Commons-l July 2007

commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org

54 participants
40 discussions

We may have somewhere to send the exhibitionists
by Brianna Laugher 16 Nov '07

16 Nov '07

Of tangential interest: http://bayimg.com/ Apparently "completely uncensored". ("We will not remove any pictures that are just immoral or in any way legal to host under Swedish law." - well, still seems like they'll have a lot of removing to do, to me.) They use a tag system - e.g. http://bayimg.com/tag/background . uploading is ultra quick. cheers Brianna user:pfctdayelise -- They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment: http://modernthings.org/

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Wikimedia Logos on Commons: Possible Solution
by Eugene Zelenko 28 Jul '07

28 Jul '07

Hi! Issue with Wikimedia logos violating Commons policies re-appeared again on Commons Village Pump. But logos should be shared across Wikimedia projects. Otherwise everybody will have headache with supporting multiple copies of same images of different projects. I think MediaWiki contain technical ability to solve this problem. As far as I remember SVN comments, new file storage class allow to support several shared file servers like Commons. So Wikimedia logos could be moved to dedicated server. Access to this server could be restricted for avoiding vandalism/unapproved logos changes (for example to stewards/board memebers). Just thoughts, Eugene.

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We should permit Flash video playback
by Erik Moeller 28 Jul '07

28 Jul '07

Last week I met with John Killy, the COO of the Mozilla Corporation, and with Brewster Kahle, ED of the Internet Archive. Mozilla intends to support video playback in Firefox using the new <video> tag [1], but such support is not likely to arrive before late 2008 according to John. The Internet Archive currently does not transcode to Ogg Theora, but has a transcoding pipeline in place for other codecs. They have recently started embedding the Flash-based open source "Flow Player" for playing back FLV files directly in the browser, and have added FLV to their transcoding pipeline. The Archive is happy to support us with video hosting in any way. If we can find a useful hosting arrangement with them, they would also be willing to add Ogg Theora to their transcoding pipeline. Imagine that we could easily embed any currently hosted video from the Internet Archive into Wikimedia projects, but also make use of their immense hosting capacity for future video uploads beyond the current 20 MB upload size limit. Video has tremendous potential educational use, and we should not let the Wikimedia projects fall behind when it comes to hosting video content. One should not underestimate the big role that ease of use played in the success of YouTube: thanks to embedded Flash video, users no longer had to worry about some plugin possibly hosing their Windows installation, or about Real Networks' eternal "Buffering ..." message showing up. It just worked [tm]. We must achieve the same ease of use in Wikimedia projects. In my opinion, inconveniencing users is the worst possible way to raise awareness of free content & free software. I therefore propose that 1) we immediately begin serious discussions with the Internet Archive about hosting some or all of our video content on their servers; 2) All uploaded videos should be transcoded to at least Ogg Theora & a Flash-compatible codec. 3) we add video support to MediaWiki that will, as intelligently as possible, fall back to any of the following methods - embedded open source Flash player - Java player - VLC plugin - (in the future) <video> support. 4) We support the open source Flash project Gnash to ensure that it can be used for video playback on Wikimedia servers. Having an open source Flash implementation & an open source Flash player does not address the patent issues with Flash video, but those who are concerned about violating software patents (which are not universally applicable anyway) could still use the provided Theora files. We could also add a clear message to this effect at the bottom of every embedded Flash video. Such a solution would be a reasonable compromise between trying to provide "free as in speech" video wherever possible, but also minimizing hassle and maximizing ease of use for typical Windows users looking for free educational content. We should continue to evangelize & use Ogg Theora, but not at the expense of usability. [1] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/section-video.h… -- Toward Peace, Love & Progress: Erik DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

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GalleryDetails update
by Magnus Manske 27 Jul '07

27 Jul '07

I have updated the GalleryDetails script (try it at [1], if you don't have it already:-): * It now switches Special:Newimages into "details mode" automatically * Every image details box now has links to add {{nsd}} or {{nld}}, and to notify the uploader The latter is remarkable insofar as each link, once clicked, is replaced with a tiny frame (iframe) in which the page is loaded, the edit performed, and saved. No typing, no leaving the page, no new tabs opening. For those technically inclined: I have encapsulated that functionality in MediaWiki:InstantAppendLink.js, so that it can be used by other scripts in the future, avoiding code duplication. Cheers, Magnus [1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Newimages&withJS=Med…

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(Free) culture clash: Virgin ad campaign and Flickr photos
by Stephen Bain 26 Jul '07

