On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 9:50 PM, Marco Fleckinger marco.fleckinger@wikipedia.at wrote:
(...) First of all the priority lies on data already present on Wikipedia. Wikidata should not be a data storage for everything structured in the world, so we should first start to transfer data already present on Wikipedia to Wikidata. (...)
Wouldn't that kind of transfer be a violation of the CC-BY-SA license used on Wikipedia, considering it is not compatible[1] with CC0?
Best regards, Helder
[1] http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Can_I_combine_two...
On 15.11.2012 20:06, Helder . wrote:
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 9:50 PM, Marco Fleckinger marco.fleckinger@wikipedia.at wrote:
(...) First of all the priority lies on data already present on Wikipedia. Wikidata should not be a data storage for everything structured in the world, so we should first start to transfer data already present on Wikipedia to Wikidata. (...)
Wouldn't that kind of transfer be a violation of the CC-BY-SA license used on Wikipedia, considering it is not compatible[1] with CC0?
If the data is actually copyrightable, then yes. Facts as such are not copyrightable. But if there was a bot transferring stuff from infoboxes, it should at least check for any actual text (e.g. long values with spaces), and not transfer it, because of license reasons.
-- daniel
Copyright applies to actual text (or other forms of expression), not to ideas or the content.
Since the items do not allow to enter wikitext, there is no compatibility issue due to the license. Filling the language links based on the existing language links in the Wikipedias is not a problem re copyright.
Cheers, Denny
2012/11/15 Daniel Kinzler daniel.kinzler@wikimedia.de:
On 15.11.2012 20:06, Helder . wrote:
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 9:50 PM, Marco Fleckinger marco.fleckinger@wikipedia.at wrote:
(...) First of all the priority lies on data already present on Wikipedia. Wikidata should not be a data storage for everything structured in the world, so we should first start to transfer data already present on Wikipedia to Wikidata. (...)
Wouldn't that kind of transfer be a violation of the CC-BY-SA license used on Wikipedia, considering it is not compatible[1] with CC0?
If the data is actually copyrightable, then yes. Facts as such are not copyrightable. But if there was a bot transferring stuff from infoboxes, it should at least check for any actual text (e.g. long values with spaces), and not transfer it, because of license reasons.
-- daniel
-- Daniel Kinzler, Softwarearchitekt Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
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So I don't have to mind any consequenses if I mention 42? ;-)
Marco
"Denny Vrandečić" denny.vrandecic@wikimedia.de schrieb:
Copyright applies to actual text (or other forms of expression), not to ideas or the content.
Since the items do not allow to enter wikitext, there is no compatibility issue due to the license. Filling the language links based on the existing language links in the Wikipedias is not a problem re copyright.
Cheers, Denny
2012/11/15 Daniel Kinzler daniel.kinzler@wikimedia.de:
On 15.11.2012 20:06, Helder . wrote:
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 9:50 PM, Marco Fleckinger marco.fleckinger@wikipedia.at wrote:
(...) First of all the priority lies on data already present on
Wikipedia. Wikidata should not be a data storage for everything structured in the world, so we should first start to transfer data already present on Wikipedia to Wikidata.
(...)
Wouldn't that kind of transfer be a violation of the CC-BY-SA
license
used on Wikipedia, considering it is not compatible[1] with CC0?
If the data is actually copyrightable, then yes. Facts as such are
not
copyrightable. But if there was a bot transferring stuff from
infoboxes, it
should at least check for any actual text (e.g. long values with
spaces), and
not transfer it, because of license reasons.
-- daniel
-- Daniel Kinzler, Softwarearchitekt Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.
V.
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Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
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If the data is actually copyrightable, then yes. Facts as such are not copyrightable. But if there was a bot transferring stuff from infoboxes, it should at least check for any actual text (e.g. long values with spaces), and not transfer it, because of license reasons.
I agree. Just to clarify what "actual text" should mean: Although a short sentence with several words may occasionally be a copyrightable text (e.g. a poem), it is very rarely so. On Wikipedia infoboxes, due to scope, purpose and style, this can almost be excluded.
It is not desirable to exclude brief scope notes or source notes, which occasionally occur in Wikipedia infoboxes, just because they contain several words. I personally would recommend an extraction dryrun and manually check for parameters that have more than perhaps 12-15 words, whether they are creative (= copyrightable) or plain expressions of fact or sources (= not copyrightable).
Gregor
Automatically copying over infoboxes is something I don't advise. Unlike current infoboxes, which are rarely sourced, every point of data on Wikidata should be DIRECTLY and INDIVIDUALLY sourced. We can use the same source 37 times, but each bit of information that would ordinarily have a field on an infobox needs to have its own source, we can't just say "everything on this page is from XXXX". If we do automatic importing, it's going to be an uphill battle from day one to source things.
On Nov 15, 2012, at 4:50 PM, Gregor Hagedorn g.m.hagedorn@gmail.com wrote:
If the data is actually copyrightable, then yes. Facts as such are not copyrightable. But if there was a bot transferring stuff from infoboxes, it should at least check for any actual text (e.g. long values with spaces), and not transfer it, because of license reasons.
I agree. Just to clarify what "actual text" should mean: Although a short sentence with several words may occasionally be a copyrightable text (e.g. a poem), it is very rarely so. On Wikipedia infoboxes, due to scope, purpose and style, this can almost be excluded.
It is not desirable to exclude brief scope notes or source notes, which occasionally occur in Wikipedia infoboxes, just because they contain several words. I personally would recommend an extraction dryrun and manually check for parameters that have more than perhaps 12-15 words, whether they are creative (= copyrightable) or plain expressions of fact or sources (= not copyrightable).
