"China's biggest Internet search site, Baidu.com, has launched a Chinese-language encyclopedia inspired by the cooperative reference site Wikipedia, which the communist government bars China's Web surfers from seeing. However, entries on Baidupedia, the service from Nasdaq-listed Baidu.com launched last month, are censored by the Chinese Government."
http://www.sundaytimes.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,19100960%255E170...
Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?
Anthony
On 5/12/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
"China's biggest Internet search site, Baidu.com, has launched a Chinese-language encyclopedia inspired by the cooperative reference site Wikipedia, which the communist government bars China's Web surfers from seeing. However, entries on Baidupedia, the service from Nasdaq-listed Baidu.com launched last month, are censored by the Chinese Government."
http://www.sundaytimes.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,19100960%255E170...
Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?
No, but I know this great site which should be able to tell you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu_Baike
Steve
Err, just a little question: FireFox is rendering all the Chinese characters as ? - anyone know what I have to do to make them appear? I don't speak Chinese but it would be prettier...Arabic and Hebrew characters tend to show up fine. FireFox 1.5.0.3 French btw.
Steve
On 5/12/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
No, but I know this great site which should be able to tell you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu_Baike
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
Err, just a little question: FireFox is rendering all the Chinese characters as ? - anyone know what I have to do to make them appear? I don't speak Chinese but it would be prettier...Arabic and Hebrew characters tend to show up fine. FireFox 1.5.0.3 French btw.
What operating system? Which version?
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?
If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the GFDL. And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
Steve block
On 5/12/06, Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the GFDL. And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
Our thoroughly NPOV article on it seems to indicate that they are in breach of GFDL. What damages could we demonstrate though?
Steve
On 5/12/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/12/06, Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the GFDL. And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
Our thoroughly NPOV article on it seems to indicate that they are in breach of GFDL. What damages could we demonstrate though?
Probably none at all; and we're hardly likely to get an injunction of any sort against them, given the circumstances.
It might still be worth making as loud a fuss as possible about this -- though not necessarily suing them -- merely for the PR effects.
On 5/12/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/12/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/12/06, Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the GFDL. And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
Our thoroughly NPOV article on it seems to indicate that they are in breach of GFDL. What damages could we demonstrate though?
Probably none at all; and we're hardly likely to get an injunction of any sort against them, given the circumstances.
It might still be worth making as loud a fuss as possible about this -- though not necessarily suing them -- merely for the PR effects.
Answers Corporation isn't citing authors. And right at the bottom of the page it says "Copyright (c) 2006 Answers Corporation. All rights reserved." Wikimedia isn't making a fuss about them. In fact, they're making business deals with them.
I think people seem to be missing the point. Sure, Baidu might be in technical violation of the GFDL, in which case pretty much every fork/mirror in the world is in technical violation of it. I was more focussed on the fact that "entries on Baidupedia, the service from Nasdaq-listed Baidu.com launched last month, are censored by the Chinese Government". This is especially horrible because the real Wikipedia *isn't accessible in China* to the average internet user who doesn't jump through a bunch of technical hoops.
Anthony
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
I think people seem to be missing the point. Sure, Baidu might be in technical violation of the GFDL, in which case pretty much every fork/mirror in the world is in technical violation of it. I was more focussed on the fact that "entries on Baidupedia, the service from Nasdaq-listed Baidu.com launched last month, are censored by the Chinese Government".
Indeed.
This is especially horrible because the real Wikipedia *isn't accessible in China* to the average internet user who doesn't jump through a bunch of technical hoops.
Actually it was accessible for the average user until a day and a half ago, via wikipedia.cnblog.org, a proxy which was even listed in some of the search engines, including Baidu itself. The launch of this Wikipedia fork seems to have coincided with a crackdown on various firewall evasion techniques.
-- Tim Starling
On 5/12/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
I think people seem to be missing the point. Sure, Baidu might be in technical violation of the GFDL, in which case pretty much every fork/mirror in the world is in technical violation of it. I was more focussed on the fact that "entries on Baidupedia, the service from Nasdaq-listed Baidu.com launched last month, are censored by the Chinese Government". This is especially horrible because the real Wikipedia *isn't accessible in China* to the average internet user who doesn't jump through a bunch of technical hoops.