26 Jul '07

Some people (especially Flickr users) may well have heard of this story already; an Australian ad campaign for Virgin Mobile Australia has been using photos (mainly CC licenced ones) from Flickr. It's causing some consternation not only because of the somewhat offensive content of some of the ads, but because the people behind the ad campaign didn't ask permission from the photographers - or perhaps more importantly, the subjects - before using the photos. I just blogged about it if anyone's interested: http://thoughtsfordeletion.blogspot.com/2007/07/free-culture-clash.html -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain(a)gmail.com

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New tool: GalleryDetails
by Magnus Manske 25 Jul '07

25 Jul '07

I am working on a new JavaScript tool to ease patrolling of images. It can rearrange galleries (or gallery structures, including categories and some Special: pages) to show one thumbnail per row, and data (text, size, categories) of the images next to it. Try http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Newimages?withJS=MediaWiki:Galler… and click on "GalleryDetails" in the sidebar toolbox. Note that it might take a few seconds to get all the information (via API), during which nothing appears to happen. Please have a look, tell me if you like it, and make suggestions. I was thinking of adding "no source"/"no license" links next. Cheers, Magnus

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Understanding CC 3.0 and moral rights
by Jimmy Wales 24 Jul '07

24 Jul '07

Let me see if I can keep this short and to the point. The subject is complex, and it took me several readings and discussions with lawyers to make sure I grasped it fully. The intention behind the mentions of moral rights in CC 3.0 is absolutely NOT to introduce moral rights, but rather to ensure that the licenses are not invalidated in moral rights jurisdictions. The dustup is mostly about the "unported" version. The language in question does not appear in the US version. And it is REALLY important to understand that people can reuse works IN the US under the US version, even when they are released under the "unported" version. There's a clever bit of legal judo here, see? The only jurisdiction where the unported clause would seem to matter is jurisdictions in where there are no moral rights (basically, only within the US, the only jurisdiction without this concept). And in the US, you can reuse works using the US license. See? --Jimbo

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Alternative approach for better video support
by Daniel Arnold 23 Jul '07

23 Jul '07

Hi, At first let me point out that I appreciate the hard work of people that want to improve our projects. Please let us acknowledge the work of Erik, even if you think like me that his proposal is _definitely_ not the way to go. It's all about AGF. ;-) So please let us brainstorm how to turn this into a good opportunity for all of us without sacrificing parts of our goals and independence. Two different things were not made clear in Eriks proposal and consequently were mixed in follow up mails: a) Allowed media formats for _uploading_ files. b) Provided media formats for _downloading_ files. Allowing Flash Video for _upload_ is not acceptable in our projects for the named reasons of patent problems and (at least partly) proprietary software. Providing Flash Video additionally for _download_ does not conflict with the GFDL or whatever (as you provide along side this copy as well a free format copy of the same content). This is as well the reason why e.g. providing TomeRaider _downloads_ of Wikipedia is in agreement with our understanding of digital freedom. As pointed out by various people providing Flash Video for download means transcoding. As all relevant video formats are lossy you cannot transcode Ogg-Theora to let's say Mpeg (or any other particular codec used by Flash Video) without quality loss. So Flash Video is a nice to have _second class_ alternative - a mere convenience for our users. But who wants to get the best quality will always use the original OGG-Theora files. Philosophy aside here an analysis of current technical problems: 1. Wikimedia Commons badly needs a download service for the whole media file repository. 2. The media repository of Comons is so overwhelmingly large that it would need a lot of bandwith and download time even with broad band internet access. 3. Audio and Video streaming requires a lot of bandwith but it doesn't require sophisticated CPU intensive database queries and special designed software (aka MediaWiki). 4. Many organisations especially universities (I could name you at least one concrete example) want to support us with technical infrastructure but it is very complicated to integrate these kind donations into our technical infrastructure. Thus we are wasting a lot of donation potential beside money. Proposed solution: 1. We provide an Rsync download of our media files for selected third party mirror servers. Rsync is specifically designed for such a purpose and is exeptionally bandwith saving on mirroring files where parts are constantly changing. 2. These selected third party mirrors are collected in a Round-Robin-Queue. Everytime a user directly wants to download the original file (and not a thumbnail, preview or the image page in the wiki) in Wikipedia (or another Wikimedia project) he is being redirected to this very file on a mirror out of this queue and downloads it there as usual via HTTP (just the download link changes, he even won't realise in most cases that he has been redirected for this download). 3. In case mirrors don't want to host the whole database we could provide them some filters for mirroring, e.g. Ogg files only. Ogg mirroring would make the most benefit for our infrastructure and audio/video streaming, as full images are downloaded relatively seldom. This would make all these things possible: * Download of Wikimedia Commons media database via mirrors. * Saves us quite some bandwith especially at audio and video (you need to download the real file for streaming). * Easy drop in and drop out of single third party supporters. * Not dependent from one exclusive partner. We maintain our independence and increase technical failure resitance by reducing the single point of failure problem. In case you fear the problem of license issues (providing the copyright infos alongside the files) this can be solved without troubles, too. There is static.wikipedia.org Just transfer the static html image wiki pages of Commons as well to the single mirrors and we're perfectly done (and third party mirrors can create their own software interface around that thing if they want). Cheers, Arnomane

