[Wikipedia-l] Copyrighted music on wikipedia.

[Ray Saintonge]

Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>In the past I've had disagreements with Raul about the copyright
>status of some of the music he has been uploading.  In these cases he
>has received permission from the recording artist, but the recording
>artist may not have had the right to grant permission due to the music
>itself being new and copyrighted, or due to the performer working off
>copyrighted score.
>
>Clearing rights for music is a complex and difficult area to deal
>with, and I gave up arguing it with Raul at the time as it's clear
>that his intentions were good and that we could deal with it when
>someone finally complained.
>
>However, Raul recently uploaded
>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Morissette_-_Ironic.ogg
>
>I brought this issue up to him, and his reply was that yes, it looks
>somewhat fishy but the boilerplate copyright waver on a government
>website should be sufficient.
>
>I am pretty much without words on this. I think Raul's behavior on the
>matter of music copyright is negligent. I know this is a harsh thing
>to say, ... I gave him the benefit of the doubt on the classical
>music, but there is no other way I can describe the uploading of the
>Ironic song.
>
>Overall, wikipedia's handling of material taken from government
>websites has been playing it fast and loose (it's only PD if the
>government created it, if they bought it from someone they might have
>the right to distribute it, but *we* may not) but we've really stepped
>over the line with this one.
>
>We need to have a discussion of how to handle music copyright issues.
>
This is less about music copyright issues than about material from 
government websites.  We shouldn't be too quick to fault Raul for this.  
If there is any copyright violation USAF is the one that should be held 
responsible.  Raul is apparently being misled by the US government

It is a fact that the site's "Privacy and Security" page says, 
"Information presented on the Air Force Band of the Golden West website 
is considered public information and may be distributed or copied. Use 
of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested."  The page which 
lists the available music also says, "To save an MP3 to your hard drive, 
right click on a song title and select 'save target as'.***""  Under 
usual circumstances that would be illegal in the US.

Perhaps one might raise it with their webmaster.  The music industry 
would have a field day with this if it were raised with them. ;-)

Ec