Gregor
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On 15 November 2012 23:35, Sven svenmanguard@gmail.com wrote:
Automatically copying over infoboxes is something I don't advise. Unlike current infoboxes, which are rarely sourced, every point of data on Wikidata should be DIRECTLY and INDIVIDUALLY sourced. We can use the same source 37 times, but each bit of information that would ordinarily have a field on an infobox needs to have its own source, we can't just say "everything on this page is from XXXX". If we do automatic importing, it's going to be an uphill battle from day one to source things.
(The argument above is independent of licensing, so this should perhaps be discussed in a separate thread?)
Gregor
The argument above is about automatically copying over content from other projects. My point is that the license isn't the problem with it, but that there is a problem with it.
Sven
On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 7:05 PM, Gregor Hagedorn g.m.hagedorn@gmail.comwrote:
On 15 November 2012 23:35, Sven svenmanguard@gmail.com wrote:
Automatically copying over infoboxes is something I don't advise. Unlike
current infoboxes, which are rarely sourced, every point of data on Wikidata should be DIRECTLY and INDIVIDUALLY sourced. We can use the same source 37 times, but each bit of information that would ordinarily have a field on an infobox needs to have its own source, we can't just say "everything on this page is from XXXX". If we do automatic importing, it's going to be an uphill battle from day one to source things.
(The argument above is independent of licensing, so this should perhaps be discussed in a separate thread?)
Gregor
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Maybe I've missed something because I'm coming late to this, but it surprises me that people do not seem concerned about keeping track of licenses (not just credit) for the data we'll host.
At least in the EU, recently compiled or modified databases are protected by database rights. Maybe the WMF is not affected by such restrictions, and only needs to respect U.S. law. But many Wikidata editors do live in the EU, and so do many potential re-users of the data, in other Wikimedia projects and beyond. I'm concerned that failing to keep track of data licensing will put them at unnecessary legal risk, and will hinder Wikimedia's wider mission of providing free educational material.
For instance, once Wikidata content is incorporated into Wikipedia articles, projects like Wikipedia CD Selection ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_CD_Selection) might not be able to freely release their DVD of selected Wikipedia articles in the EU unless it respects the licenses under which the data has been released. (Perhaps this is the case already, but Wikidata will make it much more visible to data owners.) We will find it very difficult to respect these licenses if we don't keep track of them from the beginning.
Recording the source of the data is a vital part of this, but it isn't sufficient. For instance, U.K. government data is often released under the Open Government License ( http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/), which requires not just credit but (where possible) a link to the license itself.
What to do with data from the EU that's not freely licensed is a thornier issue. Just adding it to Wikidata is arguably illegal and against WMF's terms of use, at least for people living in the EU.
I'm aware that many people feel database rights are a bad idea (including me). But they are part of the law in many countries, including Hungary (where phase 2 will be launched), so we shouldn't just ignore them.
Going back to the original question, I think the database of interwiki links in Wikipedia is unlikely to creative enough to be copyrightable. The CC-BY-SA-3.0-unported license used on Wikipedia is silent about database rights, so databases that are not copyrighted do not trigger the BY-SA requirements of the license. So I believe Wikidata's current work on interwiki links doesn't violate CC-BY-SA.
Avenue
I believe Avenue is referring here to the sui generis database right (in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_the_legal_protection_of_databases the section sui generis, not the one "Copyright"). This only exists in Europe.
Database rights are relevant for new data imported into Wikidata by Europeans from those European databases that have no license which addresses database rights (such as CC0, ODbL, etc.).
As far as my analysis goes, they do not affect Wikipedia, however. The database right protects the database as a whole, not individual records (although records can be protected as part of the database). The database right for the database as a whole is automatically given to the employer or the single person creating the entire database. Both cases do not apply in the case of Wikipedia. WMF is not European, does not employ editors, and most likely none of those editors which reside in the EU can claim to have created an entire and complete database.
I am not a lawyer - please correct should my analysis be wrong.
Gregor
(PS: The fact that the unported CC 3.0 licenses are silent on database rights, whereas several ported (de, fr, nl) explicitly waive database rights is a known issue and under discussion in the CC version 4.0 process.)
Just to clarify, my concern is about externally made databases, regardless of whether these are imported directly into Wikidata, or have been incorporated into Wikipedia first and imported into Wikidata from there. For example, the population data in Wikipedia's list of ceremonial English counties ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ceremonial_counties_of_England), which also features in the infoboxes of the articles on each county, would I think be covered by database right under U.K law. Like other ONS material, it has been made available under the OGL, which does impose some obligations on re-users (somewhat similar to CC-BY).
I'm not so worried about databases originally generated within Wikipedia, e.g. interwiki links. I think I agree with Gregor's analysis of these, if I understand him correctly.
I'm no lawyer either. I'd be very happy to be told I'm wrong, that we have had legal advice and there's no need to worry about licensing external data.
Avenue
Just to clarify, my concern is about externally made databases, regardless of whether these are imported directly into Wikidata, or have been incorporated into Wikipedia first and imported into Wikidata from there. For example, the population data in Wikipedia's list of ceremonial English counties (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ceremonial_counties_of_England), which also features in the infoboxes of the articles on each county, would I think be covered by database right under U.K law. Like other ONS material, it has been made available under the OGL, which does impose some obligations on re-users (somewhat similar to CC-BY).
This is in interesting case. However, while the database right gives you certain rights, it does not give you a copyright (i.e. the conent may be legally problematic, but it cannot be covered by CC BY-SA). Thus, the use on Wikipedia is either exclusively licensed with an obligation to prevent re-use by third parties (which is not the case, WMF does not do this), or it is illegal, or acceptance of open re-use is an implicit waiver of database rights.
I believe you can not allow it on Wikipedia but then NOT allow further reuse.
However, to clarify:
1. It is much preferable to add such data to Wikidata and include their source in a structured way. Whether OGL or other licenses need to be explicitly supported by Wikidata in the future will have to be a separate discussion, on Wikidata.org.
