Where on Wikipedia (or Commons) is this being discussed? -Matt

On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 1:18 AM, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard(a)gmail.com> wrote: I've put in keep opinions for all the ones listed there. What this is is a recurrence of an issue that comes around every so often; whether non-copyright restrictions are important as regards freedom for images. The NASA case (and other US government insignia) can be regarded as a special case of trademark protection in most ways. Wikipedia's track record is that the depiction of trademarked items does not render an image unfree for our purposes, and this should follow the same logic. That being said, when NASA logos are unnecessary in an image and it doesn't hurt the image to crop them out, I'd vote for removing them. -Matt

On 01/04/2008, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter(a)gmail.com> wrote: Which it is. Screenshots of wikipedia pages are a complete copyright mess. Unfree bits GPL bits GFDL bits CC bits. Well the normal GPL ones (if all else fails http://id.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/monobook/headbg.jpg is protectable by copyright) -- geni

On 01/04/2008, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter(a)gmail.com> wrote: History and people choosing to reinvent the wheel (to be fair the alternative would be trying to work with Richard M. Stallman to improve the triangular wheel). Things are getting better the Open Audio License has merged with CC-BY-SA and the GFDL is heading in that direction. The situation is far worse with NC licenses. You can't move for homebrew NC licenses which are not compatible and are so badly worded that it is pretty much impossible to work out their legal meaning. There are significant interests in seeing the compilations issue not settled. Wikipedia for one. Enforcing the GFDL would be doable but for various reasons there is little point in stealing something already widely available. It has happened but the person doing it normally gets fired shortly afterwards so little point in going to court. Since very little GFDL material is registered with the US copyright office any damaged awarded would be pretty minimal. At the time wikipedia was making the decision the only alternatives would have been a software license the Design Science License and the Free Art license (and technically the nupedia license but I've never seen a copy). Design Science License is dead and the Free Art license has it's own problems. In the monobook skin the only elements not under a free license of some sort are the wikipedia globe the wikimedia foundation logo and perhaps bits of the mediawiki logo (the mediawiki flower is PD). -- geni

On 01/04/2008, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain(a)gmail.com> wrote: How is reproducing a public domain image going against that law? If they wanted to copyright the image so that people couldn't use it they wouldn't have put it in the public domain right? Wikipedia doesn't put its logo under a free license because it doesn't want people to well... use it? The government can't take those kind of liberties without a reason though, right? And besides, if you don't want the image because it would promote something that is not the one true source of knowledge (hail WP) then you can just take it out, you can definitely at least do that to Public Domain items. Peter

On Tuesday 01 April 2008 04:39, Peter Ansell wrote: Ever hear of a classified document? It's not the same laws in this case, but it's the same principle. -- Kurt Weber <kmw(a)armory.com>

So copyright-wise it is fine? Please carry out this discussion on commons by the way. What is discussed on the mailing list, stays on the mailing list. - White Cat On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 12:25 PM, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I don't suppose someone "corporate" could actually talk to NASA and try to work this out?

How about we grow up and do something constructive, The image is Public Domain per United States Government Policy, since the underlying image is PD just remove the parts that are not. see my on wiki response: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AImages_and_media_for_… The Devil Himself, Betacommand On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 12:19 PM, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Ian Woollard wrote: I (tentatively) agree with Ian here. The restrictions on reuse do not seem to be anything like a no-derivs license. Free re-use is something that we insist upon only with respect to copyright (and perhaps if some other non-copyright restrictions were onerous enough, we would refuse that as well). Saying that you can't use an image to commit fraud, etc., is not a restriction on reuse that bothers us. Nor should it. --Jimbo

On 01/04/2008, Betacommand <Betacommand(a)gmail.com> wrote: How likely is that? It's much easier to just delete a hell of a lot of useful and legitimately-used information.

On 03/04/2008, George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote: He has, yes. Certain others haven't, for reasons which escape me.