I don't see what's horrible here - the Chinese government didn't invent censorship yesterday.
Steve
On 5/12/06, Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?
If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the GFDL.
Maybe, technically, maybe.
And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
Good luck with that.
On 12/05/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
Good luck with that.
The Foundation can't, because it doesn't own the copyright to the material. It's up to the copyright holder to enforce their licencing.
Rob Church
Rob Church wrote:
On 12/05/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
Good luck with that.
The Foundation can't, because it doesn't own the copyright to the material. It's up to the copyright holder to enforce their licencing.
Could The Foundation sue /on behalf of/ those authors whose copyright has been violated?
On 5/15/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Rob Church wrote:
On 12/05/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
Good luck with that.
The Foundation can't, because it doesn't own the copyright to the material. It's up to the copyright holder to enforce their licencing.
Could The Foundation sue /on behalf of/ those authors whose copyright has been violated?
INAL but my understanding is. Under US law they could if given permission to do so by the copyright holders (the situtation is compicated in the case of minors. The foundation would probably need their parents/gardians permissions).
I don't know how chinese copyright law works and international copyright law tends to get very complex very fast.
geni wrote:
On 5/15/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Rob Church wrote:
On 12/05/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
Good luck with that.
The Foundation can't, because it doesn't own the copyright to the material. It's up to the copyright holder to enforce their licencing.
Could The Foundation sue /on behalf of/ those authors whose copyright has been violated?
INAL but my understanding is. Under US law they could if given permission to do so by the copyright holders (the situtation is compicated in the case of minors. The foundation would probably need their parents/gardians permissions).
I don't see that aspect as a problem. Even one significant adult author of an article should be enough. GFDL does not even require that ALL authors be listed.
Authors could designate the Foundation as their agent in such circumstances, but IIRC it has refused that role in the past. For most individual authors to begin an action could be incredibly complicated, and as long as we are dealing with only snippets of material they could very well come up with a fair use argument.
The situation is perhaps the worst nightmare come true for those who believe that access to information should be free. Inadvertent violations of traditional copyrights by advocates of free material are easily corrected. Free material needs to be defended if it is to remain free. This is why I have always maintained that public domain is not ownership by no-one but ownership by every one; I see this as a subtle but important decision. Who is responsible for protecting the public domain, and the broad range of free licences? Who is in a practical, rather than merely thoretical, position to do anything about the problem? Have any of these licences been tested anywhere in the courts?
I do not want to believe that GFDL including its permissions to use material for commercial purposes, was nothing but a big unconscionable con job designed to get people to work and contribute for nothing.
I don't know how chinese copyright law works and international copyright law tends to get very complex very fast.
Answers.com is an American company. If Baidu is listed on nasdaq that may be enough for US jurisdiction and US copyright law to apply. If the individual authors are left to their own devices than individual authors should start peppering these unrepentant violators with large quantities of DMCA takedown orders. If you are a significant author in 1,000 articles you could send them 1,000 takedown orders. This could be more easily done by US Wikipedians because of their easier access to US courts in every judicial district if it ever gets to that. Proving damages would be difficult, but accepting the minimum statutory penalty of $200 for each separate violation could have an interesting effect.
Ec
On 5/15/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
geni wrote:
I don't know how chinese copyright law works and international copyright law tends to get very complex very fast.
Answers.com is an American company. If Baidu is listed on nasdaq that may be enough for US jurisdiction and US copyright law to apply. If the individual authors are left to their own devices than individual authors should start peppering these unrepentant violators with large quantities of DMCA takedown orders. If you are a significant author in 1,000 articles you could send them 1,000 takedown orders.
So you send 1000 takedown orders, and they ignore them all, then what?
This could be more easily done by US Wikipedians because of their easier access to US courts in every judicial district if it ever gets to that. Proving damages would be difficult, but accepting the minimum statutory penalty of $200 for each separate violation could have an interesting effect.
Don't you have to register the copyright in order to get statutory damages? If so, then you're out $30 a pop. (I looked it up, not only do you have to register to get statutory damages, you have to register within 3 months of publication or before the infringement takes place.) http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000412----000-....