2. My goal in participating in this discussion is to avoid the impression that re-use of Wikipedia content is not possible at all without looking at each invidivual data element and record.
3. Wikidata plans to support a hierarchy of multiple data for the same statement (multiple values from different sources for a single property in a single item). This makes it possible (although not required) to mix Wikipedia-harvested information with poor sourcing with clean, well sourced data.
4. Not harvesting from Wikipedia implies to verify that almost all information from Wikipedia is in WIkidata, but cleanly sourced, before it si possible to migrate a class of infoboxes to Wikidata. I believe this is an impossible task, making some import of Wikipedia-harvested data necessary. Where better, sourced information exist, these would take precedence.
Gregor
I guess things would be far more easier if WikiData would choose a CCBYSA-compatible database license like ODbL. I can only repeat myself, that the OpenStreetMap community went through a similar discussion and decided to respect database rights and keep their data as clean as possible. Because they didn't want to take the legal risk, that after 5 years a big company like Google will sue them and so OSM might loose the work of 5 years.
I also think that there are two aspects in this topic: 1) the pure legal aspects and 2) how we (Wikipedia users) treat each other and respect the work of others. So the WMF might say: hey you European guys with your DB rights... bad luck that you invest all your work into a US hosted project - we don't care about your rights. Even _if_ this is legally not to be objected, is it fair against the users?
To make it clear: I'm into lots of list articles (streets and monuments) which contains lots of data. This content is licenced under CCBYSA today. The day when all this content will be expropriated by WikiData, is the day I'll stop my work for these Wikipedia projects.
Regards Alex
Can you give me a reference for the statement that CCBYSA and ODBL are compatible? I understand that they have certain similarities, but I want to understand if I can take ODBL content and relicense it under CCBYSA and the other way around.
Or else what do you mean with "compatible"?
2012/11/28 Alexrk alexrk2@yahoo.de
I guess things would be far more easier if WikiData would choose a CCBYSA-compatible database license like ODbL. I can only repeat myself, that the OpenStreetMap community went through a similar discussion and decided to respect database rights and keep their data as clean as possible. Because they didn't want to take the legal risk, that after 5 years a big company like Google will sue them and so OSM might loose the work of 5 years.
I also think that there are two aspects in this topic: 1) the pure legal aspects and 2) how we (Wikipedia users) treat each other and respect the work of others. So the WMF might say: hey you European guys with your DB rights... bad luck that you invest all your work into a US hosted project - we don't care about your rights. Even _if_ this is legally not to be objected, is it fair against the users?
To make it clear: I'm into lots of list articles (streets and monuments) which contains lots of data. This content is licenced under CCBYSA today. The day when all this content will be expropriated by WikiData, is the day I'll stop my work for these Wikipedia projects.
Regards Alex
-- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Benutzer:Alexrk2http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Alexrk2
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No you cannot: CC-BY-SA is not intended for data, so regarding data you should never use any CC licence (pre-version 4.0, v4 will address database rights) other than CC0. That's why if you want BY-SA conditions, the good choice is ODbL which was created by the Open Knowledge Foundation exactly for this, a share alike licence for opendata.
Like I already said a few months back, I totally agree with Alex : using ODbL and therefore keep along the BY-SA choice that rules Wikipedia is the most logical choice. Mocing towards CC0 would be a source of a lot of possible conflicts and possible infringements of Wikipedia's content licence.
Benjamin Ooghe-Tabanou from Regards Citoyens (France)
On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 5:23 PM, Denny Vrandečić denny.vrandecic@wikimedia.de wrote:
Can you give me a reference for the statement that CCBYSA and ODBL are compatible? I understand that they have certain similarities, but I want to understand if I can take ODBL content and relicense it under CCBYSA and the other way around.
Or else what do you mean with "compatible"?
2012/11/28 Alexrk alexrk2@yahoo.de
I guess things would be far more easier if WikiData would choose a CCBYSA-compatible database license like ODbL. I can only repeat myself, that the OpenStreetMap community went through a similar discussion and decided to respect database rights and keep their data as clean as possible. Because they didn't want to take the legal risk, that after 5 years a big company like Google will sue them and so OSM might loose the work of 5 years.
I also think that there are two aspects in this topic: 1) the pure legal aspects and 2) how we (Wikipedia users) treat each other and respect the work of others. So the WMF might say: hey you European guys with your DB rights... bad luck that you invest all your work into a US hosted project - we don't care about your rights. Even _if_ this is legally not to be objected, is it fair against the users?
To make it clear: I'm into lots of list articles (streets and monuments) which contains lots of data. This content is licenced under CCBYSA today. The day when all this content will be expropriated by WikiData, is the day I'll stop my work for these Wikipedia projects.
Regards Alex
-- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Alexrk2
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So since ODBL and CCBYSA are not compatible, why would it be less of a source of possible conflicts and infringements of Wikipedia's content license to use ODBL instead of CC0?
2012/11/28 Benjamin Ooghe-Tabanou b.ooghe@gmail.com
No you cannot: CC-BY-SA is not intended for data, so regarding data you should never use any CC licence (pre-version 4.0, v4 will address database rights) other than CC0. That's why if you want BY-SA conditions, the good choice is ODbL which was created by the Open Knowledge Foundation exactly for this, a share alike licence for opendata.
Like I already said a few months back, I totally agree with Alex : using ODbL and therefore keep along the BY-SA choice that rules Wikipedia is the most logical choice. Mocing towards CC0 would be a source of a lot of possible conflicts and possible infringements of Wikipedia's content licence.
Benjamin Ooghe-Tabanou from Regards Citoyens (France)
On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 5:23 PM, Denny Vrandečić denny.vrandecic@wikimedia.de wrote:
Can you give me a reference for the statement that CCBYSA and ODBL are compatible? I understand that they have certain similarities, but I want
to
understand if I can take ODBL content and relicense it under CCBYSA and
the
other way around.
