To: info@forbidden-places.be
Hello,
My name is Jason and I am a volunteer editor for Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia anyone can edit. I saw your SAFEA chemical factory urban exploration video at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7772963855357017766 on Google Video and enjoyed it very much. (The train video sounds interesting too but it seems you want to keep it private.) We at Wikipedia are considering using your video to illustrate our articles - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_exploration (English) and - http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_urbaine (French).
Since Wikipedia's video system is new, the upload process is not as easy as Google Video's. However, we will help you through the process step-by-step, and you will get free promotion for your website and for the hobby of urban exploration. As well, you will be helping Wikipedia by helping us to find out how to optimize our video upload process and make it easier for non-Wikipedians to upload videos.
We are wondering: Are you interested?
Please use the "Reply to All" button if you reply.
Regards, Jason http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Unforgettableid
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. Unforgettableid wrote:
Since Wikipedia's video system is new, the upload process is not as easy as Google Video's. However, we will help you through the process step-by-step, and you will get free promotion for your website and for the hobby of urban exploration. As well, you will be helping Wikipedia by helping us to find out how to optimize our video upload process and make it easier for non-Wikipedians to upload videos.
I'm not sure if its a good idea to promise 'free promotion' in a permission request, since (s)he would get is an external link in the media info page, which only Wikipedia /editors/ will ever see.
Cynical
On 9/18/06, David Alexander Russell webmaster@davidarussell.co.uk wrote:
. Unforgettableid wrote:
...
you will get free promotion for your website and for the hobby of urban exploration.
...
I'm not sure if its a good idea to promise 'free promotion' in a permission request, since (s)he would get is an external link in the media info page, which only Wikipedia /editors/ will ever see.
All the videos they posted to Google Video have a watermark in the corner pointing to www.forbidden-places.be ; that should provide free promotion.
Personally, I would prefer it if the video's author shortened the watermark; such a watermark need not last for more than five or ten seconds. I believe all watermarks are annoying and detract from video.
--[[User:Unforgettableid]]
On 18 Sep 2006, at 21:55, David Alexander Russell wrote:
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. Unforgettableid wrote:
Since Wikipedia's video system is new, the upload process is not as easy as Google Video's. However, we will help you through the process step-by-step, and you will get free promotion for your website and for the hobby of urban exploration. As well, you will be helping Wikipedia by helping us to find out how to optimize our video upload process and make it easier for non-Wikipedians to upload videos.
I'm not sure if its a good idea to promise 'free promotion' in a permission request, since (s)he would get is an external link in the media info page, which only Wikipedia /editors/ will ever see.
There may be rights issues as well. It's not as simple as just uploading a video, unfortunately. Some content I have shot is only available for non-commercial use because it was shot in Royal Parks, so this cannot be released under a free licence so cannot be included in Wikipedia.
On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
There may be rights issues as well. It's not as simple as just uploading a video, unfortunately. Some content I have shot is only available for non-commercial use because it was shot in Royal Parks, so this cannot be released under a free licence so cannot be included in Wikipedia.
Why would that be? Can a tree, a river, or a building be copyrighted? You claim that there "may" be rights issues but you have not cited any American law which back up your claim.
Recently, a lot of [[Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt]] has been spread regarding these issues: Popular Photography magazine discussed them recently. In reality, a building, a park, or such _cannot_ be trademarked.
Cheers, [[User:Unforgettableid]]
On 18 Sep 2006, at 23:05, User:Unforgettableid wrote:
On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
There may be rights issues as well. It's not as simple as just uploading a video, unfortunately. Some content I have shot is only available for non-commercial use because it was shot in Royal Parks, so this cannot be released under a free licence so cannot be included in Wikipedia.
Why would that be? Can a tree, a river, or a building be copyrighted? You claim that there "may" be rights issues but you have not cited any American law which back up your claim.
Recently, a lot of [[Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt]] has been spread regarding these issues: Popular Photography magazine discussed them recently. In reality, a building, a park, or such _cannot_ be trademarked.
In English law, if you go into a Royal Park to film you have to obey their terms and conditions - no commercial use without permission.
Similarly, it is illegal to film on British Rail property without consent, which is often refused or charged for. The Railways are covered by their own bylaws.
