We say "All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License" -- note the phrase "all text", not "all content" -- and then we give a link to [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]], which explains things in more detail (especially in section 1.2, at least on [[w:en:]]).
I've spoken with Jimbo about this exact point back in February, and he responded to me that it "is *not* a claim that _only_ text is available under the terms of the GNU FDL." Furthermore, the GFDL requires that the *entire document* is released under the GFDL, and that's exactly what Wikipedia:Copyrights does. See this edit made by Jimbo after I spoke with him: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Copyrights&diff=245...
That said, the use of the words "the Document" intentionally avoids the issue of what the organisation intends to be releasing (and indeed whether or not they are releasing anything or if instead they are merely acting as a common carrier for the documents published by Wikipedians). I'd like to see this spelled out, and now that there's a board of directors a committee could be formed to do so.
I can see why the organisation might not want to do so. After all, it's much easier to just adapt your position to whatever is convenient for whatever legal situation you get into. But as a free encyclopedia I think there is a responsibility to give people some *official* explanation as to how they can legally reuse the product. A page freely editable by any admin which uses weasel words like "You may be able to partially fulfill the latter two obligations by..." doesn't really cut it. Something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verbatim_copying gets a little closer.
Alternatively, of course, it's perfectly reasonable for the organisation to say that it does not claim any copyright on the encyclopedia at all, that it is a work of the Wikipedians and Wikipedia is merely a service provider.
From a legal standpoint this might even be the best position to take, as it
fits in best under the OCILLA protections. But once a print edition is made, someone has to step forward and take the liability as publisher.
-- Toby
Anthony
We have a lot of images with "no commercial use" caveats. Does that mean these images have to be removed?
RickK
Anthony DiPierro anthonydipierro@hotmail.com wrote:
We say "All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License" -- note the phrase "all text", not "all content" -- and then we give a link to [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]], which explains things in more detail (especially in section 1.2, at least on [[w:en:]]).
I've spoken with Jimbo about this exact point back in February, and he responded to me that it "is *not* a claim that _only_ text is available under the terms of the GNU FDL." Furthermore, the GFDL requires that the *entire document* is released under the GFDL, and that's exactly what Wikipedia:Copyrights does. See this edit made by Jimbo after I spoke with him: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Copyrights&diff=245...
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Rick wrote:
We have a lot of images with "no commercial use" caveats. Does that mean these images have to be removed?
My position is that yes, eventually, these do need to be removed. There can be exceptions, though...
If an image meets our fair use/fair dealing guidelines, which basically means that it is easily fair use for us, and likely fair use for most contemplated reusers, then we can keep it (because it is free in the relevant sense) *even if* we are *also* able to obtain a license of some sort. It can be wise for us to have licenses for content that we could use without a license, just to make things more clear.
An example of a "fair use" that would likely be fine for just about any contemplated reusers would be a quotation from a book that an article is discussing. Another example would be a screen shot from a movie in an article about that movie.
If the _only_ way we can use a particular image is through a non-free license, and we believe that a fair use defense would be unavailable to us, or to most contemplated reusers, then it should be avoided.
--Jimbo