Or else what do you mean with "compatible"?
2012/11/28 Alexrk alexrk2@yahoo.de
I guess things would be far more easier if WikiData would choose a CCBYSA-compatible database license like ODbL. I can only repeat myself,
that
the OpenStreetMap community went through a similar discussion and
decided to
respect database rights and keep their data as clean as possible.
Because
they didn't want to take the legal risk, that after 5 years a big
company
like Google will sue them and so OSM might loose the work of 5 years.
I also think that there are two aspects in this topic: 1) the pure legal aspects and 2) how we (Wikipedia users) treat each other and respect the work of others. So the WMF might say: hey you European guys with your DB rights... bad luck that you invest all your work into a US hosted
project -
we don't care about your rights. Even _if_ this is legally not to be objected, is it fair against the users?
To make it clear: I'm into lots of list articles (streets and monuments) which contains lots of data. This content is licenced under CCBYSA
today.
The day when all this content will be expropriated by WikiData, is the
day
I'll stop my work for these Wikipedia projects.
Regards Alex
-- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Alexrk2
Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l
-- Project director Wikidata Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Obentrautstr. 72 | 10963 Berlin Tel. +49-30-219 158 26-0 | http://wikimedia.de
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
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I think the situation is different here, the unported CC-BY-SA doesn't grant any database rights, so it might not be possible to use the data with CC0 or ODBL (it is debatable, that's the point where consulting with a lawyer is useful).
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Data has some information.
On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 5:43 PM, Denny Vrandečić < denny.vrandecic@wikimedia.de> wrote:
So since ODBL and CCBYSA are not compatible, why would it be less of a source of possible conflicts and infringements of Wikipedia's content license to use ODBL instead of CC0?
2012/11/28 Benjamin Ooghe-Tabanou b.ooghe@gmail.com
No you cannot: CC-BY-SA is not intended for data, so regarding data you should never use any CC licence (pre-version 4.0, v4 will address database rights) other than CC0. That's why if you want BY-SA conditions, the good choice is ODbL which was created by the Open Knowledge Foundation exactly for this, a share alike licence for opendata.
Like I already said a few months back, I totally agree with Alex : using ODbL and therefore keep along the BY-SA choice that rules Wikipedia is the most logical choice. Mocing towards CC0 would be a source of a lot of possible conflicts and possible infringements of Wikipedia's content licence.
Benjamin Ooghe-Tabanou from Regards Citoyens (France)
On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 5:23 PM, Denny Vrandečić denny.vrandecic@wikimedia.de wrote:
Can you give me a reference for the statement that CCBYSA and ODBL are compatible? I understand that they have certain similarities, but I
want to
understand if I can take ODBL content and relicense it under CCBYSA and
the
other way around.
Or else what do you mean with "compatible"?
2012/11/28 Alexrk alexrk2@yahoo.de
I guess things would be far more easier if WikiData would choose a CCBYSA-compatible database license like ODbL. I can only repeat
myself, that
the OpenStreetMap community went through a similar discussion and
decided to
respect database rights and keep their data as clean as possible.
Because
they didn't want to take the legal risk, that after 5 years a big
company
like Google will sue them and so OSM might loose the work of 5 years.
I also think that there are two aspects in this topic: 1) the pure
legal
aspects and 2) how we (Wikipedia users) treat each other and respect
the
work of others. So the WMF might say: hey you European guys with your
DB
rights... bad luck that you invest all your work into a US hosted
project -
we don't care about your rights. Even _if_ this is legally not to be objected, is it fair against the users?
To make it clear: I'm into lots of list articles (streets and
monuments)
which contains lots of data. This content is licenced under CCBYSA
today.
The day when all this content will be expropriated by WikiData, is the
day
I'll stop my work for these Wikipedia projects.
Regards Alex
-- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Alexrk2
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unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
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2012/11/28 Denny Vrandečić denny.vrandecic@wikimedia.de:
So since ODBL and CCBYSA are not compatible, why would it be less of a source of possible conflicts and infringements of Wikipedia's content license to use ODBL instead of CC0?
I share Denny's worries.
If we adopt ODBL, all WMF projects *will have to* add a note about structured data taken from Wikidata (like "data are released in ODBL" or similar), or they should be bi-licensed (CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported + ODBL what.ever).
If we keep licensing Wikidata with a CC0 (which is, in fact, a PD-like license), that allows Wikipedia to re-use data with CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported without any problem. Then, when CC-BY-SA 4.0 will be released, we can migrate ALL projects to the new license.
I don't see any other possibilities - I do know something about licensing and stuff, but I may be wrong.
On 28/11/12 17:58, Luca Martinelli wrote:
I share Denny's worries.
If we adopt ODBL, all WMF projects *will have to* add a note about structured data taken from Wikidata (like "data are released in ODBL" or similar), or they should be bi-licensed (CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported + ODBL what.ever).
If we keep licensing Wikidata with a CC0 (which is, in fact, a PD-like license), that allows Wikipedia to re-use data with CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported without any problem. Then, when CC-BY-SA 4.0 will be released, we can migrate ALL projects to the new license.
I don't see any other possibilities - I do know something about licensing and stuff, but I may be wrong.
Dual licensing under ODBL + CC-BY-SA? Or even ODBL + CC-BY-SA + GFDL, to keep the legacy license as well.
You could also ODBL with an additional permission to relicense it under CC-BY-SA or GFDL when aggregated with another work (slightly different than a dual licensing, but pretty much the same).
Den 28-11-2012 19:37, Platonides skrev:
On 28/11/12 17:58, Luca Martinelli wrote:
I share Denny's worries.
If we adopt ODBL, all WMF projects *will have to* add a note about structured data taken from Wikidata (like "data are released in ODBL" or similar), or they should be bi-licensed (CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported + ODBL what.ever).