Here's a link for more info: http://www.sirimo.co.uk/ukpr.php/2004/11/19/ uk_photographers_rights_guide
On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
In English law, if you go into a Royal Park to film you have to obey their terms and conditions - no commercial use without permission.
Similarly, it is illegal to film on British Rail property without consent, which is often refused or charged for. The Railways are covered by their own bylaws.
Here's a link for more info: http://www.sirimo.co.uk/ukpr.php/2004/11/19/ uk_photographers_rights_guide
OK, point taken. However, it seems to me the UK has stricter copyright laws than other countries. For example, in the UK, modern skillfully-made photos of two-hundred-year-old paintings are automatically copyrighted to the author. On the other hand, I do not know of any other country with such strict laws regarding old paintings. Likewise, I assume France, where is not as strict regarding filming.
Cheers, Jason
On 9/18/06, [[User:Unforgettableid]] unforgettableid@gmail.com wrote:
OK, point taken. However, it seems to me the UK has stricter copyright laws than other countries. For example, in the UK, modern skillfully-made photos of two-hundred-year-old paintings are automatically copyrighted to the author.
That is somewhat open to question. While current case law that I know of points that way there is a fair bit of legal opinion (includeing the stuff in Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp which does cover UK law). suggesting a future case would go the other way. Problem is no one on either side really wants to be a test case.
On the other hand, I do not know of any other country with such strict laws regarding old paintings. Likewise, I assume France, where is not as strict regarding filming.
Depends if you include any buildings in your film and how old they are.
On 18/09/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/18/06, [[User:Unforgettableid]] unforgettableid@gmail.com wrote:
OK, point taken. However, it seems to me the UK has stricter copyright laws than other countries. For example, in the UK, modern skillfully-made photos of two-hundred-year-old paintings are automatically copyrighted to the author.
That is somewhat open to question. While current case law that I know of points that way there is a fair bit of legal opinion (includeing the stuff in Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp which does cover UK law). suggesting a future case would go the other way. Problem is no one on either side really wants to be a test case.
On the other hand, I do not know of any other country with such strict laws regarding old paintings. Likewise, I assume France, where is not as strict regarding filming.
Depends if you include any buildings in your film and how old they are.
It may be relevant that Jimbo has told the National Portrait Gallery "sue or be damned" and they've stopped sending vague legal threats.
i.e., if someone does bring a case directly affecting Wikipedia then they should be very sure they want to do that.
- d.
On 18 Sep 2006, at 23:19, [[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
In English law, if you go into a Royal Park to film you have to obey their terms and conditions - no commercial use without permission.
Similarly, it is illegal to film on British Rail property without consent, which is often refused or charged for. The Railways are covered by their own bylaws.
Here's a link for more info: http://www.sirimo.co.uk/ukpr.php/2004/11/19/ uk_photographers_rights_guide
OK, point taken. However, it seems to me the UK has stricter copyright laws than other countries. For example, in the UK, modern skillfully-made photos of two-hundred-year-old paintings are automatically copyrighted to the author. On the other hand, I do not know of any other country with such strict laws regarding old paintings. Likewise, I assume France, where is not as strict regarding filming.
Apparently, Enland does not respect character rights, which the US does. So I could upload a video of a famous person shot in England without breaking English law, but it could be illegal for Wikimedia to redistribute it in the US.
[[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
In English law, if you go into a Royal Park to film you have to obey their terms and conditions - no commercial use without permission.
Similarly, it is illegal to film on British Rail property without consent, which is often refused or charged for. The Railways are covered by their own bylaws.
Here's a link for more info: http://www.sirimo.co.uk/ukpr.php/2004/11/19/ uk_photographers_rights_guide
OK, point taken. However, it seems to me the UK has stricter copyright laws than other countries. For example, in the UK, modern skillfully-made photos of two-hundred-year-old paintings are automatically copyrighted to the author. On the other hand, I do not know of any other country with such strict laws regarding old paintings.
I have just reviewed the pamphlet, and it seems that Stephen has done an excellent job of mireading and distorting the material. The question of old paintings has often been discussed before, so I don't need to go into that.
