browser window openes showing me the relating Wikipedia
article of the band or CD! It's that easy and everybody will profit - so
what are we waiting for?
BTW: We could also collaborate with the en:IMDb but "their" data is not
open content, so better not linking to them - maybe we better build up
Wikimovies instead.
Greetings,
Jakob
Gutza wrote:
>/ Gutza wrote:
/>/
/>/ _Ok, I might be wrong or subjective here (I'm actually fuming), but
/>/ what *do* you imagine such an atheist organization would do? I am
/>/ trying really hard not to be sarcastic here, so please excuse me if
/>/ some sarcasm gets through, but what do you imagine an atheist
/>/ organization would favor? Now now, let's keep things into perspective,
/>/ think about an "atheist organization" which is trying to doctor you
/>/ into believing whatever they say. Talk to me, Saintonge, you seem to
/>/ know how this works, you tell me what such an organization does! If I
/>/ may "say what I might", the way you put it, I will tell you that they
/>/ DIDN'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT RELIGION! Sorry, was that too tough for your
/>/ cute little theory? Then I will tell you a little more, Mr. Theory
/>/ Man: not only did they give a shit about it, they actually resented
/>/ it. They took down churches. They forced people to work during holy
/>/ days. They changed the names of saints. They condemned you for
/>/ cherishing your saints. Now you tell me, how can such an "atheist
/>/ organization" relate to the discussion at hand?
/
-No need to get so worked up about a topic when it's only religion. If
-they were equal opportunity oppressors they would have treated both
-groups in the same way. In the course of their using the Romanian
-language, some reference to the words that you now find difficult would
-have been inevitable.
Ok, first I have to apologize for the tone of my previous reply, I got
emotionally involved. Now, regarding the communists, you don't
understand, that's really completely irrelevant. One of their almost
explicit goals was to break the traditions everywhere and in any way
they could. So the way they spelled the name (which I'm honestly not
aware of them doing anywhere) is probably an invention of theirs. Just
to give you an example I know positively of, they spelled 'God' with no
capital letter. And in Romanian we have a specific word for "the"
Christian God, it's not the same word as for generic gods, like it is in
English. Would you consider that to be relevant in any discussion on
that topic?
>/ What does the Romanian Academy have to say about the matter?
/>/
/>/ _Nothing, they don't regulate these things. If they were somehow
/>/ forced to actually take a stand, they would probably promote the BOR
/>/ naming. (BOR = The Romanian Orthodox Church)
/
-Not that I support the right of any academy to regulate language - there
-is no academy for English. Still the term that they tend to use in
-their publications would be some kind of evidence.
Well, basically all "evidence", including the Google searches on the RA
site and generic Google searches support the BOR version, but both you
and Danutz deem that to be irrelevant.
>/ Is there such a thing as an "official" religion in Romania?
/>/
/>/ _Yes, the Eastern Orthodox religion.
/>/ _
/I was wrong on this one, as Danutz pointed out. However, speking
demographically there is a vast majority of Eastern Orthodox people
among the whole of the Romanian ethnics, within Romania or abroad./
/>/ I can see that the Orthodox version is based on a transliteration from
/>/ the Greek, but how did the other version come to be what it is.
/>/ (Romanian, after all, is still a romance language.)
/>/
/>/ _The "other" version came to be due to whatever reasons the Catholic
/>/ Church in Romania decided. Can't you see that all this is more or less
/>/ arbitrary? Do you really think that the BOR version is really what one
/>/ would call "orthodox" in the ethimological sense? No, it's just a
/>/ conventional name for the same religious and historical person, that's
/>/ all.
/
-Of course it's arbitrary. And of course etymological orthodoxy is not
-implied by religious Orthodoxy. The real "conventional" name is the one
-that everybody accepts, but the problem is that you have no convention.
Yes we do, and if that didn't result from the previous posts then it's
my fault for not stating this explicitly. 87% of the Romanians in
Romania are Eastern Orthodox (I can't tell about the Romanians abroad
because I only have the demographics data for Romania).
>/ If reviewing all these question does not give *clear* guidance, you
/>/ should accept both.
