In an attempt to see whether I could ask the folks at the
Spanish-language Wikipedia for help with the English-Wikipedia article
on "La Borinqueña," I went to http://babelfish.altavista.com and asked
it to translate the Web page http://es.wikipedia.org from Spanish to
English.
Lo, and behold...
"Welcome to Wikipedia, the free, accessible and gratuitous
encyclopedia."
Trying the same thing on fr.wikipedia.org yields "Welcome on Wikipédia,
a project of free encyclopaedia," which is OK... but I like the part
that says "Read the instructions, the FAQ or made tests in the sand
vat."
--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith(a)verizon.net alternate:
dpbsmith(a)alum.mit.edu
I agree that this matter is better off discussed on
the Atlantic Charter page. However, the wikipedia
page has never said that it was signed in 1945.
It did say July 1941 at one point before it was
corrected, but the year always was 1941.
So frankly, I don't think that this guy did his
homework before he raised the matter with Jimbo.
____________________________________________________________
Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages
http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.as…
Ray Saintonge wrote:
>Matthew Brown wrote:
>
>>Michael Snow writes:
>>
>>>For the types of uses for which US copyright law allows "fair use",
>>>
>>the Berne Convention
>>
>>>requires that the source of the work be mentioned.
>>>
>>
>>A clarification I'd like: does *US copyright law* require the source be
>>mentioned? Or is it the Berne Convention that requires it?
>>
>Does it matter? If the United States has ratified the Berne
>Convention, then international law would have it that its provisions
>override contrary provisions in US domestic law.
>
The requirement is found in Article 10 of the Berne Convention. The
United States ratified the Berne Convention effective March 1, 1989. As
Ray says, that should make the requirement US law as well. And in any
case, I would prefer to see us complying with international law and not
relying on the crutch of "Our servers are located in the US, so that's
the only law that applies."
There is no independently codified requirement in US copyright law. This
is partly because in US copyright law, fair use is handled as a defense
claimed by the party accused of copyright infringement. As such, the
"fairness" of a use is decided on a case-by-case basis, and the
Copyright Act creates no specific requirements for fair use - it only
mentions some factors to be considered. The factors mentioned in the Act
say nothing either way about mentioning the source, so the problem is
not really a contrary provision, just the failure to explicitly
incorporate the requirement. I expect that even without considering the
Berne Convention, a court might look more favorably on a fair use
defendant who acknowledged the source openly.
>Nevertheless, the
>United States has often made the claim in many areas that the opposite
>is true, much to the annoyance of other nations.
>
Indeed, although from the perspective of copyright law, the bigger
sticking point has been the moral rights of authors.
>Whatever the law, citing sources remains a desirable practice. The
>ability to trace a submission is the strongest evidence that we can have
>for establishing our rights to do what we do.
>
I agree with Ray and Jimbo. There are many good reasons to cite sources
- as a matter of ethics or just plain courtesy, and as good scholarly
practice to improve verifiability. It's good to cover our legal bases as
well, but that's hardly the only reason.
--Michael Snow
I have no idea if this is true or false, but it might be interesting
for someone to investigate.
----- Forwarded message from Frank Branzuela <frankbservices(a)yahoo.com> -----
From: Frank Branzuela <frankbservices(a)yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 19:37:31 -0700 (PDT)
To: jwales(a)bomis.com
Subject: Atlantic Charter signed When?
A Wikipedia article states that the Atlantic Charter was signed by President Franklin Roosevelt and English Prime Minister Winston Churchill in August 1945 off the coast of Newfoundland.... It would be fascinating to compile a list of all the authoritative history publications that quote this historical event as happening on Aug. 14, 1945. I'm sure it would number into the tens of thousands. The fact of the matter is that the "Atlantic Charter" was handed out as a news release by the PR staff. Neither Roosevelt or Churchill ever signed it. There has never existed a signed copy of the "Atlantic Charter" but "history" tells us otherwise. A quick check of the U.S. Archives will reveal that the source document is not signed. Funny how a myth becomes fact if it is printed often enough and quoted by respected authorities.
Have a Nice Day,
Frank
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25?
