Consider what happens if we make a print version of Wikipedia with color images in black and white? Is that a derived work?
Meh. Possibly a derivative work under some laws, I don't know.
Though CC-BY-ND, for instance, explicitly allows transfer to different
media,
and modifications necessary for such.
CC-By-ND leaves a lot of things unanswered.. not as vague as NC, but it's still ugly.
You didn't comment on my other examples. :)
Same answer, no? Sorry, I'm still not seeing the "downstream" argument. CC licenses are meant to be valid for absolutely all media formats, including those not yet conceived of, and even ND licenses make allowances for this. If a downstream user really did have to make a modification to make it available in some media format, then it would be explicitly allowed by CC-(*)-ND. The "cropping for fair use" is not needed because we wouldn't have to rely on fair use.
I think you misunderstand how fair use is supposed to be used on enwiki because it is so widely misused.
Quite possibly!
See [[WP:FUC]].
I had seen FUC, and that was why I brought up fair use. I figured, if we allow that stuff under these conditions, then surely a free license like CC-BY-ND wouldn't be horrible, even if it is more restrictive than CC-BY-SA. CC-BY-NC-SA is out, but I figured that was for downstream reasons.
we do not want to make the impression that we are using the work under CC-BY-ND, that we approve of the license, or that we would encourage anyone to release content under it.
Well, this is a bit of a surprise. So, it's not just a legal issue for us and our downstream users.
You then go down just a bit further to find what "free license" is
acceptable.
Again, it explicitly forbids non-commercial use licenses, but is silent on non-derivative licenses. You then go to another page for "acceptable image
tags"
(WP:TAG).
I'll fix that so it doesn't create any impression of being a complete list.
Well, if it is a fairly common case, then maybe it actually needs explaning and justifying, like for NC. I'd like to say it's not an obvious point at all, but maybe this is only because I like to think of myself as not being dense.
Seriously, am I the first one to bring ND up? If so, there's probably no point adding rules for a rare or even hypothetical case. If not, is there a pointer to discussion somewhere?
Cheers, Daniel
On 9/19/06, dmehkeri@swi.com dmehkeri@swi.com wrote:
Seriously, am I the first one to bring ND up? If so, there's probably no point adding rules for a rare or even hypothetical case. If not, is there a pointer to discussion somewhere?
The "free" in "Free encyclopedia" has always been in reference to "free content." If you read our page on free content you'll see that its very definition prohibits a ND license being within that scope.
"Free content, or free information, is any kind of functional work, artwork, or other creative content having no legal restriction relative to people's freedom to use, redistribute, improve, and share the content. Importantly, when free content is modified, expanded, or incorporated within another work, the resulting work must also be distributable as free content (see share-alike). To be considered free content, a work must allow modification and redistribution."
This is probably why it doesn't come up much and isn't addressed explicitly. I didn't think we needed to address it since it seems obviously to fall outside of our use of "free".
FF
On 9/19/06, dmehkeri@swi.com dmehkeri@swi.com wrote:
You didn't comment on my other examples. :)
Same answer, no? Sorry, I'm still not seeing the "downstream" argument.
My other examples were about our use on english Wikipedia. I even mentioned how often we crop images.
The "cropping for fair use" is not needed because we wouldn't have to rely on fair use.
Cropping is not permitted by CC-By-ND. A desire to avoid cropping is actually the #1 reason why people have told me that they want their work -ND.
See [[WP:FUC]].
I had seen FUC, and that was why I brought up fair use. I figured, if we allow that stuff under these conditions, then surely a free license like CC-BY-ND wouldn't be horrible, even if it is more restrictive than CC-BY-SA. CC-BY-NC-SA is out, but I figured that was for downstream reasons.
Hm. Did you actually read the preface or did you just skim the conditions?
If it's not clear to you why we would permit some images as fair use but not allow -ND then it needs some further clarifying.
we do not want to make the impression that we are using the work under CC-BY-ND, that we approve of the license, or that we would encourage anyone to release content under it.
Well, this is a bit of a surprise. So, it's not just a legal issue for us and our downstream users.
Of course it is not a legal issue. No image that we can legally put on our website would be a 'legal issue'.
It's a two fold pratical matter:
1) Our day-to-day activity sometimes requires making derrived works. 2) -ND content is not Free Content, and building a Encyclopedia from Free content is the fundimental goal of the project.
I'll fix that so it doesn't create any impression of being a complete list.
Well, if it is a fairly common case, then maybe it actually needs explaning and justifying, like for NC. I'd like to say it's not an obvious point at all, but maybe this is only because I like to think of myself as not being dense.
Seriously, am I the first one to bring ND up? If so, there's probably no point adding rules for a rare or even hypothetical case. If not, is there a pointer to discussion somewhere?
You are the first person to point out that it isn't obvious that we don't accept ND.
There has, in the past, been a person or two who has asked for us to allow ND content... Usually a photographer who considers his pride in his baby and his distrust for the world over the goals of our projects. Such discussions have never lasted long.
The reason that non-commercial (and usually 'with permission') are stated clearly is because we used to allow them, more because of a failure to consider the results than any real consious decision. ... It later became clear to us that our tolerance of these compromised grants was materially discouraging the introduction of free works so there was a campaign to remove them.