/>/
/>/ _Sorry to formulate it this way, but your solution is really cute. Did
/>/ you actually take the time to read the original message?_
/
-Since you mentioned it I made a point of re-reading the original post.
-There's nothing to prevent you from accepting both forms as correct. If
-I had wanted to suggest something cute I would have taken note that it
-is a two part name, and split the baby down the middle with one part of
-the name from each group.
Ok, sorry for being ambigous. The original problem is that we argue
about *naming* the article, not about which version to accept. We all
agree that both versions should be accepted.
>/ For each article where the question is relevant, the first form
/>/ introduced in that article should have precedence.
/>/
/>/ _Sorry, I might be off on this one, but IMHO the sentence above
/>/ doesn't say anything practical. Yes, the first form always has
/>/ precedence because it's the first, but what do you mean? Honestly not
/>/ being sarcastic._
/
-I see it as perfectly practical, and objective. Whoever started the
-primary disputed article has earned the right to name it. I don't know
-which version that person used, and I don't want to know. (I have no
-intention to edit in Romanian, so my own personal preference doesn't
-matter.) As you said the other form would redirect anyway. If another
-person wants to link from another article, he should be free to use
-whatever form he wants there. Internal consistency within an article
-should still be encouraged. It certainly works with the huge number of
-spelling variations that there are between British and American, and
-that's without getting into Canadian, Australian, Indian, South African,
-or Trinidadian variations.
Again, my bad -- the same as above, the problem is naming the article,
and that will also end up being the first version; once we decide on the
former, the latter is automatically solved.
-You raised the question, and I think that all those who responded did so
-in good faith, perhaps it would be a great exercise of Wikiquette to
-recognize that fact. How you decide your question, will not affect
-anything we do where we do it.
Of course you responded in good faith. The problem was not in your
answers, the problem was my attitude in the previous post and the fact
that I wasn't clear enough. I hope this message clarifies some of the
things which I failed to mention in my previous ones. As you can see,
there is an overwhelming majority of Romanians using one form of the
name, and I feel that should be more important than the choice of the
author of the article, as you suggest above.
Thank you for your patience,
Gutza
All the more reason for us to get the new upload form up and running, so
that people have to say what the source for an image is up front,
instead of us chasing them down after the fact to find out where they
got it. What are we waiting for at this point?
--Michael Snow
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
>It would please me greatly to be able to respond that their claims are
>preposterous. Shall we research this carefully?
>
>----- Forwarded message from Bernard Horrocks <bhorrocks(a)npg.org.uk> -----
>
>From: "Bernard Horrocks" <bhorrocks(a)npg.org.uk>
>Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 14:23:33 +0100
>To: <jwales(a)bomis.com>
>Subject: National Portrait Gallery images on Wikipedia website
>
>Dear Sir,
>
>We notice you have a number of images on your website (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare; <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_Denmark> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_Denmark ) which are of portraits in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
>
>
>
>As we do not appear to have licensed copies of these portraits for use on your website, we wondered whether you would let us know the source from which you obtained the reproductions.
>
>
>
>All photographs, scans, text and other material on the National Portrait Gallery's website are protected by international copyright laws. Unauthorised reproduction of such content may be an infringement of such laws.
>
>
>
>I look forward to hearing from you regarding this matter.
>
>
>
>Yours sincerely,
>
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Bernard Horrocks
>
>Copyright Officer
>
>National Portrait Gallery St Martin's Place London WC2H OHE
>
>
>
>Direct T +44 (0) 20 7312 2442 F +44 (0) 20 7312 2464 www.npg.org.uk <http://www.npg.org.uk/>
>
>click here <http://www.patronmailuk.com/bnmailweb/PatronSetup?oid=29> to register for the Gallery's e-newsletter
>
>
>
>This e-mail, and any attachment, is intended only for the attention of the addressee(s). Its unauthorised use, disclosure, storage or copying is not permitted. If you are not the intended recipient, please destroy all copies and inform the sender by return e-mail.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>----- End forwarded message -----
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
>
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/181656_msftnotebook12.html
[...]