The restrictions relating to Royal Parks, British Rail or Trafalgar Square have nothing to do with copyright. In the case of British Rail the pamphlet declares it a trespass to enter such property without permission. This alone does not make the pictures that you take while there illegal.
For the Royal Parks and Trafalgar Square the pamphlet speaks of restrictions of photography for business or commercial purposes. It does not restrict amateur or personal photography. Overtly commercial photographic activities are not the same as amateur photographs that are subsequently used for commercial purposes. The restriction applies to the activity, not to the product.
Ec
On 19 Sep 2006, at 21:56, Ray Saintonge wrote:
[[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
In English law, if you go into a Royal Park to film you have to obey their terms and conditions - no commercial use without permission.
Similarly, it is illegal to film on British Rail property without consent, which is often refused or charged for. The Railways are covered by their own bylaws.
Here's a link for more info: http://www.sirimo.co.uk/ukpr.php/2004/11/19/ uk_photographers_rights_guide
OK, point taken. However, it seems to me the UK has stricter copyright laws than other countries. For example, in the UK, modern skillfully-made photos of two-hundred-year-old paintings are automatically copyrighted to the author. On the other hand, I do not know of any other country with such strict laws regarding old paintings.
I have just reviewed the pamphlet, and it seems that Stephen has done an excellent job of mireading and distorting the material. The question of old paintings has often been discussed before, so I don't need to go into that.
The restrictions relating to Royal Parks, British Rail or Trafalgar Square have nothing to do with copyright. In the case of British Rail the pamphlet declares it a trespass to enter such property without permission. This alone does not make the pictures that you take while there illegal.
For the Royal Parks and Trafalgar Square the pamphlet speaks of restrictions of photography for business or commercial purposes. It does not restrict amateur or personal photography. Overtly commercial photographic activities are not the same as amateur photographs that are subsequently used for commercial purposes. The restriction applies to the activity, not to the product.
Students on a summer job at my company did ask for permission to film on British Rail property, and this request was refused. I think if the people involved filmed there "for personal use" and then the content was used commercially, this would be highly dubious.
Is your interpretation that photographs can be used commercially as long as that was not the intention when they were made? I did consider that interpretation, but it seems odd as intention is hard to prove. If you are right, I can release my Park videos under a free licence. This seems sufficiently odd to find the actual regulations, rather than the summary in the pamphlet, the link to which I included to allow people to form their own view.
Stephen Streater wrote:
On 19 Sep 2006, at 21:56, Ray Saintonge wrote:
[[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
In English law, if you go into a Royal Park to film you have to obey their terms and conditions - no commercial use without permission.
Similarly, it is illegal to film on British Rail property without consent, which is often refused or charged for. The Railways are covered by their own bylaws.
Here's a link for more info: http://www.sirimo.co.uk/ukpr.php/2004/11/19/ uk_photographers_rights_guide
OK, point taken. However, it seems to me the UK has stricter copyright laws than other countries. For example, in the UK, modern skillfully-made photos of two-hundred-year-old paintings are automatically copyrighted to the author. On the other hand, I do not know of any other country with such strict laws regarding old paintings.
I have just reviewed the pamphlet, and it seems that Stephen has done an excellent job of mireading and distorting the material. The question of old paintings has often been discussed before, so I don't need to go into that.
The restrictions relating to Royal Parks, British Rail or Trafalgar Square have nothing to do with copyright. In the case of British Rail the pamphlet declares it a trespass to enter such property without permission. This alone does not make the pictures that you take while there illegal.
For the Royal Parks and Trafalgar Square the pamphlet speaks of restrictions of photography for business or commercial purposes. It does not restrict amateur or personal photography. Overtly commercial photographic activities are not the same as amateur photographs that are subsequently used for commercial purposes. The restriction applies to the activity, not to the product.
Students on a summer job at my company did ask for permission to film on British Rail property, and this request was refused. I think if the people involved filmed there "for personal use" and then the content was used commercially, this would be highly dubious.
There are two aspects to your request from British Rail - entering the property and filming. If the real issue was whether you could enter the property, and you were forbidden entry, the permission to film would be moot.
Is your interpretation that photographs can be used commercially as long as that was not the intention when they were made?
Exactly.