If we keep licensing Wikidata with a CC0 (which is, in fact, a PD-like license), that allows Wikipedia to re-use data with CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported without any problem. Then, when CC-BY-SA 4.0 will be released, we can migrate ALL projects to the new license.
I don't see any other possibilities - I do know something about licensing and stuff, but I may be wrong.
Dual licensing under ODBL + CC-BY-SA? Or even ODBL + CC-BY-SA + GFDL, to keep the legacy license as well.
You could also ODBL with an additional permission to relicense it under CC-BY-SA or GFDL when aggregated with another work (slightly different than a dual licensing, but pretty much the same).
I suppose it can get complicated when you move between data, text and code. If Wikipedia enables Lua and Lua programs are under GPL. You can have GPL code that automatically reads ODbL data and generates content that is included on CC BY-SA Wikipedia.
For my "Brede Wiki" I have added a four-fold license and the statement "Or any copyleft licenses similar in spirit.". http://neuro.imm.dtu.dk/wiki/Brede_Wiki:Copyrights As IANAL I have little idea whether that is a good idea.
I think that for a community driven projects one should go for share-alike licenses.
/Finn Årup Nielsen
There is some confusion in this thread.
A single data item is not licensable. The fact that Berlin is the capital of Germany, or that the population of the Seychelles is 84,000 is not licensable. Let us hope that this will never change.
Copyright covers a specific expression, e.g. a concrete text, image, etc. For example, the Britannica article on Germany or the Wikipedia article on the Seychelles might be copyrighted, and thus can be licensed with a license like CC-BY-SA as is the case for the Wikipedia article. This is why it makes sense to allow for different licenses on Commons, at it has many different images and each might have a different license.
In a few jurisdictions there are sui generis database rights. These cover complete databases - but they do not cover their individual data items. There are licenses built on top of these database rights, and ODBL is the one that is used by OSM.
Unfortunately, CC-BY-SA and ODBL are not compatible. You can not take content licensed under one license and republish it under the other license. Thus follows that using ODBL for Wikidata does not relieve us from *any* of the possible legal issues that are mentioned here due to Wikidata using CC0 as a license.
Having different licenses for different data items in Wikidata, as was suggested here, is not possible, as single data items are not licensable.
For every data item in Wikidata, there will be the possibility to add a reference that supports that data item. The license of that reference has no effect on the license of the data item. This is the same that happens in Wikipedia: in the article on Japan we might and do have references that have proprietary copyright. We might have a reference that has a CC-BY-ND-NC license. But that does not mean that the article on Japan has to be CC-BY-ND-NC. The license of the reference has no effect on the license of the Wikipedia content.
If Wikidata was a collection of databases, like e.g. OKFN's DataHub, then it would make sense to provide for different licenses for each of these databases. But Wikidata does not have any notion of different databases. You cannot take a database and simply upload it to Wikidata. You can do that on DataHub. Wikidata is not DataHub, and does not aim to be DataHub. DataHub is pretty awesome at being DataHub. The goal of Wikidata is different.
Choosing CC0 now allows us to later switch to CC-BY-SA4 if we choose so, which actually does take care of database rights, unlike previous versions. Choosing ODBL would not allow us to do so.
I hope that clarifies the discussion a bit. It is a murky legal area, which has not been much tested yet in courts, so there are some insecurities there.
I hope this helps, Denny
2012/11/30 Finn Aarup Nielsen fn@imm.dtu.dk
Den 28-11-2012 19:37, Platonides skrev:
On 28/11/12 17:58, Luca Martinelli wrote:
I share Denny's worries.
If we adopt ODBL, all WMF projects *will have to* add a note about structured data taken from Wikidata (like "data are released in ODBL" or similar), or they should be bi-licensed (CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported + ODBL what.ever).
If we keep licensing Wikidata with a CC0 (which is, in fact, a PD-like license), that allows Wikipedia to re-use data with CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported without any problem. Then, when CC-BY-SA 4.0 will be released, we can migrate ALL projects to the new license.
I don't see any other possibilities - I do know something about licensing and stuff, but I may be wrong.
Dual licensing under ODBL + CC-BY-SA? Or even ODBL + CC-BY-SA + GFDL, to keep the legacy license as well.
You could also ODBL with an additional permission to relicense it under CC-BY-SA or GFDL when aggregated with another work (slightly different than a dual licensing, but pretty much the same).
I suppose it can get complicated when you move between data, text and code. If Wikipedia enables Lua and Lua programs are under GPL. You can have GPL code that automatically reads ODbL data and generates content that is included on CC BY-SA Wikipedia.
For my "Brede Wiki" I have added a four-fold license and the statement "Or any copyleft licenses similar in spirit.". http://neuro.imm.dtu.dk/wiki/** Brede_Wiki:Copyrights http://neuro.imm.dtu.dk/wiki/Brede_Wiki:CopyrightsAs IANAL I have little idea whether that is a good idea.
I think that for a community driven projects one should go for share-alike licenses.
/Finn Årup Nielsen
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On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 2:57 PM, Denny Vrandečić < denny.vrandecic@wikimedia.de> wrote:
There is some confusion in this thread.
Thank you for trying to dispel the confusion. Unfortunately I think you
are also confused, at least about what some of our concerns are.
In a few jurisdictions there are sui generis database rights. These cover complete databases - but they do not cover their individual data items. There are licenses built on top of these database rights, and ODBL is the one that is used by OSM.
These "few jurisdictions" include many (perhaps all?) EU countries. I gather Wikidata's phase 2 is starting with the Hungarian Wikipedia. Databases are protected by database rights under Hungarian law, so we need to be clear about their implications for Wikidata by the time phase 2 begins.