On 01/04/2008, The Mangoe <the.mangoe(a)gmail.com> wrote: Giving wikipedia only permission isn't that useful (due to the things we use the images for it isn't really needed) and I'm not sure how a blanket everyone for any use permission would work out. --- Geni

On 01/04/2008, The Mangoe <the.mangoe(a)gmail.com> wrote: We don't but our policies require images to be free for reuses which is why we don't accept wikipedia only images. Look I really rather doubt we have many meatball logos on wikipedia finding them and editing them out of the images where posible should not be a major problem. -- geni

On 02/04/2008, The Mangoe <the.mangoe(a)gmail.com> wrote: Why would it not be allowable to take a non-free part out of an otherwise Public Domain artifact and reproduce it as being allowed to have further changes? Does the existence of the logo in the first place change the status of all US government artifacts being PD? Peter

On 01/04/2008, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard(a)gmail.com> wrote: In this case the people would be the foundation. Per "All projects are expected to host only content which is under a Free Content License, or which is otherwise free as recognized by the 'Definition of Free Cultural Works' as referenced above." http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy http://freedomdefined.org/Definition is wikipedia policy Check out the "The freedom to distribute derivative works" section Because it is a problem caused by the material being non free. Restrictions on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Grays_Thurrockmap_1946.jpg ? That would depend on exactly how you define illegal. There are images on wikipedia that run into issues with US statute law. People use our images for all sorts of stuff. Old Negro Space Program fan art would be far from the weirdest. Someone has to. Once of the annoying things about wikipedia is that what was last week a weird corner case is this week something that happened three times. You might think say that the question exactly of what documents of state management means under North Korean law isn't significant but the issue has arisen. -- geni

On 02/04/2008, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard(a)gmail.com> wrote: Pure GFDL is non free we know this. But that is an aside. That you cannot combine non free with free material is a feature not a bug. Not really. By the standards you've just used crown copyright images are free. No there are images I can't make from images with the NASA logo (okey technically I'm not sure how the extradition hearing would work out). Remove the logo and I can make them. -- geni

On 02/04/2008, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: No, not *from*! There are images you can't *make* with the NASA logo. This is not a restriction going *from* NASA images, it is a restriction *from* any and all images everywhere in the whole world that you can't go *to* some types of images. -- -Ian Woollard We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. If we lived in a perfectly imperfect world things would be a lot better.

On 01/04/2008, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: No, not in any significant way. The logo *itself* in isolation might be, but the images with it aren't; they're public domain you can modify them as much as you want. There's *nothing* stopping you changing the image in any sensible way including removing the tags if you wish. -- -Ian Woollard We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. If we lived in a perfectly imperfect world things would be a lot better.

On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 11:22 AM, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: I have never heard anyone inside or outside NASA make this image restriction claim, and though I'm not the most in the loop person there, I have significant business contacts in the agency and with journalists who cover spaceflight activities. The interpretation that the meatball is some sort of free content contagion is novel to this group in Wikipedia, and the argument is prima facie ludicrous. Free content is good. Free content legalism to the point where you delete free content is insane. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

geni wrote: At the heart of the "logical reading" of relevant statutes rests the spirit of original research. Nothing that a legislator can do will prevent the suicidal misinterpretation of statutes. Ec

On Tue, Apr 01, 2008 at 08:06:20PM +0100, Ian Woollard wrote: That's interesting, since we accept GPL images: [[Category:GPL images]]. - Carl

On 01/04/2008, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard(a)gmail.com> wrote: Not always With any image? How would it get you into trouble with http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Grays_Thurrockmap_1946.jpg ? Breaking the GFDL is civil law. Using the NASA logo in certain ways is criminal law. The terms on the NASA logo limit what type of derivatives can be made. This means non free. -- geni

On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 9:44 AM, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: There are no restrictions of these images under copyright law. Historically we have not considered non-copyright restrictions as being incompatible with free content. For example, trademark law restricts image use in a very similar manner. Attempts to delete any image containing a trademarked element have failed in the past and should fail again, IMO. -Matt

On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 12:58 PM, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: Missing the point, geni. -Matt