I did consider that interpretation, but it seems odd as intention is hard to prove.
Intention is indeed hard to prove, but the burden of proof is on the person making the accusation. Possible ways for them to prove that would be to prove that you are in some kind of photography business in which you normally sell that kind of photo. Technically they could probably convict you if you were a wedding photographer who was fulfilling a contract to take pictures of the newlyweds in the Royal Park.
If you are right, I can release my Park videos under a free licence.
Yes. It's not a copyright issue. Filming and uploading are two different acts. Whenever a statute proclaims an act to be somehow worthy of punishment it needs to be read perfectly literally sometimes even when the logical consequences of such a reading are ridiculous. One should never impute to parliament anything more than what is actually said.
This seems sufficiently odd to find the actual regulations, rather than the summary in the pamphlet, the link to which I included to allow people to form their own view.
Actual statutes are preferable, but can be difficult to read.
Ec
On 20 Sep 2006, at 09:07, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Stephen Streater wrote:
On 19 Sep 2006, at 21:56, Ray Saintonge wrote:
[[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
In English law, if you go into a Royal Park to film you have to obey their terms and conditions - no commercial use without permission.
Similarly, it is illegal to film on British Rail property without consent, which is often refused or charged for. The Railways are covered by their own bylaws.
Here's a link for more info: http://www.sirimo.co.uk/ukpr.php/2004/11/19/ uk_photographers_rights_guide
OK, point taken. However, it seems to me the UK has stricter copyright laws than other countries. For example, in the UK, modern skillfully-made photos of two-hundred-year-old paintings are automatically copyrighted to the author. On the other hand, I do not know of any other country with such strict laws regarding old paintings.
I have just reviewed the pamphlet, and it seems that Stephen has done an excellent job of mireading and distorting the material. The question of old paintings has often been discussed before, so I don't need to go into that.
The restrictions relating to Royal Parks, British Rail or Trafalgar Square have nothing to do with copyright. In the case of British Rail the pamphlet declares it a trespass to enter such property without permission. This alone does not make the pictures that you take while there illegal.
For the Royal Parks and Trafalgar Square the pamphlet speaks of restrictions of photography for business or commercial purposes. It does not restrict amateur or personal photography. Overtly commercial photographic activities are not the same as amateur photographs that are subsequently used for commercial purposes. The restriction applies to the activity, not to the product.
Students on a summer job at my company did ask for permission to film on British Rail property, and this request was refused. I think if the people involved filmed there "for personal use" and then the content was used commercially, this would be highly dubious.
There are two aspects to your request from British Rail - entering the property and filming. If the real issue was whether you could enter the property, and you were forbidden entry, the permission to film would be moot.
Anyone can enter the property every time they go by train. The issue was whether they could take any video and publish it - this request was denied.
If you are right, I can release my Park videos under a free licence.
Yes. It's not a copyright issue. Filming and uploading are two different acts. Whenever a statute proclaims an act to be somehow worthy of punishment it needs to be read perfectly literally sometimes even when the logical consequences of such a reading are ridiculous. One should never impute to parliament anything more than what is actually said.
It looks like a loophole to me, but maybe it is a deliberate one. Perhaps it is the disruption of a professional shoot they are trying to avoid, rather than use of the footage itself.
On 20/09/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
On 20 Sep 2006, at 09:07, Ray Saintonge wrote:
There are two aspects to your request from British Rail - entering the property and filming. If the real issue was whether you could enter the property, and you were forbidden entry, the permission to film would be moot.
Anyone can enter the property every time they go by train. The issue was whether they could take any video and publish it - this request was denied.
So I'm not allowed to take photos or video out the window of a train? They can sue and be damned, then.
- d.
I believe they only have a problem for commercial purposes or for a representative of a business. Why would you want to take a picture of a train station anyway? I'm sure there's some other random jurisdiction covering a photo/video of a relative at a train station, when the subject is the relative and not the location.
On 9/20/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 20/09/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
On 20 Sep 2006, at 09:07, Ray Saintonge wrote:
There are two aspects to your request from British Rail - entering the property and filming. If the real issue was whether you could enter the property, and you were forbidden entry, the permission to film would be moot.
Anyone can enter the property every time they go by train. The issue was whether they could take any video and publish it - this request was denied.