Then you get your judgement, for $200 a pop. Now how exactly do you plan on collecting that $200 per violation?
In my opinion copyleft licenses are most useful when used defensively. If Baidu sues me, you can be sure I'll countersue. But short of that...
Anthony
On 5/15/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
So you send 1000 takedown orders, and they ignore them all, then what?
Legaly? China steps outside interlectial proptely laws. Under those conditions further predictions are imposible.
On 5/15/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Legaly? China steps outside interlectial proptely laws. Under those conditions further predictions are imposible.
But, uh, guys... the People's Republic of China doesn't even respect the copyrights of major companies with big legal firms. Surely they won't give a more than a cursory damn at most about a bunch of copylefters. They may be Communists but they aren't Stallmanites. ;-)
If the U.S. government, by means of WTO, TRIPS, and other hard-core international economic agreements can't get the PRC to care too much IP piracy, I'm sure that we can't. I'm also fairly sure... it doesn't matter much.
FF
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 5/15/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
geni wrote:
I don't know how chinese copyright law works and international copyright law tends to get very complex very fast.
Answers.com is an American company. If Baidu is listed on nasdaq that may be enough for US jurisdiction and US copyright law to apply. If the individual authors are left to their own devices than individual authors should start peppering these unrepentant violators with large quantities of DMCA takedown orders. If you are a significant author in 1,000 articles you could send them 1,000 takedown orders.
So you send 1000 takedown orders, and they ignore them all, then what?
At that point they open themselves to whatever penalties are associated with violating the order rather than an infringement of copyright. There is a separate legal process available to them if they want to question the copyright.
This could be more easily done by US Wikipedians because of their easier access to US courts in every judicial district if it ever gets to that. Proving damages would be difficult, but accepting the minimum statutory penalty of $200 for each separate violation could have an interesting effect.
Don't you have to register the copyright in order to get statutory damages? If so, then you're out $30 a pop. (I looked it up, not only do you have to register to get statutory damages, you have to register within 3 months of publication or before the infringement takes place.) http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000412----000-....
I think that the Foundation has been negligent in failing to register copyrights. Although it is not itself the owner of most of the copyrights, it should be protecting the rights of its authors in a way similar to what a magazine publisher would. This should involve registering the entire database every month or two. Failing this, what's to prevent any contributor from registring the entire database, citing himself "and others" as authors? This would involve a single payment of $30 for the whole thing.
While damages might not be recoverable for the time before registration, they should be recoverable if they continue after registration. Copyrights do not depend on registration by virtue of treaty obligations. If the word "commencement" in that section is taken too strictly that would be inconsistent with that treaty obligation, and it would open a gaping hole in US copyright law because it would amount to effectively condoning almost any copyright infringement that took place before registration and continued after registration.
Then you get your judgement, for $200 a pop. Now how exactly do you plan on collecting that $200 per violation?
Without looking more deeply into the offenders' particular situation, I could not at this stage even begin to answer that question. Until we have an actual judgement the question is moot.
In my opinion copyleft licenses are most useful when used defensively. If Baidu sues me, you can be sure I'll countersue. But short of that...
That makes copyleft licences useless. Wikipedia as a whole has shown great (some would say excessive) dilligence in avoiding copyvios. It also maintains copious data to trace the origins of anything in an article. This makes the likelihood of such a suit remote. It means that there is no realistic protection whatsoever for copyleft material. It means that any downstream user, particularly a commercial one, can take anything from Wikipedia, and republish it under his own copyright without any fear that it will be seriously challenged. I accept the GFDL position to allow the material to be re-used by commercial interests, but any commercial interest that uses it needs to acknowledge its viral nature. Who defends that? Who defends it 20 years from now?
Ec
That makes copyleft licences useless. Wikipedia as a whole has shown great (some would say excessive) dilligence in avoiding copyvios. It also maintains copious data to trace the origins of anything in an article. This makes the likelihood of such a suit remote. It means that there is no realistic protection whatsoever for copyleft material. It means that any downstream user, particularly a commercial one, can take anything from Wikipedia, and republish it under his own copyright without any fear that it will be seriously challenged. I accept the GFDL position to allow the material to be re-used by commercial interests, but any commercial interest that uses it needs to acknowledge its viral nature. Who defends that? Who defends it 20 years from now?