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CC-3.0 and Jimmy's comment on CC-3.0.
by Gregory Maxwell 22 Jul '07

22 Jul '07

Jimmy Wales jwales at wikia.com wrote: >On Jul 14, 2007, at 2:05 PM, Delphine Ménard wrote: >> I believe you are completely mistaken. The way *i* understand it, the >> CC 3.0 licence simply states clearly in the text of the licence rights >> that exist and can't be waived in those countries where they exist >> anyway. >> >> In clear, the licence does not *add* any restriction that is not there >> in the first place. > >This is correct, but I have great sympathy for those who find it >confusing. I am pushing to have some kind of >clarification as quickly as possible. > >But everyone important assures me that there is NO intention to >include moral rights as a part of CC 3.0 attribution. Then surely you can, as a board member of the Creative Commons, get an official statement on this matter. I am fairly sure I was told otherwise by Lessig some time ago: that the CC-3.0 licenses are designed to increase the ability for authors to enforce their moral rights by making the free license grant contingent on moral rights being honored. Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but I've seen CC criticized by those who believe that free licenses are bad because they allow a creator's work to be used in a manner which is against the creator's wishes. I believed that the words "nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights" were added to '"human readable text" for all of them (including the US form, which lacks the objectionable clause in the license proper) along with the new clause (for non-US) with the explicit intent of ending that criticism. There is a fundamental conflict between the notion of protecting all "moral rights" and distributing under a free content licenses. While the moral right of attribution has no serious interaction with Free Content, all other forms of moral rights do... and in the locations where moral rights are functional they are part of copyright law, and addressed in copyright related contracts. It shouldn't be a shock to find Creative Commons in the center of a dispute between "freedom from the perspective of the public" and "freedom from the perspective of a content creator", since their alignment on that front has brought them under fire many times over again. When we say "free license" we are specifically talking about a work which has been so freed by an author that he can't stop your use even if he finds it distasteful. To accept any less would be leaving a great liability in the hands of reusers: they can only use the "free" work until the author demands otherwise, and then they must either stop or spend a lot of time and money in court. Frankly, that sounds a lot like the situation around the use of most unlicensed works today (free to use until you're told NO) ... and it doesn't sound like free content at all. At a minimum, I think Creative Commons needs to make an official statement clarifying its intentions. However, this isn't sufficient. The intent of the license author is going to have minimal sway in court; what will be material is the *exact text*, the understanding of the licensee, and the understanding of the licensor. A really good free content license would clearly state that it is the intention of the licensor to release the work under conditions which allow recipients to reuse it without fear of a legal attack from the licensor just because he has found the reuse personally or politically distasteful. In other words, to the greatest extent possible the license should express a general intention to release "moral rights"-related restrictions which conflict with the explicit goals of free content. I don't think that we need to demand that our accepted licenses all be ideal ones. A license which failed to mention this sort of intent explicitly would be neutral from this perspective. But cc-by-sa-3.0's language is worse than neutral. It explicitly brings up these "moral rights" restrictions. The full purpose of bringing them up is unclear, but it is clearly not intended to release anyone from anything. At best this term has no effect, but at worst it compromises the free status of the license. Our ability to be confident in the freedom of a work is actually more important than the freedom itself. People who can't be found, who have nothing to lose, who employ many attorneys, or for whom a copyright battle would be good PR are already fully ignoring copyright law today. They don't need free licenses, much less good ones. But the rest of the world does. We are one of the largest repositories of liberally-licensed content in the world. We are almost certainly the largest repository of content which is Free Content in the strong sense (enabling derivatives, no discrimination against natures of use), and we are a budding content creation powerhouse. As such, we have a *social responsibility* to make sure that our mission is effective, that freedom is provided, and that the licenses are done right. The -3.0 licenses clearly have problems. Even if I am incorrect about the extent to which a court would conclude that they impose moral rights, they do inarguably have a significant confidence-damaging problem with their clarity. Jimmy, I have a lot of trust in your judgment, but I think I need to specifically ask you to sit back and consider this subject carefully under each of the several hats you wear. You are visionary about the importance of content which isn't merely no-cost but which provides freedom. You are a board member for the Wikimedia Foundation, responsible for its long term well-being. You are an internet entrepreneur whose companies profit from content creation communities. You are a board member for Creative Commons with the expected responsibilities. And you are the father to a child who will inherit the social and informational legacy we are all creating. It's my view that the only benefit from anything less than a slow and careful handling of these license matters is a minor increase the short-term popularity of the Creative Commons brand. I don't think that haste on the subject of licensing is beneficial in any of the hats you wear. Cheers. Greg.

