Of course anyone is free to raise this legal theory in a suit. However
exactly what requirements the license has and exactly how you have to
comply with them, is a source of contentious debate even among those
who believe it's enforceable at all.
Personally what I would like to see is something like "this article
copied from the version at Wikipedia URL blah blah blah/versionstamp"
and that's it. If a person can even navigate that far, or cares, it's
completely trivial to look at the version history to see "who" wrote
it. And I enquote who, because this is the most silly argument I've
yet seen at blocking mirrors. Some of our articles have dozens if not
hundreds of writers and it's near impossible for any non-geek to
determine who are the top five or whatever. The license doesn't mean
"five" or any number.
So the URL is sufficient in my mind. And I really expect that in
citation practice in print material we're much more likely to see
something like that trite "Cleopatra, WP".
When the entire license was created without giving clear and specific
and exact examples, the writers should have been taken out and shot :)
That's not a call to action, just my opinion. The way it stands it's a
lawyer's feast or a dog's breakfast, or both.
So in conclusion, any editor who wants to sue that publication, should
probably do so, within the next seven years, or lose all chance at
making a later claim ;)
Will Johnson
-----Original Message-----
From: FT2 <ft2.wiki(a)gmail.com>
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Tue, Aug 18, 2009 3:23 pm
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Alphascript Publishing: 1900+ copy&pasted books
fromWikipedia
Although correct me if I'm wrong, but part of GFDL is a kind of
inheritability. In other words if an editor (copyright holder) finds
their
text being used in these books, they can require the publisher comply
with
all the attribution requirements within GFDL, even if Wikimedia's
communities do not insist on it all.
FT2
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 6:57 PM, <WJhonson(a)aol.com> wrote:
You do not need to mention "all"
contributors.
A satisfactory attribution is merely a URL pointing to the Wikipedia
article and possibly one pointing at the history page.
By our inaction we've made it clear you do not need to directly
mention any
contributors.
Will Johnson
In a message dated 8/18/2009 9:29:21 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
brewhaha(a)freenet.edmonton.ab.ca writes:
To my knowledge, all that is
required to meet a -BY- requirement is one mention of all
contributors.
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