Baidupedia is a public website: that is, if they improve our GFDL-licensed work, then anyone can use those derived works under the GFDL; whether or not they acknowledge it or advertise it doesn't change that fact. Therefore, I don't see copyleft being useless in this instance.
-- Matt [[User:Matt Crypto]]
Matt R wrote:
That makes copyleft licences useless. Wikipedia as a whole has shown great (some would say excessive) dilligence in avoiding copyvios. It also maintains copious data to trace the origins of anything in an article. This makes the likelihood of such a suit remote. It means that there is no realistic protection whatsoever for copyleft material. It means that any downstream user, particularly a commercial one, can take anything from Wikipedia, and republish it under his own copyright without any fear that it will be seriously challenged. I accept the GFDL position to allow the material to be re-used by commercial interests, but any commercial interest that uses it needs to acknowledge its viral nature. Who defends that? Who defends it 20 years from now?
Baidupedia is a public website: that is, if they improve our GFDL-licensed work, then anyone can use those derived works under the GFDL; whether or not they acknowledge it or advertise it doesn't change that fact. Therefore, I don't see copyleft being useless in this instance.
In theory you may be right, but unless the person who uses their material knows that that material is covered by GFDL he needs to assume that their copyright is valid. For copyleft to work their needs to be an unbroken chain of attributions.
Ec
On 5/16/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
So you send 1000 takedown orders, and they ignore them all, then what?
At that point they open themselves to whatever penalties are associated with violating the order rather than an infringement of copyright. There is a separate legal process available to them if they want to question the copyright.
Actually, that's not true. Ignoring a DMCA takedown order is not in itself a violation of the law. It simply removes any safe-harbor that the site would have otherwise had (which in the case of Baidu is probably nil anyway), and establishes that any future copyright infringement is willful.
This could be more easily done by US Wikipedians because of their easier access to US courts in every judicial district if it ever gets to that. Proving damages would be difficult, but accepting the minimum statutory penalty of $200 for each separate violation could have an interesting effect.
Don't you have to register the copyright in order to get statutory damages? If so, then you're out $30 a pop. (I looked it up, not only do you have to register to get statutory damages, you have to register within 3 months of publication or before the infringement takes place.) http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000412----000-....
I think that the Foundation has been negligent in failing to register copyrights. Although it is not itself the owner of most of the copyrights, it should be protecting the rights of its authors in a way similar to what a magazine publisher would. This should involve registering the entire database every month or two. Failing this, what's to prevent any contributor from registring the entire database, citing himself "and others" as authors? This would involve a single payment of $30 for the whole thing.
Nothing, but if the entire database is considered a single work then you won't get $200 for every article.
While damages might not be recoverable for the time before registration, they should be recoverable if they continue after registration. Copyrights do not depend on registration by virtue of treaty obligations.
Right. Copyrights don't depend on registration. But statutory damages do. And yes, statutory damages would still be assigned if the violations continue after registration. Whether or not they're recoverable is another story. Do you plan on invading China to collect them?
If the word "commencement" in that section is taken too strictly that would be inconsistent with that treaty obligation, and it would open a gaping hole in US copyright law because it would amount to effectively condoning almost any copyright infringement that took place before registration and continued after registration.
Then you get your judgement, for $200 a pop. Now how exactly do you plan on collecting that $200 per violation?
Without looking more deeply into the offenders' particular situation, I could not at this stage even begin to answer that question. Until we have an actual judgement the question is moot.
In my opinion copyleft licenses are most useful when used defensively. If Baidu sues me, you can be sure I'll countersue. But short of that...
That makes copyleft licences useless.
No it makes copyleft licenses particularly useful. If a copyleft license was useless then no one could ever use the work without permission.
In case you don't understand what I'm saying, the purpose of a copyleft license is to allow the public to use a work freely, not to provide the author with an avenue for lawsuits.