----- End forwarded message -----
Jimmy Wales wrote:
>I officially pronounce that as of June 30, 2004, content which we are
>using _solely_ by virtue of non-free licenses should be removed from
>Wikipedia.
>
Thank you, most sincerely.
>This decree is only about non-free licenses _as a justification_ for
>images being on Wikipedia, and does not comment on, nor affect,
>evolving doctrine on "fair use". Fair use is good *and bad* for
>entirely different reasons, and that's a whole set of issues that
>remains to be fully worked out. For the time being, I think we should
>rely on fair use, because it's a good thing, but cautiously so.
>
We still need to get a system in place that requires people to provide
source information when uploading images. For the types of uses for
which US copyright law allows "fair use", the Berne Convention requires
that the source of the work be mentioned. We cannot justify fair use if
we aren't able to determine where the stuff comes from.
--Michael Snow
There was another problem with the date. FDR died in
April 12, 1945, so his ghost would have had to sign
it in August 1945.
Actually, the charter was signed in August 1941
(at least according to the wikipedia article).
Can anyone readily verify the charter's existance?
____________________________________________________________
Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages
http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.as…
Jimmy Wales wrote:
>Perhaps we could ask the wikitech-l list to add a field for "Source:",
>and the text there could say "Source (required!):".
>
>Let's start irritating the developers. :-)
>
As a non-wikitech subscriber myself, someone else might want to let the
developers know. Although I believe at least one or two developers have
taken notice of the discussion here.
>My primary concern is not to offend and annoy the many good people who
>have made perfectly valid contributions to date, and whose failure to
>give proper source attribution is not *their* fault, but rather mine,
>for not seeing to it that they were properly guided all along.
>
Agreed, not that I care to blame anyone at all for this problem. I'm
more interested in getting a fix implemented, because it makes little
sense to start a clean-up project if the same kind of mess is still
being created.
--Michael Snow
Jimmy Wales wrote:
>Michael Snow wrote:
>> We still need to get a system in place that requires people to provide
>> source information when uploading images. For the types of uses for
>> which US copyright law allows "fair use", the Berne Convention requires
>> that the source of the work be mentioned. We cannot justify fair use if
>> we aren't able to determine where the stuff comes from.
>
>While it would be nice to have a "system" that's all database-happy,
>wouldn't it be nearly as effective, and immediately possible, to
>simply update the text of the upload page to ask people to give as
>much detail as they possibly can as to the source of the upload? They
>can be warned that if they don't do so, there is a strong risk of
>deletion.
>
It is immediately possible, but I question its effectiveness. For about
the past two months, the upload text has included, "If you are uploading
an image under the doctrine of fair use, please place the text
'{{msg:fairuse}}' in the image description and give the source of the
image." Adding a warning about the risk of deletion for not citing the
source would be nice too, but somebody else needs to do it because I can't.
Nevertheless, my impression from scanning recent uploads is that many
images, including those claiming fair use, do not provide source
information. This is almost certainly because the upload page has two
fields (plus the checkbox for affirming the license). Those fields are
called "Filename:" and "Summary:". And the content provided with most
uploads is, not surprisingly, a simple summary of what the upload is.
Sometimes the source is mentioned, but often not.
Many people who upload stuff probably do so regularly, and are unlikely
to read the upload instructions carefully every time, or notice if they
change. They *will* notice if we add fields where they are expected to
input information.
We need to add a field specifically called "Source:". I realize that may
not happen immediately, but it needs to be done. It would be nice if
this field also did not allow null content, although I realize that's
not very effective against the joker who says his source is
"df39rhjufuasl2".
>And we should, again with an appropriate lead-time to allow people to
>try to fix existing problems without edit wars over deletion, just
>start deleting stuff that doesn't have proper attribution. (I'm not
>asking people to start deleting stuff today, because a good-faith
>effort to do the right thing all around will take a bit of time.)
>
I would expect that even stuff without proper attribution should go
through a deletion procedure with community involvement, in case
somebody can provide the information needed. And any large-scale effort
to clean out non-compliant images should wait until people are more
aware of the need to provide attribution.
But I reiterate that the way to let everyone know what's expected, so
that we have people trying to do the right thing, is to have a separate
field that requires source information.
--Michael Snow