I am not quite sure why you might want a policyassigning all copyrights to the Wikimedia Foundation. First, this would be an administrative nightmare to change the licensing in midstream. Those who have contributed to any wiki type project are doing so with the understanding that their work can be edited, changed, etc. even if they don't grant any kind of additional license. However, they do not give up their copyright, with or without attribution. If they do not grant an open license then just posting it on a wiki type space is legally no different than writing someone a letter (though the issue of publication may come up). Regarding anonymous and pseudononymous works both are protected by copyright under US and foreign copyright laws, as the case may be. The author of the letter retains copyright.
Regarding people making contributions under any kind of specific license (be that open in the case of the WP community, or closed in the case of AOL) it is just a license, it is not the transfer or assignment of copyright, thus the original contributor under an open, non-exclusive license could still sell her or his work or have it published commercially, (without the GNU notice) though someone who discovers that it is posted with a open license could then also publish it commerically (as long as the GNU Free Documentation License notice is then included).
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.
I am not certain why there is a discussion of assigning copyright to the Wikimedia Foundation. Of course anyone is free to make such a contribution (though I doubt they will get a tax deduction for it) but it is not necessary IMHO for Wikimedia to use materials under the open license it already has, perhaps I do not understand the question, but what specifically cannot be acheived with the current open license that every Wikipedia contributor grants when they make contributions to any Wikipedia space? Is anyone really worried that contributors will start publishing their original contributions commercially (that includes publication by a not-for-profit corporation, many so called "small press" publishers are exempt under 501(c)(3) and their publications are sold in bookstores, i.e. most University Presses).
Alex756 (the lawyer mentioned below)
On Fri, 1 Aug 2003 07:10:47 -0700 (PDT) Karl Wick said:
Wasn't there a lawyer who offered free services to Jimmy a while back ? An expert opinion would he helpful in many issues to make a plan that is legal and helps achieve WP goals and mission, such as regarding the proposed dedication of copyrights to the Foundation.
--Karl
Alex R. wrote:
I am not certain why there is a discussion of assigning copyright to the Wikimedia Foundation. Of course anyone is free to make such a contribution (though I doubt they will get a tax deduction for it) but it is not necessary IMHO for Wikimedia to use materials under the open license it already has, perhaps I do not understand the question, but what specifically cannot be acheived with the current open license that every Wikipedia contributor grants when they make contributions to any Wikipedia space?
I would say that the primary driving concern that we have is that there are starting to be materials published under other free and copyleft licenses (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike being most prominent) that are incompatible with the GNU FDL. We'd love to be able to cut and paste willy-nilly between all free resources, but we can't, due to issues of license incompatibility.
http://www.wikitravel.org, or example, is CC ATT-SA, so we can't use their materials and they can't use ours, not without specific permission. That's a real shame, and it's why I'm trying to get them to change their license while they are just starting to get off the ground.
--Jimbo
--- Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote:
I would say that the primary driving concern that we have is that there are starting to be materials published under other free and copyleft licenses (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike being most prominent) that are incompatible with the GNU FDL. We'd love to be able to cut and paste willy-nilly between all free resources, but we can't, due to issues of license incompatibility.
http://www.wikitravel.org, or example, is CC ATT-SA, so we can't use their materials and they can't use ours, not without specific permission. That's a real shame, and it's why I'm trying to get them to change their license while they are just starting to get off the ground.
--Jimbo
Is it in any way possible for us to have an agreement with eachother that says that we can use eachother's material? Would that be against the GPL? LDan
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Is it in any way possible for us to have an agreement with eachother that says that we can use eachother's material? Would that be against the GPL?
This sticking points is not between us and them, but between thousands of contributors and us or them. Tons of stuff has been contributed under the GNU FDL, and there's no easy way to get permission from those people.
--Jimbo
--- Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote:
Alex R. wrote:
I am not certain why there is a discussion of
assigning copyright
to the Wikimedia Foundation. Of course anyone is
free to make
such a contribution (though I doubt they will get
a tax deduction
for it) but it is not necessary IMHO for Wikimedia
to use materials
under the open license it already has, perhaps I
do not understand
the question, but what specifically cannot be
acheived with the
current open license that every Wikipedia
contributor grants when
they make contributions to any Wikipedia space?
