I am happy to report that I have reached a cooperation agreement with EUObserver.com. This is one of the few websites that does original reporting on the European Union, in news style and reasonably neutral. The terms of the agreement are as follows:
1) EUObserver.com agrees to put the text of the first paragraph of each story (the part which is shown on the frontpage) in the public domain. That paragraph usually provides a good summary of the story.
2) We agree to cite EUOBserver.com as a source for each of these copied summaries (as we already do with all stories reported on "Current events").
We can of course choose which stories to put on Wikipedia -- we will not want to run commentaries or human interest stories, for example.
The agreement enters a trial phase now and we will review our cooperation after a month. Text put in the public domain of course remains there. And as usual, we can re-edit the summaries as we wish.
Details and discussion on [[Wikipedia:EUobserver cooperation]] and its talk page.
While I am not a fan of the idea of a Wikinews spinoff project (primarily because I think that news and encyclopedia are very closely linked), I do believe that this could be the beginning of an expansion into the news area, and similar agreements might be reached with other publications. It's a fair deal: They give part of their content to the public, we provide them with a steady stream of traffic to their site -- without advertising it, simply by citing it as a source. I'm sure some other independent news websites might be interested in such a deal.
Regards,
Erik
erik_moeller@gmx.de (Erik Moeller) writes:
- EUObserver.com agrees to put the text of the first paragraph of each
story in the public domain. That paragraph usually provides a good summary of the story.
- We agree to cite EUOBserver.com as a source for each of these copied
summaries (as we already do with all stories reported on "Current events").
Aren't those two paragraphs contradictory?
Either way, as I understand it, unless we're declaring the credit to EUOBserver as an invariant section, paragraph 2 is not GFDL compatible.
On Mon, 2003-09-29 at 09:45, Gareth Owen wrote:
erik_moeller@gmx.de (Erik Moeller) writes:
- EUObserver.com agrees to put the text of the first paragraph of each
story in the public domain. That paragraph usually provides a good summary of the story.
- We agree to cite EUOBserver.com as a source for each of these copied
summaries (as we already do with all stories reported on "Current events").
Aren't those two paragraphs contradictory?
Either way, as I understand it, unless we're declaring the credit to EUOBserver as an invariant section, paragraph 2 is not GFDL compatible.
Citing your sources is not incompatible with the GFDL!
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Brion Vibber brion@pobox.com writes:
Citing your sources is not incompatible with the GFDL!
No its not, but releasing the sources on the precondition that the work is so cited in perpetuity remain most certainly is (unless they're in an invariant section) for the same reasons BSDL + advertising clause isn't GPL compatible.
Gareth-
Brion Vibber brion@pobox.com writes:
Citing your sources is not incompatible with the GFDL!
No its not, but releasing the sources on the precondition that the work is so cited in perpetuity remain most certainly is (unless they're in an invariant section) for the same reasons BSDL + advertising clause isn't GPL compatible.
The agreement is between Wikipedia and Euobserver, not between Euobserver and any users of Wikipedia's material. We shall make an honest effort to have the sources cited, for as long as they point to existing pages.
Regards,
Erik
erik_moeller@gmx.de (Erik Moeller) writes:
The agreement is between Wikipedia and Euobserver, not between Euobserver and any users of Wikipedia's material. We shall make an honest effort to have the sources cited
Thats fair enough, as long as they know that other GFDL projects can legally (if slightly mean-spiritedly) strip the content and ignore the citations.
Gareth Owen wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
The agreement is between Wikipedia and Euobserver, not between Euobserver and any users of Wikipedia's material. We shall make an honest effort to have the sources cited
Thats fair enough, as long as they know that other GFDL projects can legally (if slightly mean-spiritedly) strip the content and ignore the citations.
Forget the GFDL! If they're putting the paragraph in the public domain, then absolutely anybody can copy it with no restrictions whatsoever. Heck, even /we/ can copy it with no restrictions; however: * It's always good Wikipedia practice to cite sources; and * If we don't cite them, then they'll probably stop releasing the paragraphs.
So Erik's deal seems to me to be quite informal, from an IP-law standpoint. And a good deal for us.
-- Toby
This is definitely a good deal for all, and a remarkably sane one. Also, I'm always glad to see new public domain stuff out there. Well, I like seeing copyleft sources too, but honestly, not as much as PD: viral licenses bother me, a lot. Whenever I write up something or take a good picture and want to let people use it, I just PD it, saves a lot of hassle.
-- Jake
Do we have to guarantee that their work isn't modified?
RickK
Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote: Gareth-
Brion Vibber
writes:
Citing your sources is not incompatible with the GFDL!
No its not, but releasing the sources on the precondition that the work is so cited in perpetuity remain most certainly is (unless they're in an invariant section) for the same reasons BSDL + advertising clause isn't GPL compatible.
The agreement is between Wikipedia and Euobserver, not between Euobserver and any users of Wikipedia's material. We shall make an honest effort to have the sources cited, for as long as they point to existing pages.
Regards,
Erik _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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Gareth Owen wrote:
erik_moeller=Mmb7MZpHnFY@public.gmane.org (Erik Moeller) writes:
- EUObserver.com agrees to put the text of the first paragraph of each
story in the public domain. That paragraph usually provides a good summary of the story.
- We agree to cite EUOBserver.com as a source for each of these copied
summaries (as we already do with all stories reported on "Current events").
Aren't those two paragraphs contradictory?
Either way, as I understand it, unless we're declaring the credit to EUOBserver as an invariant section, paragraph 2 is not GFDL compatible.
Erik's description of the agreement isn't clear. Are we obligated to cite EU Observer or do we just agree to cite them? If they put the text in the public domain, we obviously don't _have_ to do anything, but I can see how agreeing to cite them is nice. If so, I don't think _our_ agreeing to cite them has any bearing on further uses of Wikipedia content.
Has it been made clear to EU Observer that others may use the content and not cite them?
- David
David-
Erik's description of the agreement isn't clear. Are we obligated to cite EU Observer or do we just agree to cite them? If they put the text in the public domain, we obviously don't _have_ to do anything, but I can see how agreeing to cite them is nice. If so, I don't think _our_ agreeing to cite them has any bearing on further uses of Wikipedia content.
Well, if we don't cite them, they will simply cancel the agreement, and no further news summaries will be released to the public domain.
Has it been made clear to EU Observer that others may use the content and not cite them?
Yes. I will copy the full text of the correspondence to Wikipedia later.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
David-
Erik's description of the agreement isn't clear. Are we obligated to cite EU Observer or do we just agree to cite them? If they put the text in the public domain, we obviously don't _have_ to do anything, but I can see how agreeing to cite them is nice. If so, I don't think _our_ agreeing to cite them has any bearing on further uses of Wikipedia content.
Well, if we don't cite them, they will simply cancel the agreement, and no further news summaries will be released to the public domain.
This sounds like a welcome agreement. Like a lot of handshake agreements it is based on the good-faith behaviour of the parties. A simple attribution showing "Originally based on ..." shouldn't be a problem. I suspect that only a small number of Wikipedians will be doing the actual copying work anyway, and they would know the understanding.
Agreements of this sort are not based on developing a whole lot of bureaucratic rules that need to be followed to the letter and enforced.
Ec
From: "Erik Moeller" erik_moeller@gmx.de
David-
Erik's description of the agreement isn't clear. Are we obligated to cite EU Observer or do we just agree to cite them? If they put the text in the public domain, we obviously don't _have_ to do anything, but I can see how agreeing to cite them is nice. If so, I don't think _our_ agreeing to cite them has any bearing on further uses of Wikipedia
content.
Well, if we don't cite them, they will simply cancel the agreement, and no further news summaries will be released to the public domain.