Unfortunately, CC-BY-SA and ODBL are not compatible. You can not take content licensed under one license and republish it under the other license. Thus follows that using ODBL for Wikidata does not relieve us from *any* of the possible legal issues that are mentioned here due to Wikidata using CC0 as a license.
I think we are talking about different legal issues. My main concern is about external databases, with rights held by other organisations, that we wish to host on Wikidata (in whole or in substantial part).
See my earlier post ( http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikidata-l/2012-November/001239.html) for an example, based on the data in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ceremonial_counties_of_England and the infoboxes for various county articles listed within. This data is licensed by the UK government under the Open Government License (OGL, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/)
I believe UK editors would be breaking their country's law if they uploaded a significant portion of this database to Wikidata without following the terms of the OGL. These include giving credit and linking to the license where possible. They could probably do this in an adhoc fashion through the reference field, but it would be much better to have proper support for license tracking built in.
Having different licenses for different data items in Wikidata, as was suggested here, is not possible, as single data items are not licensable.
My suggestion was that we keep track of licenses for different databases held in Wikidata, not for each individual item.
I agree that item licensing is an inappropriate concept. Storing licensing info for databases at item level would seem possible as a fallback, however, if Wikidata has no direct support for databases.
If Wikidata was a collection of databases, like e.g. OKFN's DataHub, then it would make sense to provide for different licenses for each of these databases. But Wikidata does not have any notion of different databases. You cannot take a database and simply upload it to Wikidata.
Wikidata can certainly be thought of as a collection of databases (or parts of databases), regardless of whether Wikidata itself distinguishes between them.
I've only played around a little with Wikidata, and I'll take your word for it that simple uploads of databases are impossible. But based on what Wikidata promises to do, it must still be possible to upload them somehow.
Choosing CC0 now allows us to later switch to CC-BY-SA4 if we choose so, which actually does take care of database rights, unlike previous versions. Choosing ODBL would not allow us to do so.
Choosing CC0, and only CC0, is fine IMO for the interwiki links dealt with in phase 1. But I believe it is not adequate for phases 2 and 3.
These phases will deal with data that in many cases has been sourced from external databases. In some jurisdictions, these are legally protected and any licensing conditions will have legal force on editors living there.
I hope that clarifies the discussion a bit. It is a murky legal area, which has not been much tested yet in courts, so there are some insecurities there.
Yes, there is some legal uncertainty, particularly over which law applies when data crosses borders. But I do not see this as a good reason to ignore the legalities either.
On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 2:59 PM, Denny Vrandečić <
denny.vrandecic@wikimedia.de> wrote:
2012/11/30 Avenue avenue42@gmail.com
Yes, but in some jurisdictions the licenses are the only things allowing lawful use of the data (at least in sizeable portions). I'm concerned that we'd put some users, and maybe entire projects, at unnecessary legal risk if we ignore this.
You make it sound like we do not have a license in Wikidata. We do have a license, and this license allows the free reuse fo the data by any user or project without them running any legal risks.
Yes, we have a license, and I agree this should present no legal problems for newly created databases. My concern is about what it means for preexisting, externally created databases. Claiming that a OGL'd database (say) becomes CC0 when imported into Wikidata seems risky to me. But IANAL, so take my opinions with a grain of salt.
Avenue
2012/11/30 Avenue avenue42@gmail.com
On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 2:57 PM, Denny Vrandečić < denny.vrandecic@wikimedia.de> wrote:
Unfortunately, CC-BY-SA and ODBL are not compatible. You can not take content licensed under one license and republish it under the other license. Thus follows that using ODBL for Wikidata does not relieve us from *any* of the possible legal issues that are mentioned here due to Wikidata using CC0 as a license.
I think we are talking about different legal issues. My main concern is about external databases, with rights held by other organisations, that we wish to host on Wikidata (in whole or in substantial part).
Wikidata can not and will not host whole databases. I said that explicitly int he last Email and I am repeating it here. Wikidata is not a collection of databases. That is also not supported by our software. For this use cases, CKAN is the appropriate software and DataHub would be an appropriate public instance of CKAN.
See my earlier post ( http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikidata-l/2012-November/001239.html) for an example, based on the data in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ceremonial_counties_of_England and the infoboxes for various county articles listed within. This data is licensed by the UK government under the Open Government License (OGL, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/)
I believe UK editors would be breaking their country's law if they uploaded a significant portion of this database to Wikidata without following the terms of the OGL. These include giving credit and linking to the license where possible. They could probably do this in an adhoc fashion through the reference field, but it would be much better to have proper support for license tracking built in.
You can not upload a database to Wikidata. This is no feature that we intend to implement. Wikidata can not host whole databases.
Having different licenses for different data items in Wikidata, as was suggested here, is not possible, as single data items are not licensable.
My suggestion was that we keep track of licenses for different databases held in Wikidata, not for each individual item.
Wikidata can not and will not host different databases.
If Wikidata was a collection of databases, like e.g. OKFN's DataHub, then
it would make sense to provide for different licenses for each of these databases. But Wikidata does not have any notion of different databases. You cannot take a database and simply upload it to Wikidata.
Wikidata can certainly be thought of as a collection of databases (or parts of databases), regardless of whether Wikidata itself distinguishes between them.
This is the central issue. Wikidata is *not* a collection of databases. The notion of different databases does not exist anywhere in Wikidata. It is not represented in the backend, it is not in the UI, it is nowhere to be found.
I've only played around a little with Wikidata, and I'll take your word for it that simple uploads of databases are impossible. But based on what Wikidata promises to do, it must still be possible to upload them somehow.
No. For none of the promises of Wikidata is the upload of databases as a whole necessary.
I hope this clears up some of the raised concerns.
Cheers, Denny
My understanding is this:
The elements of a database that are copyrightable are the selection and the arrangement.
There is no way that we're going to come close to the arrangement of any other database, so I'm not going to discuss that.