So I'm not allowed to take photos or video out the window of a train? They can sue and be damned, then.
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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Akash Mehta wrote:
So I'm not allowed to take photos or video out the window of a train? They can sue and be damned, then.
- d.
This is about the law of trespass - someone asked British Rail if they could enter their property for the purposes of filming, and were denied. Permission to enter the property for the purposes of catching a train is entirely separate.
The solution is that taking a picture of private property from a public place is perfectly legal, so there's nothing to stop someone (for example) taking a picture of the outside of a train station or (as is the case with many stations near where I live) taking a picture of the platform from a nearby bridge over the railway line. In other words, just because we can't film on British Rail property doesn't mean Wikipedia can't have photos or video footage of stations or trains.
Cynical
On 20 Sep 2006, at 10:33, David Alexander Russell wrote:
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Akash Mehta wrote:
So I'm not allowed to take photos or video out the window of a train? They can sue and be damned, then.
- d.
This is about the law of trespass - someone asked British Rail if they could enter their property for the purposes of filming, and were denied. Permission to enter the property for the purposes of catching a train is entirely separate.
The solution is that taking a picture of private property from a public place is perfectly legal, so there's nothing to stop someone (for example) taking a picture of the outside of a train station or (as is the case with many stations near where I live) taking a picture of the platform from a nearby bridge over the railway line. In other words, just because we can't film on British Rail property doesn't mean Wikipedia can't have photos or video footage of stations or trains.
And I have done just that in one of the videos I have uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.
On 20 Sep 2006, at 10:13, David Gerard wrote:
On 20/09/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
On 20 Sep 2006, at 09:07, Ray Saintonge wrote:
There are two aspects to your request from British Rail - entering the property and filming. If the real issue was whether you could enter the property, and you were forbidden entry, the permission to film would be moot.
Anyone can enter the property every time they go by train. The issue was whether they could take any video and publish it - this request was denied.
So I'm not allowed to take photos or video out the window of a train? They can sue and be damned, then.
It's a big issue for TV programmes, who don't want to be sued. Having said that, the 7/7 mobile footage in the tunnel, which reputedly went for £80,000, did not have prior consent.
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Stephen Streater wrote:
It's a big issue for TV programmes, who don't want to be sued. Having said that, the 7/7 mobile footage in the tunnel, which reputedly went for £80,000, did not have prior consent.
That's because it was on the London Underground, which isn't British Rail property. As far as I'm aware this problem only applies to British Rail.
Cynical
On 20 Sep 2006, at 10:45, David Alexander Russell wrote:
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Stephen Streater wrote:
It's a big issue for TV programmes, who don't want to be sued. Having said that, the 7/7 mobile footage in the tunnel, which reputedly went for £80,000, did not have prior consent.
That's because it was on the London Underground, which isn't British Rail property. As far as I'm aware this problem only applies to British Rail.
Good point. Unfortunately, my local underground station (Wimbledon) is also a British Rail station.
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Stephen Streater wrote:
Good point. Unfortunately, my local underground station (Wimbledon) is also a British Rail station.
Hmm. We seem to have a free-licenced pic of it anyway. Image:Wimbledon_station_03.jpg . I don't know if they are more bothered about filming [video] than they are about still photography.
Cynical
Stephen Streater wrote:
On 20 Sep 2006, at 09:07, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Stephen Streater wrote:
If you are right, I can release my Park videos under a free licence.
Yes. It's not a copyright issue. Filming and uploading are two different acts. Whenever a statute proclaims an act to be somehow worthy of punishment it needs to be read perfectly literally sometimes even when the logical consequences of such a reading are ridiculous. One should never impute to parliament anything more than what is actually said.
It looks like a loophole to me, but maybe it is a deliberate one. Perhaps it is the disruption of a professional shoot they are trying to avoid, rather than use of the footage itself.
Loopholes are a normal part of the legal game, but I don't think that that is the case here. Professional shoots do bring in a lot more equipent and staff than one tourist and his family can ever imsagine. Disruption could be even more significant at Trafalgar Square. Smetimes it helps to look at the reasoning behind a law, and in this case it copyright is not a factor. Pictures of Trafalgar Square probably already exist from every conceivable angle.