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Fwd: CC 3.0 licenses
by Erik Moeller 20 Jul '07

20 Jul '07

Here is Mike Godwin's (WMF counsel) take on the moral rights language in CC 3.0. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic(a)gmail.com> Date: Jul 20, 2007 11:08 AM Subject: Re: CC 3.0 licenses To: Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> Cc: Mike Godwin <mnemonic(a)gmail.com> Dear Erik, Please feel free to forward this note to the list regarding CC 3.0 In the United States, where "applicable law" is now generally understood by American courts to include the right to parody and the right to engage in fair use, the clause "Except ... as may be otherwise permitted by applicable law" (let's call it the "Except" clause) does much to undercut the seemingly broad scope of the moral-rights language that some take to be mandated by the Berne copyright convention. The same is true for other nations (notably the United Kingdom and Switzerland) that take nonstandard views about how to enforce claims that other nations would interpret as moral-rights claims. My understanding is that there is not any universal international consensus, even under Berne, about how moral rights should be enforced. What seems to me to be the case is that the drafters of CC 3.0 are attempting to accommodate the differences in national-level enforcement of moral rights with the "Except" clause. In effect, CC 3.0 seems to me to be written NOT to *enforce* a restrictive vision of moral rights but INSTEAD to *dodge* or *avoid* the question of whether and how moral rights should be enforced under a particular nation's laws. The clear aim, it seems to me, is to allow the same CC 3.0 language to be used generally, whether in a nation like Japan that (apparently) has strong enforcement of moral-rights claims or in a nation like the United States, where moral rights claims are weakly enforced if at all, and where moral-rights claims are severely constrained by national legal norms. The preceding can be interpreted as restating what CC's counsel has said on the subject. There's a pretty good law-review article about this subject available at <http://www.harvardilj.org/print/58?sn=0>. --Mike Godwin General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation On Jul 19, 2007, at 11:28 PM, Erik Moeller wrote: Mike - there's a hot thread on the "Wikimedia Commons" list about the CC 3.0 licenses, specifically, the "moral rights" clauses therein, which some consider an unacceptable restriction of freedom. In practice, users uploading CC 3.0 files are currently getting a "license disputed" warning, which I think is a very unfortunate state of affairs. See the "thread view" of: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2007-July/002117.html The relevant section from CC-BY-SA 3.0 is: Except as otherwise agreed in writing by the Licensor or as may be otherwise permitted by applicable law, if You Reproduce, Distribute or Publicly Perform the Work either by itself or as part of any Adaptations or Collections, You must not distort, mutilate, modify or take other derogatory action in relation to the Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author's honor or reputation. Licensor agrees that in those jurisdictions (e.g. Japan), in which any exercise of the right granted in Section 3(b) of this License (the right to make Adaptations) would be deemed to be a distortion, mutilation, modification or other derogatory action prejudicial to the Original Author's honor and reputation, the Licensor will waive or not assert, as appropriate, this Section, to the fullest extent permitted by the applicable national law, to enable You to reasonably exercise Your right under Section 3(b) of this License (right to make Adaptations) but not otherwise. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode The official response from CCi's legal counsel is here: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2007-July/002151.html I'm not convinced there's any substantial issue with the wording, but it would be good at this point, I think, to get a response from you. You may wish to subscribe to the Wikimedia Commons mailing list at http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l or I can forward any comments you would like to make. -- Toward Peace, Love & Progress: Erik DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees. -- Toward Peace, Love & Progress: Erik DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

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Commons-l July 2007