As for the selection (what items the database creators have decided to include), we really don't have to worry about that. Wikidata is going to be taking what it needs from various places. I can't think of a single database, even the US Census database, where we're going be taking anywhere near as much as we're not going to be taking. Simply put, all of these databases are going to be holding a lot of information that isn't useful to our purposes. If we did decide to import a database in whole, then we might run into arramgenent problems, however Wikidata has neither the technical mechanisms nor the actual need to import databases whole. We're going to be taking individual data points, from dozens to hundreds of different places, and mixing them together.
I think that part of the issue here is that Avenue really isn't aware of what Wikidata's objectives are. With the objectives that Wikidata has, I don't see how this could be an issue.
Sven
On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Denny Vrandečić < denny.vrandecic@wikimedia.de> wrote:
2012/11/30 Avenue avenue42@gmail.com
On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 2:57 PM, Denny Vrandečić < denny.vrandecic@wikimedia.de> wrote:
Unfortunately, CC-BY-SA and ODBL are not compatible. You can not take content licensed under one license and republish it under the other license. Thus follows that using ODBL for Wikidata does not relieve us from *any* of the possible legal issues that are mentioned here due to Wikidata using CC0 as a license.
I think we are talking about different legal issues. My main concern is about external databases, with rights held by other organisations, that we wish to host on Wikidata (in whole or in substantial part).
Wikidata can not and will not host whole databases. I said that explicitly int he last Email and I am repeating it here. Wikidata is not a collection of databases. That is also not supported by our software. For this use cases, CKAN is the appropriate software and DataHub would be an appropriate public instance of CKAN.
See my earlier post ( http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikidata-l/2012-November/001239.html) for an example, based on the data in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ceremonial_counties_of_England and the infoboxes for various county articles listed within. This data is licensed by the UK government under the Open Government License (OGL, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/)
I believe UK editors would be breaking their country's law if they uploaded a significant portion of this database to Wikidata without following the terms of the OGL. These include giving credit and linking to the license where possible. They could probably do this in an adhoc fashion through the reference field, but it would be much better to have proper support for license tracking built in.
You can not upload a database to Wikidata. This is no feature that we intend to implement. Wikidata can not host whole databases.
Having different licenses for different data items in Wikidata, as was suggested here, is not possible, as single data items are not licensable.
My suggestion was that we keep track of licenses for different databases held in Wikidata, not for each individual item.
Wikidata can not and will not host different databases.
If Wikidata was a collection of databases, like e.g. OKFN's DataHub, then
it would make sense to provide for different licenses for each of these databases. But Wikidata does not have any notion of different databases. You cannot take a database and simply upload it to Wikidata.
Wikidata can certainly be thought of as a collection of databases (or parts of databases), regardless of whether Wikidata itself distinguishes between them.
This is the central issue. Wikidata is *not* a collection of databases. The notion of different databases does not exist anywhere in Wikidata. It is not represented in the backend, it is not in the UI, it is nowhere to be found.
I've only played around a little with Wikidata, and I'll take your word for it that simple uploads of databases are impossible. But based on what Wikidata promises to do, it must still be possible to upload them somehow.
No. For none of the promises of Wikidata is the upload of databases as a whole necessary.
I hope this clears up some of the raised concerns.
Cheers, Denny
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On 30/11/12 19:18, Sven Manguard wrote:
My understanding is this:
The elements of a database that are copyrightable are the selection and the arrangement.
There is no way that we're going to come close to the arrangement of any other database, so I'm not going to discuss that.
I know the last mail concerning this is some days ago, but I just wanted to mention my understanding. Maybe it's helpful for "unweirding" the fact about database licenses.
Compared to a database a text is the selection and arrangement of different words. The text with it's meaning or even no meaning (Lorem ipsum?) is copyrightable but not the single word.
So I assume that single facts (or database items) are not copyrightable just like single words. Only the database (or even a view?) as a selection and arrangement of various items is copyrightable.
Authors often have the problem, that there is already a text and they are not allowed to just copy this into Wikipedia. They rewrite it with their own collection of words, which can – of course – also reuse words from the original text, because those are not copyrightable.
Thus it should also be possible to use the own collection of data-items that are also part of proprietary data bases to create an own, free-licensable database.
I understand Wikibase as a kind of NOSQL-Database, with a list (it is not a real table) of items with internationalized titles and aliases. Each of this items can contain various properties, but it does not have to.
So item1 can contain property1 which item2 does not contain. Therefore speaking of a table is IMHO not really correct, because the only real columns you have are ID, titles and aliases. While persons have a birthday, companies and organizations have a founding date.
Cheers
Marco
Marco wrote:
So I assume that single facts (or database items) are not copyrightable just like single words. Only the database (or even a view?) as a selection and arrangement of various items is copyrightable.
Yes, a database may be copyrightable, if the creativity in selecting and arranging information is copyrightable. This possibility exists in many countries and is completely different from database rights.
To which extent case law provides a copyright protection and which level of creativity is required varies in each state. In the EU, the database rights directive addresses also database copyrights and tries to harmonize it among EU member states.
However, the database right is a completely separate right. It exists only in the EU, and it has nothing to do with the argument above.
Gregor
On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 10:10 PM, Gregor Hagedorn g.m.hagedorn@gmail.com wrote:
Marco wrote:
So I assume that single facts (or database items) are not copyrightable
just
like single words. Only the database (or even a view?) as a selection and arrangement of various items is copyrightable.
Yes, a database may be copyrightable, if the creativity in selecting and arranging information is copyrightable. This possibility exists in many countries and is completely different from database rights.
While some databases are copyrightable, I expect this wouldn't usually apply to the sort of information we want to store. I believe we're more interested in collecting comprehensive sets of facts than creative selections and arrangements of them.