Ec
On 9/18/06, User:Unforgettableid unforgettableid@gmail.com wrote:
Why would that be? Can a tree, a river, or a building be copyrighted? You claim that there "may" be rights issues but you have not cited any American law which back up your claim.
If you are the creator and you are not in the US or made the item outside the US you need to consider more than the US legal system.
G'day geni,
On 9/18/06, User:Unforgettableid unforgettableid@gmail.com wrote:
Why would that be? Can a tree, a river, or a building be copyrighted? You claim that there "may" be rights issues but you have not cited any American law which back up your claim.
If you are the creator and you are not in the US or made the item outside the US you need to consider more than the US legal system.
But if you're in the USA, as we see again and again, you can blithely pretend that the US's POV is all that matters and shamelessly flaunt your ignorance of the rest of the world.
Honestly, a UK person talking about UK law receives a response of "you failed to cite US law there". Promise me the OP[0] is currently in a state in which it's inadvisable to operate heavy machinery; he can almost be excused, then.
[0] Offending Poster
Mark Gallagher wrote:
G'day geni,
On 9/18/06, User:Unforgettableid unforgettableid@gmail.com wrote:
Why would that be? Can a tree, a river, or a building be copyrighted? You claim that there "may" be rights issues but you have not cited any American law which back up your claim.
If you are the creator and you are not in the US or made the item outside the US you need to consider more than the US legal system.
But if you're in the USA, as we see again and again, you can blithely pretend that the US's POV is all that matters and shamelessly flaunt your ignorance of the rest of the world.
But this is precisely the goal---Wikipedia is sunk if it must use the *intersection* of all copyright laws in the world, under which nearly nothing is permissible to distribute. Instead, it's carefully set up so that all the core servers and legal mechanism are in the United States, so we can use only one set of copyright laws.
Of course individual contributors must deal with their local governments, but the point is that Wikipedia itself should not subject itself to dozens of competing restrictions.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
Mark Gallagher wrote:
G'day geni,
On 9/18/06, User:Unforgettableid unforgettableid@gmail.com wrote:
Why would that be? Can a tree, a river, or a building be copyrighted? You claim that there "may" be rights issues but you have not cited any American law which back up your claim.
If you are the creator and you are not in the US or made the item outside the US you need to consider more than the US legal system.
But if you're in the USA, as we see again and again, you can blithely pretend that the US's POV is all that matters and shamelessly flaunt your ignorance of the rest of the world.
But this is precisely the goal---Wikipedia is sunk if it must use the *intersection* of all copyright laws in the world, under which nearly nothing is permissible to distribute. Instead, it's carefully set up so that all the core servers and legal mechanism are in the United States, so we can use only one set of copyright laws.
If you claim that on Commons, you'll be laughed off the project.
On 9/19/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
If you claim that on Commons, you'll be laughed off the project.
The general assumption on Commons is that the work not be encumbered by the copyright of others in the originating country as well as the United States.
There is general but not complete consensus (among those who could be bothered to argue about it, at least) that images of copyrighted two-dimensional trademarks where that trademark is the major element in the picture are not permitted.
A large number, but possibly not a consensus, wish that all pictures where an identifiable person is the major element in the picture were taken with the permission of that person, preferably with model releases.
Others believe that Commons should not concern itself overly with non-copyright restrictions on image use freedom. That discussion is not complete and may not ever be.
There is a vocal minority that insists that if an image is permissable under their own nation's copyright laws, it should be able to be put on Commons, even if that law does not agree with either (a) the laws of the originating country (these users are mostly in the US) or (b) US law (these users are mostly in Germany).
-Matt
On 9/19/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Wikipedia is sunk if it must use the *intersection* of all copyright laws in the world, under which nearly nothing is permissible to distribute.
Cite up or shut up.
Your claim that the intersection of permitted works is the empty set is ridiculous and disruptive. If you're going to make claims like that, please substantiate them.
Although your statement is a ridiculous overstatement, it's not that relevant any case: The long term practice of Wikipedia is to follow the laws that we must follow and adopt additional practices that further our goal of creating a encyclopedia which is free for all forms of use, redistribution, and modification anywhere, for any reason, and in any medium for all time.