"The Web itself is another source of competition. With free online
information sources becoming more pervasive and comprehensive, Encarta
could face an increasingly tougher task in appealing to consumers. One
competitor is Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia with articles and
information compiled by volunteer contributors.
"Clearly it's difficult to sell something in a shrink-wrapped box if
something far superior is available for free on the Web," said Wikipedia
founder Jimmy Wales, predicting that it will become "harder and harder"
for Encarta to find an audience.
But Alt and others at Microsoft point out that free online sites don't
offer the same consistency and reliability, and attention to user's
needs, as Encarta does. At the same time, Encarta provides a safer
environment than the Web does for student research."
I have two ideas to boost academic participation.
One idea is to mobilize an academic association. Establish a formal tie with Wikipedia
to get a review for articles in a certain field. This could boost the legitimacy of their
work in the field. (Though not guaranteed.) If they want, they can publish it with their
endorsement and editorship as a book. We may be able to give them some advice on that.
Another idea is to create an official position like "reviewer," "advisor," or
something fancier and give it to academics upon request. The responsibility of
those people are to give comments on articles qualities, suggest ways to improve
them, point to quality citations, etc. And if their contributions are poor,
we revoke their status as a reviewer.
As I suggested on meta, official positions do not have to be limited to things
like chief financial officers, developer rep, etc.
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Official_position&diff=42267&o… )
Asking opinions only is better than participation for a few reasons, in my opinion:
1) In humanities and social sciences, as I know, academics are not
NPOV, and encyclopedia articles in those fields are not neccessarily NPOV, either.
So, we ask only their comments, without being obliged to follow it.
The academics are very welcome to edit articles, of course, as long as they
follow the NPOV and other policies.
2) Reviewing and critiquing articles is usually easier than writing articles. Even
busy people can possibly participate. And we can possibly benefit from their comments.
3) I am an academic my self, but I have to admit that I am a bit hesitant to recommend
some Wikipedias to some of my colleagues. It is because of trolling, flaming, edit war,
and and other wild behaviors that are not for newcomers if they expect warm and respectable
welcome. I have to say, "participate at your own risk!" Some people do want high respect,
in and out of classrooms.. Some people could humbly deal with hasty defenders of wikipedia,
but others would simply leave after getting a lot of negative feedbacks and not much of
appreciation.
So, it might work better for some academics if they can keep a distance from the wilder
part of Wikipedia.
regards,
Tomos
Benedikt Mandl wrote:
>Dear Wikipedia-I readers!
>
>I am a graduate student of zoology at the University of Cambridge (though
>Austrian) and would like to share an idea for an urgent Wikipedia project. I
>contacted Jimbo Wales before and approach to you with his clear support for
>my idea.
>
>Biologists who classify new species normally publish in specialized esoteric
>journals, which has led to an overwhelming amount of information with nobody
>keeping an overview. Even experts in very specialized fields often don’t
>notice if a species has been formally recorded twice, three times or even
>more often. Therefore, it is not known how many species there are known –
>and this is just as ridiculous as it sounds. We are not talking about all
>species that EXIST on earth - but simply the total number of species that
>were already RECORDED in scientific publications. Nobody knows how many
>there are. Expert A might think that there are 17 000 annelids known, expert
>B believes to know about 20 000. This is because there is no central
>registration process and no database or reference directory to browse
>information about the current state of knowledge on a particular species.
>This situation can be summarized with two statements:
>
>1.) A central, more extensive database for taxonomy is urgently needed. All
>their advantages are demonstrated strikingly by bases like www.wikipedia.org
>
>2.) A central, more extensive database for taxonomy is feasible. Wikipedia
>proved the technical feasibility; other existing species directories like
>www.fishbase.org or http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/index.html
>prove the need for this kind of a database and the willingness of
>volunteers to make the commitment to contribute.
>
>Based on these key statements, I define two major tasks:
>
>1.) Figure out how the contents of the data base would need to be presented
>– by asking experts, potential non-professional users and comparing that
>with existing data bases. My part.
