Anthony wrote:
Free licenses are generally written from the point of view that modifications to works constitute derivative works, and not works of joint authorship. Either is certainly possible. The key legal question is whether the authors intended to collaborate on a single work (Lennon/McCartney), or if one author created a work which was then modified by another author (a movie created from a screenplay).
It's by no means clear which better fits what happens on Wikipedia. I could see things going either way, but considering the use of the GFDL I'd lean toward believing that the *intent* of most authors was for each subsequent edition to be a derivative work, and not a work of joint authorship. And that's what matters, the intent of the authors (unfortunately, some authors probably intended different from other authors).
Purely on the question of what extra-wiki artistic analogue would be most apposite to the current state of affairs, might I propose:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_the_Rising_Sun
Wikipedia is very much jamming on each others contributions, with participants being variously incensed or exhilarated by others appropriating, re-using, re-invigorating old content. Personally I am glad that very few of my early contributions have remained in any form at all as live content. What supplanted them has been much better.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen