Who are you to say that we won't edit the video? Maybe you won't, but maybe someone else will, in a way that makes it more useful, and then link that on Wikipedia. That's the point of viral licensing and ShareAlikes. I'm afraid "you're not allowed to edit it" is a deal-breaker.
Eh, why is that anyway? I understand why we would dislike it, of course, but I'm not sure why, exactly, we would want to make it a deal-breaker. (We, english Wikipedia, rather than say, Wikimedia Commons which has slightly different goals.)
For starters it isn't mentioned in the copyright FAQ at all. With a bit more digging, it does seem to be disallowed. For rationale, I get pointed back to either Jimbo's posts on disallowing non-commercial-use media licenses, fair use, or discussion of downstream use.
None of these reasons seem to apply here. For the free encyclopedia, a CC-BY-ND media license, for example, is perfectly redistributable, allows for possible commercial use, and poses no issues for forks or other downstream use, right?
We would, obviously, rather have everything under one license. But we allow incompatible media copylefts, like CC-BY-SA and GFDL, even though it means we can't, say, make a derivative image based on two images with incompatible copylefts. We even allow "fair use" under some restricted circumstances. This does not allow for derivative works either, and in fact poses downstream problems. (Again, we, english Wikipedia. The Commons does not allow fair use.)
So it's obvious why we would rather not have no-derivative media licenses, but it's not obvious to me why we would absolutely insist upon it, the way we absolutely insist upon allowing commercial use or what have you.
At least, we could use some better documentation on this point.
Regards, Dan Mehkeri
On 9/19/06, dmehkeri@swi.com dmehkeri@swi.com wrote:
Eh, why is that anyway? I understand why we would dislike it, of course, but I'm not sure why, exactly, we would want to make it a deal-breaker. (We, english Wikipedia, rather than say, Wikimedia Commons which has slightly different goals.)
[sni]
Is not *Free Content*, it is incompatible (in both spirit and intention) with the GFDL, and it would inhibit intended applications of Wikipedia.
Even if you forget that Wikipedia has creating Free Content as one of its two primary goals (the other of which is creating an Encyclopedia), and only consider making a no-cost encyclopedia:
Consider what happens if we make a print version of Wikipedia with color images in black and white? Is that a derived work? What if we need to adjust some of the colors in the image to preserve contrast in the black and white conversion?
What about cropping? It is common on english wikipedia to crop images to preserve their informative content in the small amount of screen real estate we have available... (As an aside I think we often take cropping too far)...
Translations, rearrangements, .. etc there is no shortage of examples of places where we've altered images to further our goal of creating an encyclopedia. This is all possible because we require illustrations people create for our project to be Free Content.
[snip]
For starters it isn't mentioned in the copyright FAQ at all.
[snip]
The copyright FAQ is mostly written for users of content in Wikipedia. Not creators of Wikipedia content. See [[Wikipedia:Image use policy]] which states "You can prove that the copyright holder has licensed the image under a free license."
[snip]
We would, obviously, rather have everything under one license. But we allow incompatible media copylefts, like CC-BY-SA and GFDL, even though it means we can't, say, make a derivative image based on two images with incompatible copylefts.
Although GFDL and CC-By-SA are technically incompatible, they are largely compatible in principle. If your use of an article conforms to the GFDL, then it will easily conform to the CC-By-SA terms of included images.
[snip]
We even allow "fair use" under some restricted circumstances. This does not allow for derivative works either, and in fact poses downstream problems.
Our intention of allowing fair use images is to fulfil our encyclopedic goals for material which can not be made available under another license.
The downstream implication is that if we have a valid fair use claim and they are doing something similar to us, then they should have a fair use claim as well.
[snip]
So it's obvious why we would rather not have no-derivative media licenses, but it's not obvious to me why we would absolutely insist upon it, the way we absolutely insist upon allowing commercial use or what have you.
Because our absolute insistence increases the amount of Free Content.
"Rather not" is meaningless if we do not put teeth behind it.
On 19 Sep 2006, at 15:43, dmehkeri@swi.com wrote:
Who are you to say that we won't edit the video? Maybe you won't, but maybe someone else will, in a way that makes it more useful, and then link that on Wikipedia. That's the point of viral licensing and ShareAlikes. I'm afraid "you're not allowed to edit it" is a deal- breaker.
Eh, why is that anyway? I understand why we would dislike it, of course, but I'm not sure why, exactly, we would want to make it a deal-breaker. (We, english Wikipedia, rather than say, Wikimedia Commons which has slightly different goals.)
The idea is to encourage people to make more free content. Some people (such as me) will do this for some of their content. This free content will accumulate over time.
I'm not sure this is so useful to content which cannot be made free, though Kim Bruning was keen not to have to check every piece of content in Wikipedia before it could be re-used by only allowing free content.
At least, we could use some better documentation on this point.
I agree with this. Gregory Maxwell is almost single handedly championing this idea which, on reflection, is not so odd as it looks. It's all about long term results rather than short term expediency.
dmehkeri@swi.com wrote:
digging, it does seem to be disallowed. For rationale, I get pointed back to either Jimbo's posts on disallowing non-commercial-use media licenses, fair use, or discussion of downstream use.
None of these reasons seem to apply here. For the free encyclopedia, a CC-BY-ND media license, for example, is perfectly redistributable, allows for possible commercial use, and poses no issues for forks or other downstream use, right?
When we talk about Wikipedia being free, we refer to the 4 freedoms of free software, as defined by Richard Stallman many years ago:
0. The freedom to copy 1. The freedom to redistribute 2. The freedom to modify 3. The freedom to redistribute modified versions
CC-BY-NC violates at least the last of these.
Why do we care? Because we want people to be able to adapt our work for their own purposes. It is difficult for us to foresee what those purposes might be.
Perhaps an artist wants to create a Digital Dream Booth... you walk into it, and say some concept like "Iraq" and dozens of images drawn from Wikipedia, interspersed with snippets of text, cascade down around you dissolving and forming in unusual ways. The images are digitally morphed, one into the next.
This is clearly going to involve making derivative works of our images.
--Jimbo
On 21 Sep 2006, at 13:49, Jimmy Wales wrote:
dmehkeri@swi.com wrote:
digging, it does seem to be disallowed. For rationale, I get pointed back to either Jimbo's posts on disallowing non-commercial-use media licenses, fair use, or discussion of downstream use.
None of these reasons seem to apply here. For the free encyclopedia, a CC-BY-ND media license, for example, is perfectly redistributable, allows for possible commercial use, and poses no issues for forks or other downstream use, right?
When we talk about Wikipedia being free, we refer to the 4 freedoms of free software, as defined by Richard Stallman many years ago:
- The freedom to copy
- The freedom to redistribute
- The freedom to modify
- The freedom to redistribute modified versions
CC-BY-NC violates at least the last of these.
Why do we care? Because we want people to be able to adapt our work for their own purposes. It is difficult for us to foresee what those purposes might be.
Perhaps an artist wants to create a Digital Dream Booth... you walk into it, and say some concept like "Iraq" and dozens of images drawn from Wikipedia, interspersed with snippets of text, cascade down around you dissolving and forming in unusual ways. The images are digitally morphed, one into the next.
This is clearly going to involve making derivative works of our images.
This free policy is also being applied to formats: 4. No format can be used to encode data unless the source code is available under a free licence, even if tools to convert to a free format are available