>
>2.) Figure out how to do the software, which hardware is required and how to
>cover the costs – by asking experts, looking for fellow volunteers and
>potential sponsors.
>
>And this is why I really need Wikipedia. I am a zoologist. Animal stuff.
>There’s a lot of geeky-ness in me, but of the bug-kind rather then the
>tech-kind, and therefore, I need support on this side. Cambridge provides a
>pool of knowledge, experts and a good name for great scientific achievements
>– and Wikipedia has a big pool of passionate people who believe in the
>freedom of information and sharing knowledge. Wikipedia also has the skills
>of supporting my plans with the software that is required. The idea of this
>project is still very young, although others have tried similar things
>before. Alas, nobody has access to know-how and the passion of the WWW
>community to the extend that Wikipedia has it and that is required to
>succeed.
>
>Previous work with similar targets
>
>In molecular biology and genetics open databases for genes or proteins are
>already very important, only taxonomy, the most internet-related of all
>sciences, still lacks the advantages of an online network. Due to that lack,
>there are already some databases that tried to establish species
>directories. The most important ones are “Integrated Taxonomic Information
>System” (www.itis.usda.gov/) focusing on species of North America and its
>European equivalent Species 2000 (www.sp2000.org/). Both directories try to
>connect other, existing databases to an integrated unit. Furthermore, there
>are ambitious commitments by the “ALL Species Foundation”
>(http://www.all-species.org/) with much ado about almost nothing, a small
>but charming database from the University of Michigan
>http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/index.html) and other, partly
>commercial directories. All these websites have some things in common: They
>lack of funding, are mismanaged, created for experts and scientists, limited
>to a particular group of species or a region, or face other difficulties. To
>put it in a nutshell: There is a need for www.wikispecies.org!
>
>Please support this idea. I am highly motivated to work on this project. I
>hope that a lot of passion for it will develop in others, there is already a
>lot in me. Thank you very much in advance. Kind regards,
>
>Benedikt
>
>----------------------------
>Benedikt M. Mandl
>Department of Zoology
>Downing Street
>Cambridge CB2 1ST
>United Kingdom
>benedikt.mandl(a)gmx.at
>
>
One resource that is missing in your list is www.ipni.org. Ipni has a database with all published plants from the family downwards. It is a colaboration of three universities and their database reflects all changes as they are made. The database is almost complete... Their next step will be the possibility to have the "great unwashed" contribute to the database. (they published their intention
If anything, it is a model to copy for animals. Probably we might cooperate on the software.
A directory of names, you want to name them all or/and, do you want to reflect what current thinking is on names?
By the way this might prove valuable.
GerardM
I just got this email from a reader (I've already explained that we are a wiki
and he did not do any harm):
|I noticed an "edit" tab. I clicked on this at got an edit form that
|seems to have allowed me to edit this text, for real, right on your site!
|I've taken a look in a couple different browsers and even a different CPU
|and it seems to be there consistently -- despite clearing cache and
|cookies. (my "here's MM's edit") at the end of the body text.
|
|Is this for real? Did I make a permanent modification on your public page?
|If so, isn't that a big security hole? If not, it's very confusing to me
|what I did and why I was able to do it.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
I have gotten 2 complaints so far today from people who were spammed
by wikiverse.org. Wikiverse is a relatively nice and non-evil looking
Wikipedia mirror. But they are apparently sending emails to
webmasters who are in the "external links" section saying things
like:
==================
Dear webmaster at firesigntheatre.com,
My name is Kate Weaver (though most people just call me Katz) and I'm
the Content Manager of Wikiverse.org - A World of Knowledge, a
community of sites dedicated to providing high-quality informative web
+content.
We placed a link to your site http://www.firesigntheatre.com in the
External Link section of the Homepage of:
http://the-firesign-theatre.wikiverse.org/ (Check it out!)
I would appreciate it if you returned the favor and linked back to
http://the-firesign-theatre.wikiverse.org/. Linking back to us will
also help maintain your link with us in the future.
===================
This is evil. There is not much we can do about it, I think, but I
just wanted to publicly shame them into stopping it.
--Jimbo