I would say that the primary driving concern that we have is that there are starting to be materials published under other free and copyleft licenses (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike being most prominent) that are incompatible with the GNU FDL. We'd love to be able to cut and paste willy-nilly between all free resources, but we can't, due to issues of license incompatibility.
http://www.wikitravel.org, or example, is CC ATT-SA, so we can't use their materials and they can't use ours, not without specific permission. That's a real shame, and it's why I'm trying to get them to change their license while they are just starting to get off the ground.
--Jimbo
As a wikipedia author, why can't I relicence wikipedia content under the CC ATT-SA?
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
LittleDan wrote:
As a wikipedia author, why can't I relicence wikipedia content under the CC ATT-SA?
You can relicense what you write, in general. So if you write a new article by scratch, OK. But if you /edit/ an article, then what you've just written was open to you only because the previous version was GNU FDL, which requires you to license you new version only under the FDL too.
-- Toby
It is ironic that these various licenses are incompatible with each other, maybe a simpler solution would be to have a very straightforward license like has been used commonly in areas where non-exclusive licensing is a commercial reality and just make sure that atribution is preserved (sort of like the moral rights approach of European copyright) isn't that what we all really want when we talk about open content? Alex756
"Jimmy Wales" jwales@bomis.com wrote:
I would say that the primary driving concern that we have is that there are starting to be materials published under other free and copyleft licenses (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike being most prominent) that are incompatible with the GNU FDL. We'd love to be able to cut and paste willy-nilly between all free resources, but we can't, due to issues of license incompatibility.
http://www.wikitravel.org, or example, is CC ATT-SA, so we can't use their materials and they can't use ours, not without specific permission. That's a real shame, and it's why I'm trying to get them to change their license while they are just starting to get off the ground.
--Jimbo
Alex R. wrote:
It is ironic that these various licenses are incompatible with each other, maybe a simpler solution would be to have a very straightforward license like has been used commonly in areas where non-exclusive licensing is a commercial reality and just make sure that atribution is preserved (sort of like the moral rights approach of European copyright) isn't that what we all really want when we talk about open content?
Absolutely, except that now it is too late for Wikipedia.
If I were doing it all again with benefit of hindsight, I would have setup wikipedia *from the start* to require everyone to contribute under a disjunctive license that said, basically, people can redistribute under the terms of the GNU FDL or any other content license specifically approved by the FSF as free and copyleft.
--Jimbo
I'd don't know if it is too late if we can get the Free Software Foundation to allow us to create a specific Wikimedia ver.2 successor license that will apply ONLY to what has been posted on Wikipedia on ver 1 licenses (it is currently 1.2, no?). I cannot see any reason why FSF would not allow that as it is within the spirit of open content and copyleft, it would just make it better for an online knowledge base to adapt the license that was originally written for software manuals so that it will encourage more distribution of knowledge. FSF certainly has the power to create a successor license to v.1.2 that will only apply to certain materials, unless of course if they want to do it so that anyone who uses v. 1.2 or a similar license that might be approved. Maybe we can have them put that similar licence successor clause put in so that it could then point to a native Wikimedia copyleft license (that would have been approved by FSF). All future content could be directly licensed under Wikimedia's native license (which could include a broad non-exclusive licencing clause and also an "as-is" warranty waiver which is not in the GNU FDL). alex756 "Jimmy Wales" jwales@bomis.com on Tuesday, August 05, 2003 9:01 PM wrote: >
Absolutely, except that now it is too late for Wikipedia.
If I were doing it all again with benefit of hindsight, I would have setup wikipedia *from the start* to require everyone to contribute under a disjunctive license that said, basically, people can redistribute under the terms of the GNU FDL or any other content license specifically approved by the FSF as free and copyleft.
--Jimbo _______________________________________________ Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l@wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
Alex T. the lawyer wrote:
I'd don't know if it is too late if we can get the Free
Software Foundation to allow us to create a specific Wikimedia ver.2 successor license that will apply ONLY to what has been posted on Wikipedia on ver 1 licenses
Dude you are a lifesaver. Please keep helping us think outside the box to figure out a workable solution.
Is there any way to support a claim that Wikipedia has authority to redistribute the contributions that have been made to it under other licenses ? Such as fair use, or the fact that people contributed to stuff on their servers, etc ? (Before Mav or anyone flames me, I realize that neither of those is likely the answer but is there something else that could be?)
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org