Alex R.
I should also remind you that everything done on a wiki space IS in writing, the question being who wrote it is a question of proof, but it is written and recorded.
The question before us then is this; can we state on our Wikibooks copyright policy page and on every edit page that by pressing save, that the submitter is agreeing to grant Wikimedia a non-exclusive right to license to use their own unique and copyrightable work under both the GNU FDL /and/ any other copyleft license the Foundation may deem fit in the future (with a defintion of "copyleft" linked from that word)?
Can authors transfer the right re-license their work through a click-through agreement like we have with the "Save page" function, under the narrowly defined terms mentioned, without assigning away all their rights to the work?
Question two: Would such a notice prevent us from using purely FDL work (such as from Wikipedia)?
If the answer to the first question is yes and the second no, then we could have our cake and eat it too; We would be able to swap text to and from Wikipedia and be able to more easily relicense at least some of the content on Wikibooks.
Related question: If the above is true then could we add such a notice to Wikipedia in order to cover all new submissions (we would also have to contact every current and past contributor we could in order to ask them about the change in copyright terms; if they say no or we can't find them their text will only be under the FDL)?
The reason I ask is that some people here see that our content could be even more useful if it also could be used under other licenses similar to the GNU FDL. This would not, however, solve the problem of us being able to use work under other copyleft licenses.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
IANAL. But I'm going to answer these questions from a legal viewpoint (without my personal opinion on the issue).
On Sun, 3 Aug 2003, Daniel Mayer wrote:
The question before us then is this; can we state on our Wikibooks copyright policy page and on every edit page that by pressing save, that the submitter is agreeing to grant Wikimedia a non-exclusive right to license to use their own unique and copyrightable work under both the GNU FDL /and/ any other copyleft license the Foundation may deem fit in the future (with a defintion of "copyleft" linked from that word)?
Yes.
Can authors transfer the right re-license their work through a click-through agreement like we have with the "Save page" function, under the narrowly defined terms mentioned, without assigning away all their rights to the work?
Yes.
Question two: Would such a notice prevent us from using purely FDL work (such as from Wikipedia)?
Yes. The person who is importing the work will not be able to legally save the page and meet the required conditions.
Related question: If the above is true then could we add such a notice to Wikipedia in order to cover all new submissions (we would also have to contact every current and past contributor we could in order to ask them about the change in copyright terms; if they say no or we can't find them their text will only be under the FDL)?
Yes. If we were doing that we might as well ask for copyright assignments like the FSF do, so the wikipedia will be able to defend the copyright in court if it want to.
Imran
Would not it be more expedient to ask for a non-exclusive general license to be transferred to Wikimedia Foundation, as Wikimedia's basic corporate purpose is to provide free content throughout the world (see http://www.sunbiz.org/COR/2003/0620/90039369.tif ) a grant of copyright license should be well protected by the Florida State AGs office, possible court intervention and the cy-pres doctrine, such a non-exclusive license would be vast enough to allow the original author to do whatever else they want with their work while giving Wikimedia enough power to prevent infringement by third parties and to create any variations of open source licenses or copyleft licences in the future. Also conflict of law (private international law) issues would be forstalled as their would be no issue of agency (mandate) if the author grants the foundation to grant further rights in the future.
Quaere: preventing the original author from using their own work as they wish does not fit with the underlying policy considerations behind the open content movement. If someone is writing a book and wants to contribute part of their book to a Wikimedia Foundation project that should not prevent them from completing their work and exploiting it without seeking approval from Wikimedia (which might be withheld), this would tend to scare away contributors who might otherwise have another outlet for their work and who might be willing to contribute on a non-exclusive basis.
The analogy with software is not the same as it is with other intellectual property content that might be author specific. The reason for having the copyright assigned in the software context is to prevent the software which essentially has many coauthors to have one author to represent it should anyone try and exploit it without respecting the rights of the authors. This is not the same kind of situation where there are contributors to a compilation work (such as Wikipedia); in the software situation it is doubtful that each coauthor would have any possible use for their contribution as the work functions as a whole, where as with a compliation each author can still find some potential use for their work outside of the compilation (textbook, encyclopedia, etc).
Facts, science and other information cannot be copyrighted anyway, they already exists outside the domain of ownership (except when it intersects with patent, trademark or other statutory protection schemes). Alex756
----- Original Message ----- "Imran Ghory" imran@bits.bris.ac.uk wrote on Sunday, August 03, 2003 6:49 PM Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] Anonymous contributions
IANAL. But I'm going to answer these questions from a legal viewpoint (without my personal opinion on the issue).