Has it been made clear to EU Observer that others may use the content and not cite them?
Yes. I will copy the full text of the correspondence to Wikipedia later.
Regards,
Erik
If they are agreeing to release their material under the GFDL they have the right to be cited as at least one of the five most major contributors to the article. it says this in the GFDL.
Of course if they become a minor contributor after edits are made subsequent GFDL licensees/licensors will not necessarily have to cite them, but of course as long as they cite back to Wikipedia they will be able to find out who "all" the contributors are as Wikipedia maintains this information (almost always) in the page history archives.
Alex756
Alex-
If they are agreeing to release their material under the GFDL they have the right to be cited as at least one of the five most major contributors to the article. it says this in the GFDL.
They are agreing to release it into the public domain, so that's not an issue.
While I'm talking to a lawyer -- a completely unreleated issue: Do you know whether the text of patent documents (i.e. the description of patent claims filed with the USPTO) is copyrighted or not? The USPTO offers these documents for free download, but I'm not sure if it would be legal for us to use extensive quotes (beyond fair use) from recently filed patents. I did a Google search but that's really difficult with only "patent" "copyright" and "public domain" as possible search words, as you can imagine ..
Regards,
Erik
--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
While I am not a fan of the idea of a Wikinews spinoff project (primarily because I think that news and encyclopedia are very closely linked), I do believe that this could be the beginning of an expansion into the news area, and similar agreements might be reached with other publications. It's a fair deal: They give part of their content to the public, we provide them with a steady stream of traffic to their site -- without advertising it, simply by citing it as a source. I'm sure some other independent news websites might be interested in such a deal.
But speaking only about the basics--the wikinews concept is an interesting idea. But just to throw it out there--Indymedia blew it with Google news by virture of not having a means to community edit content. Wiki allows people to edit willy nilly--our experience on wikipedia shows that a community can deal with vandalism, but with an encyclopedia we can take it easy. With "news" there would be a need to have current states of articles in tip top shape, allowing a much much smaller margin of leeway for vandals and cranks, etc. Ideally a sysop pool of maybe 2-300 might be able to deal with issues quickly enough -- some extra protections like limitations on anons, etc would be necessary.
Just throwing it out there-- how much would the Wikimedia ware have to change to meet the needs of such a project?
~S~
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But speaking only about the basics--the wikinews concept is an interesting idea. But just to throw it out there--Indymedia blew it with Google news by virture of not having a means to community edit content. Wiki allows people to edit willy nilly--our experience on wikipedia shows that a community can deal with vandalism, but with an encyclopedia we can take it easy. With "news" there would be a need to have current states of articles in tip top shape, allowing a much much smaller margin of leeway for vandals and cranks, etc. Ideally a sysop pool of maybe 2-300 might be able to deal with issues quickly enough -- some extra protections like limitations on anons, etc would be necessary.
Just throwing it out there-- how much would the Wikimedia ware have to change to meet the needs of such a project?
~S~
Whenever a new subproject is added to Wikimedia, people say that we'll need more security. But that's completely pointless. Remember Nupedia? That would have been completely accurate, but it was too constricting and not many people contributed to it. In any event, there is no reason why news should be more restricted than an encyclopedia; if anything, it should be the reverse. LDan
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I've thought quite a bit about Wiki for "news." My feeling is that Wikipedia is already journalism, but not news. The Wiki concept would not be suitable for news because news requires a deadline, an end, a static form. It necessarily has to capture the state of affairs at a point in time. That's why mantras in the news business go: "Make air, not art", "Tomorrow's fishwrap" and "Better never than late [sic]"
Time limits don't serve Wikis well. Wikis are good for continually evolving content. An arbitrarily set deadline would drastically change the nature of edit wars, neutrality disputes, community and evolution.