The copyright also might not apply to the atomistic storage of those facts in Wikidata. The arrangement and presentation of those facts to readers in a Wikipedia article might more easily violate the copyright, although fair use might provide a defence there.
Some individual statements might arguably be sufficiently creative in themselves to attract copyright, e.g. sharemarket indices. I'm not aware of any clear precedents for this, however; this is the closest I've seen: http://wjlta.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/federal-court-copyright-law-might-prot...
So I don't see a great need to worry about copyright in Wikidata. If it does apply in some exceptional cases, we can deal with that when it arises.
Database rights have a much wider effect, which I still think should be of concern. But that topic deserves an email of its own.
Avenue
On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 9:19 PM, Avenue avenue42@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 10:10 PM, Gregor Hagedorn g.m.hagedorn@gmail.com wrote:
Marco wrote:
So I assume that single facts (or database items) are not copyrightable
just
like single words. Only the database (or even a view?) as a selection
and
arrangement of various items is copyrightable.
Yes, a database may be copyrightable, if the creativity in selecting and arranging information is copyrightable. This possibility exists in many countries and is completely different from database rights.
While some databases are copyrightable, I expect this wouldn't usually apply to ...
It would be useful when people make statements such as this to declare:
a) what jurisdictions they hold qualifications in b) what jurisdictions they are making their statements about
Tom
On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 3:22 AM, Tom Morris tfmorris@gmail.com wrote:
It would be useful when people make statements such as this to declare:
a) what jurisdictions they hold qualifications in b) what jurisdictions they are making their statements about
a) None. I'd be very happy to hear from people who do. b) The US, at least.
I did say that IANAL more than once earlier in this thread. Maybe I should make it part of my signature.
Avenue
Denny Vrandečić schrieb am 28.11.2012 17:23:
Can you give me a reference for the statement that CCBYSA and ODBL are compatible? I understand that they have certain similarities, but I want to understand if I can take ODBL content and relicense it under CCBYSA and the other way around.
Probably it isn't allowed to import CCBYSA sources into ODbL either. Pretty complicated. Thats why in OpenStreetMap all useres have been asked to agree to the licence change from CCBYSA to ODbL.
Alex
Maybe I'm missing something, but why should we restrict Wikidata to a single standard license (or dual-license)? Why not be like Commons, where content can be uploaded under various free licenses?
This would have the advantage of letting us respect the licensing schemes of various data sources. For example, much UK govt data is provided under the OGL, while other organisations release data under a ODBL or a CC-BY license.
For user-collated data, we could still encourage or even require a certain license (or dual license).
Avenue
Avenue schrieb am 29.11.2012 15:37:
Maybe I'm missing something, but why should we restrict Wikidata to a single standard license (or dual-license)? Why not be like Commons, where content can be uploaded under various free licenses?
An interesting idea. But the purpose of a database is (in contrast to Commons) to create "produced works" from it. This would be almost impossible, if each data item or data set has a different licence.
Alex
On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 9:42 PM, Alexrk
An interesting idea. But the purpose of a database is (in contrast to Commons) to create "produced works" from it. This would be almost impossible, if each data item or data set has a different licence.
I was thinking that licenses would apply to a dataset, not to individual items. I don't believe database rights apply to individual items, only to entire datasets (or substantial portions of them), so it would make sense that data licenses would apply at the same level.
I'd imagine that we don't want to store databases composed of items that require individual licenses (e.g. images or lengthy texts), at least to begin with.
The status of "produced works" would presumably depend on the provisions of the data license. Some might be placed under the same license, or require attribution (e.g. for the ODBL), or not require a license at all.
Deciding it's all too hard may be one option. But we should be clearly aware of the long-term consequences of not tracking licenses before we make that decision. I'm not convinced we have thought this through enough yet.
Avenue
On 29/11/12 15:37, Avenue wrote:
Maybe I'm missing something, but why should we restrict Wikidata to a single standard license (or dual-license)? Why not be like Commons, where content can be uploaded under various free licenses?
This would have the advantage of letting us respect the licensing schemes of various data sources. For example, much UK govt data is provided under the OGL, while other organisations release data under a ODBL or a CC-BY license.
For user-collated data, we could still encourage or even require a certain license (or dual license).
Avenue
A commons image is a work by itself, and there's not much derivation of multiple files. OTOH data items are very tiny. So if made a graph from eg. population numbers from different countries, if pieces of the data were under a dozen different licenses, that could be problematic.
On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 11:06 PM, Platonides platonides@gmail.com wrote:
A commons image is a work by itself, and there's not much derivation of multiple files. OTOH data items are very tiny. So if made a graph from eg. population numbers from different countries, if pieces of the data were under a dozen different licenses, that could be problematic.
Yes, but in some jurisdictions the licenses are the only things allowing lawful use of the data (at least in sizeable portions). I'm concerned that we'd put some users, and maybe entire projects, at unnecessary legal risk if we ignore this.
If the graph in your example was based on 100 numbers from one database, and 100 from another database, then the licenses for both source databases could apply to the derived database. If the licenses weren't compatible, that would indeed be problematic in countries that recognise database rights. To me, this seems yet another reason to keep track of the licenses, so we don't unintentionally lead people into legal trouble.
On the other hand, combining data is not always problematic. If each population number in your example was from a separate database, extracting a single number from each database should not infringe on their database rights, and so their various licenses would not apply. (Of course, we'd still want to cite the various sources.) The resulting collection should be a fresh database that could then be hosted under any free license.
Avenue
2012/11/30 Avenue avenue42@gmail.com
Yes, but in some jurisdictions the licenses are the only things allowing lawful use of the data (at least in sizeable portions). I'm concerned that we'd put some users, and maybe entire projects, at unnecessary legal risk if we ignore this.
You make it sound like we do not have a license in Wikidata. We do have a license, and this license allows the free reuse fo the data by any user or project without them running any legal risks.