Jimbo,
My 2 cents...
I think images and video clips would be potentially more interesting for
this purpose than text (because text can always be rephrased to avoid
copyright infringement - something we can't do with images). My personal
"wish list":
* Maps, such as good street maps, in vector graphics.
* Aerial views (such as those on Google Earth).
* Good photographs whenever it is difficult to get a free replacement
(e.g. of historical events - photos such as those used by the press).
* Illustrated books or comics that are no longer in print but whose
copyright will not expire for another 20 years or so.
This is material I would like to see freed, and that would be very
helpful for Wikipedia articles too.
Martin
-------- Original Message --------
Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2006 11:27:41 -0400
From: Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com>
I would like to gather from the community some examples of works you
would like to see made free, works that we are not doing a good job of
generating free replacements for, works that could in theory be
purchased and freed.
Dream big. Imagine there existed a budget of $100 million to purchase
copyrights to be made available under a free license. What would you
like to see purchased and released under a free license?
Photos libraries? textbooks? newspaper archives? Be bold, be specific,
be general, brainstorm, have fun with it.
I was recently asked this question by someone who is potentially in a
position to make this happen, and he wanted to know what we need, what
we dream of, that we can't accomplish on our own, or that we would
expect to take a long time to accomplish on our own.
--Jimbo