I would equate it to an eBay auction where bidders having an infinite amount of money, because we all have an inifinite amount of opinions. :)
-Fuzheado
--- Andrew Lih alih@hku.hk wrote:
I've thought quite a bit about Wiki for "news." My feeling is that Wikipedia is already journalism, but not news. The Wiki concept would not be suitable for news because news requires a deadline, an end, a static form. It necessarily has to capture the state of affairs at a point in time. That's why mantras in the news business go: "Make air, not art", "Tomorrow's fishwrap" and "Better never than late [sic]"
Time limits don't serve Wikis well. Wikis are good for continually evolving content. An arbitrarily set deadline would drastically change the nature of edit wars, neutrality disputes, community and evolution.
I would equate it to an eBay auction where bidders having an infinite amount of money, because we all have an inifinite amount of opinions. :)
-Fuzheado
Well, an encyclopedia typically has the goal of a static end product too, don't they? And they need to meet some sort of deadline. LDan
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On Tue, 2003-09-30 at 14:10, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Well, an encyclopedia typically has the goal of a static end product too, don't they? And they need to meet some sort of deadline.
On the contrary, the paper encyclopedias I've seen publish regular supplements and churn out a whole new edition after some number of years. It's clearly their goal to stay as up to date as possible.
Deadlines and batched updates are an artifact of the paper publishing process, which requires a long lead time and relatively large print runs to be remotely profitable. With online publishing, effectively a new edition of the encyclopedia is published every 15 seconds (whenever an article is updated), and visitors to the main web site see this latest edition unless they decide to look up older editions through the page history.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
--- Andrew Lih alih@hku.hk wrote:
Time limits don't serve Wikis well. Wikis are good for continually evolving content. An arbitrarily set deadline would drastically change the nature of edit wars, neutrality disputes, community and evolution.
I would equate it to an eBay auction where bidders having an infinite amount of money, because we all have an inifinite amount of opinions. :)
-Fuzheado
Well, an encyclopedia typically has the goal of a static end product too, don't they? And they need to meet some sort of deadline.
There is no need for an encyclopedia to be static; we are not paper. One of our advantages is our ablity to change our text as events happen. A printed or CD version will be static because it can't do that. Still it may be the only way to disseminate that knowledge to some parts of the world's population.
eBay has deadlines because sooner or later a decision has to be made about the sale of a product. If everyone had an infinite amount of money it wouldn't work on eBay. Infinite bid would be meaningless since they do nothing to determine the price. If two bidders made an infinite bid, one could easily award the lot to the first one to make that bid, but at what price? With arbitrarily high (but finite) bids, you would have a rapidly inflated market since everybody could bid.
Ec
While initially I thought this agreement was a good idea, and still see these sorts of things as in our interest, in this particular case it seems mostly useless. The summaries on their front page seem to be typically two to three sentences long, so it'd be trivial in the absence of this agreement to simply use their full articles as a source and write an article incorporating the information therein ourselves. We already incorporate factual information from other news sources (BBC News, CNN, Reuters, AP, etc.) in this manner.
-Mark
It would be ironic of course, that a "contract" could be made by an individual representing wikipedia-- while each wikipedian must make a contract with wiki upon each edit. But the agreement with EUObserver thus is not at all a deal with wikipedia-- rather a Wikipedian (Erik) convincing them to allow their leads to be free under FDL -- Any agreement is just an understanding that we tend to follow the terms of the same liscence-- not a promise --not an obligation. WTBD? (whats the big...)
~S~
Delirium delirium@rufus.d2g.com wrote: While initially I thought this agreement was a good idea, and still see these sorts of things as in our interest, in this particular case it seems mostly useless. The summaries on their front page seem to be typically two to three sentences long, so it'd be trivial in the absence of this agreement to simply use their full articles as a source and write an article incorporating the information therein ourselves. We already incorporate factual information from other news sources (BBC News, CNN, Reuters, AP, etc.) in this manner.
-Mark
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