Wikipedia as a whole has shown great (some would say excessive) dilligence in avoiding copyvios. It also maintains copious data to trace the origins of anything in an article. This makes the likelihood of such a suit remote. It means that there is no realistic protection whatsoever for copyleft material.
Well, I never said copyleft licenses were useless when not used defensively, I merely said that they were most useful when used defensively.
But if you think a copyleft provides significant "protection" (protection from what?), then I'm sure you'd have no trouble naming a large number of significant lawsuits that were won by authors of copyleft software.
Personally I can't think of any, but I'm sure there were a few.
It means that any downstream user, particularly a commercial one, can take anything from Wikipedia, and republish it under his own copyright without any fear that it will be seriously challenged.
Take a look at [[Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks]] sometime. This is exactly what hundreds of people/companies are doing.
I accept the GFDL position to allow the material to be re-used by commercial interests, but any commercial interest that uses it needs to acknowledge its viral nature. Who defends that? Who defends it 20 years from now?
The "viral nature" of the GFDL is that any derivative of a GFDL remains free. IOW, if Answers Corporation (for example) makes modifications to Wikipedia, and then tries to sue people who redistribute those modifications, they'd be subject to a countersuit for violating the GFDL. This is that defensive use that I was talking about, and this is where I expect copyleft would be most useful.
Anthony
On 5/12/06, Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?
If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the GFDL. And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
Steve block
One problem is that it's *impossible* to follow the GFDL for a verbatim copy of a Wikipedia article. The Wikipedia articles themselves don't even follow the GFDL, as they don't contain any of the author information.
Anthony
On 5/12/06, Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the GFDL. And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
The Wikimedia Foundation doesn't hold the copyrights over Wikimedia content, it is merely a user that must follow the terms of the GFDL like any mirror or fork. Wikimedia could, however, provide financial or legal assistance to the authors whose copyright is infringed in a lawsuit.
While the use of censorship as a competitive advantage is morally reprehensible, Baidu is still a fairly large publicly traded company and not just some random .cn spam site. If they're in violation of the GFDL, communicating with them is probably going to be more effective than suing them. I suspect that the copyleft part is what they'll mainly have problems with.
I would be interested in an actual report about the content, policies and practices of this fork. In fact, I think it might be a good idea for Wikimedia US or one of its chapters to pay for such a report. Otherwise we'll be basing much of our arguments about the project on hearsay.
Erik
On 5/12/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/12/06, Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the GFDL. And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
The Wikimedia Foundation doesn't hold the copyrights over Wikimedia content, it is merely a user that must follow the terms of the GFDL like any mirror or fork. Wikimedia could, however, provide financial or legal assistance to the authors whose copyright is infringed in a lawsuit.
That would be fairly hypocritical, though, since Wikimedia itself doesn't even follow the GFDL.
Anthony
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 5/12/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/12/06, Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the GFDL. And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
The Wikimedia Foundation doesn't hold the copyrights over Wikimedia content, it is merely a user that must follow the terms of the GFDL like any mirror or fork. Wikimedia could, however, provide financial or legal assistance to the authors whose copyright is infringed in a lawsuit.
That would be fairly hypocritical, though, since Wikimedia itself doesn't even follow the GFDL.
*hauls out text of the GFDL*
Right. Section 6: Collection of Documents:
You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released under this License, and replace the individual copies of this License in the various documents with a single copy that is included in the collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other respects.
You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually under this License, provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of that document.
The articles themselves are licensed under the GFDL, and Wikipedia is a collection of articles - so the individual copies are replaced by a single copy *included in the collection*. IANAL but it's good enough for me, /and most other contributors/. What's *not* good enough is mirroring us without even *attempting* GFDL compliance, at least to the same extent that Wikipedia itself complies with the GFDL.
Again, IANAL.
Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?
If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the GFDL. And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
Please, let's not. I see it as a good thing that people can access and read Wikipedia articles in some way, whether or not the site is GFDL-compliant. Isn't that why we contribute our time here, to have people read our articles? The most basic freedom for information is the freedom to access and read it. Baidupedia is better than nothing for technically-unsavvy people in mainland China.