On Sun, 3 Aug 2003, Daniel Mayer wrote:
The question before us then is this; can we state on our Wikibooks
copyright
policy page and on every edit page that by pressing save, that the
submitter
is agreeing to grant Wikimedia a non-exclusive right to license to use
their
own unique and copyrightable work under both the GNU FDL /and/ any other copyleft license the Foundation may deem fit in the future (with a
defintion
of "copyleft" linked from that word)?
Yes.
Can authors transfer the right re-license their work through a
click-through
agreement like we have with the "Save page" function, under the narrowly defined terms mentioned, without assigning away all their rights to the
work?
Yes.
Question two: Would such a notice prevent us from using purely FDL work
(such
as from Wikipedia)?
Yes. The person who is importing the work will not be able to legally save the page and meet the required conditions.
Related question: If the above is true then could we add such a notice
to
Wikipedia in order to cover all new submissions (we would also have to contact every current and past contributor we could in order to ask them about the change in copyright terms; if they say no or we can't find
them
their text will only be under the FDL)?
Yes. If we were doing that we might as well ask for copyright assignments like the FSF do, so the wikipedia will be able to defend the copyright in court if it want to.
Imran
Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l@wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
Alex R. (WIAL!) wrote:
Would not it be more expedient to ask for a non-exclusive general license to be transferred to Wikimedia Foundation
As our pro bono lawyer, we'll trust you about the right way to phrase it. If "non-exclusive general license" is right, then let's do that!
such a non-exclusive license would be vast enough to allow the original author to do whatever else they want with their work
Good, we want this.
while giving Wikimedia enough power to prevent infringement by third parties and to create any variations of open source licenses or copyleft licences in the future.
Good, we want this too.
-- Toby
Imran Ghory wrote:
The question before us then is this; can we state on our Wikibooks copyright policy page and on every edit page that by pressing save, that the submitter is agreeing to grant Wikimedia a non-exclusive right to license to use their own unique and copyrightable work under both the GNU FDL /and/ any other copyleft license the Foundation may deem fit in the future (with a defintion of "copyleft" linked from that word)?
Yes.
The problem I see with this is that it precludes people from cutting and pasting text from GNU FDL-only sources such as Wikipedia. The reason is that the person who is pasting it has *no right* to tell us that we can relicense that text under a different license.
I still think there's some promise in the notion of a disjunctive license, but I'm still puzzling it out with the authorities.
Question two: Would such a notice prevent us from using purely FDL work (such as from Wikipedia)?
Yes. The person who is importing the work will not be able to legally save the page and meet the required conditions.
Oh, I see Imran says the same as me.
I think this is an insurmountable obstacle for us on this particular front.
Related question: If the above is true then could we add such a notice to Wikipedia in order to cover all new submissions (we would also have to contact every current and past contributor we could in order to ask them about the change in copyright terms; if they say no or we can't find them their text will only be under the FDL)?
That's right, we could do that, but what a tracking nightmare! Every article in Wikipedia would have to be flagged somehow.
This *could* conceivably work, though. We could set up software tools to allow signed-in contributors to click-agree that all of their past contributions can be flexibly licensed.
But unless we have a *really good* reason, and I don't see that we do, we shouldn't do this.
--Jimbo
--- Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote:
Imran Ghory wrote:
The question before us then is this; can we state
on our Wikibooks
copyright policy page and on every edit page that
by pressing
save, that the submitter is agreeing to grant
Wikimedia a
non-exclusive right to license to use their own
unique and
copyrightable work under both the GNU FDL /and/
any other copyleft
license the Foundation may deem fit in the future
(with a
defintion of "copyleft" linked from that word)?
Yes.
The problem I see with this is that it precludes people from cutting and pasting text from GNU FDL-only sources such as Wikipedia. The reason is that the person who is pasting it has *no right* to tell us that we can relicense that text under a different license.
I still think there's some promise in the notion of a disjunctive license, but I'm still puzzling it out with the authorities.
Question two: Would such a notice prevent us
from using purely FDL
work (such as from Wikipedia)?
Yes. The person who is importing the work will not
be able to legally save
the page and meet the required conditions.
Oh, I see Imran says the same as me.
I think this is an insurmountable obstacle for us on this particular front.
Related question: If the above is true then
could we add such a notice to
Wikipedia in order to cover all new submissions
(we would also have to
contact every current and past contributor we
could in order to ask them
about the change in copyright terms; if they say
no or we can't find them
their text will only be under the FDL)?
That's right, we could do that, but what a tracking nightmare! Every article in Wikipedia would have to be flagged somehow.
This *could* conceivably work, though. We could set up software tools to allow signed-in contributors to click-agree that all of their past contributions can be flexibly licensed.
But unless we have a *really good* reason, and I don't see that we do, we shouldn't do this.
--Jimbo
What if we ask the FSF if we can consider a different licence the "sucessor" to the FDL 1.2 for only wikipedia's purposes. They probably won't do it, but it's worth a try. -LDan
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