[WikiEN-l] Non-Commercial Usage

[Mike Finucane]

The reasons put forward on why images must be allowed to be profited 
from can be summarized thus:

(1) "Maybe you should explain WHY you have the policy of not allowing 
people to "get rich" off your work first. There's nothing wrong with 
commerce.  In fact, in today's society commerce is pretty much required 
for survival."

In answer to that; I can only say that this seems to be the very 
antithesis of what I thought Wikipedia to be; people providing free 
material, for a free resource.  How does Wikipedia justify its policy 
on not getting rich quick?  I am not proposing a shutdown of western 
society (although given how the planet is going as a result, dredging 
sandworms for fuel, clearcutting the amazon for profit, one could go 
that way); I'm arguing that there should be a space for those who wish 
to contribute out of the good of their hearts, for a better, freer, 
society.
I thought Wikipedia stood for this; apparently I was wrong, as also 
evidenced by reason (2):

(2) "On the other hand, have you considered getting rich off ours?... I 
hear that running Google ads on well-formatted copies of Wikipedia can 
be quite lucrative." and "commercial re-use of Wikipedia isn't limited 
to certain people, you can take part too."

My purchase price, I'm afraid, is a little higher than that.
----------------------

Having dismissed the most objectionable objections, we come to more 
reasonable ones.

(3) "The goal of Wikipedia is "to create and provide a freely licensed 
and high quality encyclopedia to every single person on the planet in 
his or her own language....In order to achieve that goal...This 
necessarily includes... for-profit ... uses"

I realize this has other implications, in terms of funding, but I'll 
deal with that later.  First, I wish to disabuse the notion that 
"freedom" cant be gained unless and until everyone has made a buck from 
something freely given.  Is love only truly free when someone pays for 
it?  There is a perfectly acceptable, CC-nc designation, which means 
that everyone - including Bill Gates - can use the material as they 
wish.  They are just prevented, for now, for all time, from buying out 
Wikipedia and copyrighting it.  I'll come back to that.

(4) "However, allowing for-profit uses can make the information even 
more widely available; for example, it encourages people to make 
derivative works that build on it, or to make and sell hard copies to 
other people."

This becomes even more reasonable.  However, at what price does 
accessibility come?  A quick look around the web shows whats happening; 
commercial sites like About.com are encouraged to derivatize Wikipedia 
by loading the page with ads, as suggested by one of our 
commercially-minded contributers above.  Does it REALLY help people to 
have a copy available on Ebay for $5?  How about someone selling links 
to the site to gullible buyers at $1 a pop?  I'm not convinced that any 
for-profit body has materially benefitted Wikipedia by having been 
derivatized, or sold as hard copies.

(5) "if there are parts that have more restrictive licences (for 
example, no commercial use), a commercial redistributor would have to 
go through the entire encyclopedia checking the licence of every single 
illustration. "

Looking at the wonderful system that is Wikipedia, and all the coding 
that went into it; it strikes me as strange that no filter can be 
written, such that a user cannot simply tick a checkbox, yielding a 
version of Wikipedia for his/her perusal consistent with any of the 
copyright classifications available.  If a user ticks "not nc", for 
example, he would be able to see/download/pilfer everything which is 
"not nc" in wikipedia.  It doesnt seem insurmountable.

Which brings us to our last, most reasonable proposition

(6) "And our commercial mirrors bring in new business, make donations 
and have helped pay wages for Wikipedia employees."
"put on DVD, and sold for  ten euros(?). A large swathe of this went 
back to the Foundation"

I have no objection to any use of the images, for non-profit use.  That 
is, if Wikipedia makes money from selling disks to people, I'm fine by 
that, provided that the money is used to fund wikipedia.  I *do* have a 
problem if someone -say a newspaper - lifts one of my images from 
Wikipedia, and uses it instead of paying for their own photography, and 
makes a profit therefrom.  Now I'm not the legal expert here that most 
are, and I suppose "non-profit" use may not cover the generation of 
money by non-profit organizations.  In which case, I dare say, the same 
people could find a way to write this and include it in the Wiki 
License.  The sole remaining objection to me appears to be that people 
like me arent ponying up to donate cash to provide whats required to 
run Wikipedia.  And that is, I guess, true.  So we need to turn to 
Satan, and prostitute ourselves, so that some people will have access 
to free material.
And in response to those who ask me to consider the profit enterprises 
as only american-as-apple-pie patriots, Let me just respond that there 
are already many for-profit encyclopedias in existence.  If Wikipedia 
becomes just another way for a corporation to make money, it will not 
improve over the already excellent content provided by these worthy 
capitalists.

Let's be clear about the danger of consorting with the enemy (because 
like it or hate it, those who would fence in the commons are always at 
odds with those who would free resources to all); that Danger is seen 
in how Bill Gates has bought the rights to the digitial reproduction of 
huge amounts of Art that is (or should be) public domain.  Bill Gates 
has seen to it that Java has become a little part of Windows.  Private 
enterprises now own the right to use turmeric as a medicine; and are 
patenting life forms.  Yes, it is unfortunately true that anywhere one 
CAN make a buck, someone WILL be trying to capture it. "I hear that 
running Google ads on well-formatted copies of Wikipedia can be quite 
lucrative."   What happens when Bill Gates, or Larry Ellison, or 
someone else builds a new and better gizmo, which makes the Internet 
obsolete?  Or whatever; just say that the experience of Wikipedia 
becomes a thousand times better on it, than as it is at present.  But 
the new format is proprietary.  Sure the CONTENT is free - but the 
licensing of the new technology is not.  And say that this fictitious 
company adds new material, such that wikipedia-old becomes obsolete?  
Who will use the free version anymore?  What if Google generates a 
superpedia; in which it uses Wikipedia as a base, but adds on vast new 
access to its own-sourced info?  Who will use Wikipedia then?  Embrace 
and Extend has killed off more than one open-source before.  One of the 
most significant protections against this is the prohibition against 
for-profit use.

I would encourage people to consider other possibilities, other than 
engaging in or with the for-profiteers.  One suggestion would be to 
sell and widely distribute DVDs, by some of the wikipedia wage-earners, 
all profits going back to pay for the system.  Make it $20 for all I 
care.  I dont even mind policies whereby other non-profits can use the 
free material.

But embracing embrace and extend, is a dangerous gamble.

postscript.  I may contribute some images, I'll have to consider the 
matter more deeply now.  Perhaps some images that no commercial company 
would want to use; or perhaps a resolution unsuited to commercial 
useage.  I'll continue to contribute information; but the idea that 
someday some Mogul might squeeze Wikipedia out of existence, and 
incorporate its assets, just as surely as Netscape was lost to 
AOL-Time-Warner, will probably have an affect on my desire to help 
create something new.  A world asset which was never saleable to the 
highest bidder.