-- Matt
On 5/12/06, Matt R matt_crypto@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?
If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the GFDL. And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
Please, let's not. I see it as a good thing that people can access and read Wikipedia articles in some way, whether or not the site is GFDL-compliant. Isn't that why we contribute our time here, to have people read our articles? The most basic freedom for information is the freedom to access and read it. Baidupedia is better than nothing for technically-unsavvy people in mainland China.
-- Matt
First of all, I'm not the one who wrote those sentences your email client attributed to me.
Secondly, I tend to agree with you that suing over a breach of the GFDL is not a good idea. And frankly, I doubt it would work.
Whether or not a grossly censored Baidupedia is better than nothing, I don't know. Depends, I suppose, how censored it is, but I get the impression that the censorship is much tighter than say the censorship of Google.
If anyone has any ideas as to what we can do to help get the real Wikipedia to the masses in China, I'd love to help. Maybe some sort of network of distributed servers providing https access through dynamically rotating IP addresses.
Anthony
On 5/12/06, Matt R matt_crypto@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?
If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the GFDL. And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
Please, let's not. I see it as a good thing that people can access and read Wikipedia articles in some way, whether or not the site is GFDL-compliant. Isn't that why we contribute our time here, to have people read our articles? The most basic freedom for information is the freedom to access and read it. Baidupedia is better than nothing for technically-unsavvy people in mainland China.
-- Matt
First of all, I'm not the one who wrote those sentences your email client attributed to me.
Secondly, I tend to agree with you that suing over a breach of the GFDL is not a good idea. And frankly, I doubt it would work.
Whether or not a grossly censored Baidupedia is better than nothing, I don't know. Depends, I suppose, how censored it is, but I get the impression that the censorship is much tighter than say the censorship of Google. From what I know of the situation I'd guess a censored version of Wikipedia is worse than nothing, because at least with nothing more people will go through the technical hoops to get around the firewall.
If anyone has any ideas as to what we can do to help get the real Wikipedia to the masses in China (no client-side setup required), I'd love to help. Maybe some sort of network of distributed servers providing https access through dynamically rotating IP addresses.
Anthony
It is legal, sadfully, IMO. If it was in North Korea, it wouldn't be, per US export law.
On 5/12/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 5/12/06, Matt R matt_crypto@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?
If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of
the
GFDL. And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
Please, let's not. I see it as a good thing that people can access and
read Wikipedia articles in some way, whether or not the site is GFDL-compliant. Isn't that why we contribute our time here, to have people read our articles? The most basic freedom for information is the freedom to access and read it. Baidupedia is better than nothing for technically-unsavvy people in mainland China.
-- Matt
First of all, I'm not the one who wrote those sentences your email client attributed to me.
Secondly, I tend to agree with you that suing over a breach of the GFDL is not a good idea. And frankly, I doubt it would work.
Whether or not a grossly censored Baidupedia is better than nothing, I don't know. Depends, I suppose, how censored it is, but I get the impression that the censorship is much tighter than say the censorship of Google. From what I know of the situation I'd guess a censored version of Wikipedia is worse than nothing, because at least with nothing more people will go through the technical hoops to get around the firewall.
If anyone has any ideas as to what we can do to help get the real Wikipedia to the masses in China (no client-side setup required), I'd love to help. Maybe some sort of network of distributed servers providing https access through dynamically rotating IP addresses.
Anthony _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 5/12/06, Joe Anderson computerjoe.mailinglist@googlemail.com wrote:
It is legal, sadfully, IMO. If it was in North Korea, it wouldn't be, per US export law.
I thought the whole PGP thing put that in question?
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Whether or not a grossly censored Baidupedia is better than nothing, I don't know. Depends, I suppose, how censored it is, but I get the impression that the censorship is much tighter than say the censorship of Google. From what I know of the situation I'd guess a censored version of Wikipedia is worse than nothing, because at least with nothing more people will go through the technical hoops to get around the firewall.
If anyone has any ideas as to what we can do to help get the real Wikipedia to the masses in China (no client-side setup required), I'd love to help. Maybe some sort of network of distributed servers providing https access through dynamically rotating IP addresses.
