On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 12:09:12 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Someone calling something a "press release" DOES NOT qualify as a license which is compatible with the GNU FDL. I do not know of any court cases arising out of this, and it is easy to understand why there wouldn't be any: companies love it when people just post their PR, and have no reason to sue or complain over it. Even in our case, where we would be modifying heavily, a case would be unlikely to arise, due mostly to our NPOV policy.
Releasing something as a press release is giving a broad implicit permission to reuse the content. However, this is not the same as PD, legally. All rights are not given up.
However, there's nothing wrong with quoting a press release for relevant portions; that's fair use. For NPOV, of course, we should attribute anyway.
-Matt