I don't think there's any solution left which will work without client configuration, except for a number of loopholes that the Chinese Government hasn't gotten around to closing yet. The foremost among these is our own SSL gateway:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/zh/wiki/
There are various unblocked HTTP proxies, although all unencrypted traffic is sampled, so any popular proxy will be rapidly blocked.
Traffic within China isn't subject to the Great Firewall, which is why a proxy like wikipedia.cnblog.org worked. More proxies like that could be set up, but our recent experience suggests that the Government is watching for such things, and you can fully expect a knock on your door if you set one up.
Periodically changing the IPs returned by a specific DNS entry almost certainly won't work. They have the ability to poll DNS.
So that leaves client configuration. The Tor network is still not blocked, but that might be only a matter of time. And the downside is that it has no system for dealing with abuse.
Having numerous SSL tunnel servers would be useful, along the lines of Anthony's suggestion. However, you need to have some way to distribute the server IPs to the users without letting the Government find them out. I can't think of any way to do this with a public protocol without leading to a very high rate of compromise of IP addresses, assuming the authorities are on the ball. A simple HTTPS gateway like secure.wikimedia.org could be compromised automatically by simply connecting to it and downloading the index page.
We can go on exploiting known holes in the firewall for the time being, but it will certainly become increasingly difficult for people inside China to access Wikipedia, especially for those who are non-technical or not especially motivated.
If Baidupedia does take off, I hope they will license locally generated content under GFDL, to allow for a continuing exchange of content between Wikipedia and Baidupedia.
-- Tim Starling
On 5/13/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
If anyone has any ideas as to what we can do to help get the real Wikipedia to the masses in China...
DVDs dropped from propaganda planes?
On 13/05/06, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/13/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
If anyone has any ideas as to what we can do to help get the real Wikipedia to the masses in China...
DVDs dropped from propaganda planes?
Er, sorry; when did Wikipedia add "freedom fighting" to its list of goals?
Rob Church
On 5/13/06, Rob Church robchur@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/05/06, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/13/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
If anyone has any ideas as to what we can do to help get the real Wikipedia to the masses in China...
DVDs dropped from propaganda planes?
Er, sorry; when did Wikipedia add "freedom fighting" to its list of goals?
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and as such it doesn't have goals. "The goal of the Wikimedia foundation is to develop and maintain open content, wiki-based projects and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge." So arguably it fits.
But the "we" I was referring to wasn't all Wikipedians (I'm not even sure I consider myself a Wikipedian), and it certainly wasn't members of Wikimedia (I definitely don't consider myself a Wikimedian). I was referring to myself and anyone else who's interested in "get[ting] the real Wikipedia to the masses in China..." Sorry if my terminology confused you.
Please, let's not. I see it as a good thing that people can access and read Wikipedia articles in some way, whether or not the site is GFDL-compliant. Isn't that why we contribute our time here, to have people read our articles? The most basic freedom for information is the freedom to access and read it.
I agree with this, but it should still be recognised that some people contributed their work under the assumption or expectation that they would be credited for the work.
Timwi
Matt R wrote:
Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?
If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the GFDL. And if that's the case, can we sue? Please?
Please, let's not. I see it as a good thing that people can access and read Wikipedia articles in some way, whether or not the site is GFDL-compliant. Isn't that why we contribute our time here, to have people read our articles? The most basic freedom for information is the freedom to access and read it. Baidupedia is better than nothing for technically-unsavvy people in mainland China.
It appears I got hold of the wrong end of the stick, and I apologise for and retract my above statement.
Steve block
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
"China's biggest Internet search site, Baidu.com, has launched a Chinese-language encyclopedia inspired by the cooperative reference site Wikipedia, which the communist government bars China's Web surfers from seeing. However, entries on Baidupedia, the service from Nasdaq-listed Baidu.com launched last month, are censored by the Chinese Government."
http://www.sundaytimes.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,19100960%255E170...
Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?
Why don't you just go and check? Look here:
http://baike.baidu.com/lemma-php/dispose/view.php/51931.htm
and here:
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%84%92%E5%AE%B6
Yep, same content.
Timwi