There is no movement to limit wikipedia to least common denominator of all jurisdictions.
However, we do choose to respect the copyrights of Iran... which have copyright terms quite similar to the rest of the industrialized world, but which lack enforcement in the US because Iran is not currently a party to the Berne Convention. This is a sound policy: Not only does it preserve the legality of our work in Iran (which is part of anywhere), but it preserves the legality of our work in the US and Europe when a some point in the future Iran's copyrights become more generally enforceable.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 9/19/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Wikipedia is sunk if it must use the *intersection* of all copyright laws in the world, under which nearly nothing is permissible to distribute.
Cite up or shut up.
Your claim that the intersection of permitted works is the empty set is ridiculous and disruptive. If you're going to make claims like that, please substantiate them.
Although your comment is in a rather impolite tone, I suppose I'll reply anyway.
If we had to follow the intersection of copyright laws, we could not distribute a number of things we currently distribute on various of our projects:
1. Modern mechanical reproductions of out-of-copyright artworks, since these are only unprotected by copyright in the subset of countries that have _Bridgeman_-like case law 2. Simple collections of facts compiled by someone else, since these are copyrightable under the 1996 [[en:European Union Database Directive]] 3. Anything, such as the King James version of the Bible, held under perpetual copyright in the United Kingdom 4. Anything created and first published in the United States before 1923, but by an author who did not die more than 70 years ago, since some countries that don't use a "principle of the shortest term" apply 70 years PMA *even* to works that are out of copyright in their country of origin 5. Similarly, anything out of copyright due to its country of origin having a 50-years PMA rule, since some countries apply 70 years PMA to these works anyway 6. Anything out of copyright due to having been first published in the U.S. during the period when copyright registration and renewal was mandatory, that did not have its copyright registered or renewed, since some countries apply 70 years PMA to thsee works anyway
The list goes on extensively. To get an idea of what would need to be deleted if we respected the intersection of copyright laws, find every Commons copyright tag with a proviso such as "This may not apply in countries such as [x, y, z]".
-Mark
On 9/19/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Although your comment is in a rather impolite tone, I suppose I'll reply anyway.
It's rather impolite of you to make sweeping and inaccurate generalizations. There are people here who may not know that you were full of crap.
If we had to follow the intersection of copyright laws, we could not distribute a number of things we currently distribute on various of our projects:
Yes. No argument that we currently distribute works that we could not distribute if we attempted to follow all laws, but your claim was that the project would fail because "nearly nothing is permissible to distribute" under a policy of expansive conformance.
- Modern mechanical reproductions of out-of-copyright artworks, since
these are only unprotected by copyright in the subset of countries that have _Bridgeman_-like case law
A nit: only in cases where the mechanical reproducer tries to claim a non-free copyright.
[snip]
The list goes on extensively. To get an idea of what would need to be deleted if we respected the intersection of copyright laws, find every Commons copyright tag with a proviso such as "This may not apply in countries such as [x, y, z]".
Yes, its a lot of material but it's far less than all.
In particual content *we* create is not copyright encoumbered. Since our text is mostly submitter authored there is no reason to believe that our project would fail if our images had to be submitter authored as well.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Yes. No argument that we currently distribute works that we could not distribute if we attempted to follow all laws, but your claim was that the project would fail because "nearly nothing is permissible to distribute" under a policy of expansive conformance.
It depends on what you mean by "expansive conformance". Do you mean solely conformance with copyright laws? This discussion started with a mention of laws about taking pictures of various Royal properties, which is an extra-copyright restriction. You seem to favor us honoring those sorts of restrictions as well. But there are *quite* a lot of those, if we want to get into expansive conformance. In some countries, it's illegal to publish material that impugns the honor of a president, king, revered religious figure, or some other such thing. Should we ignore these laws? If so, how do we distinguish between the ones we follow (apparently UK ones) and the ones we don't?
-Mark
On 19/09/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
This discussion started with a mention of laws about taking pictures of various Royal properties, which is an extra-copyright restriction. You seem to favor us honoring those sorts of restrictions as well. But there are *quite* a lot of those, if we want to get into expansive conformance. In some countries, it's illegal to publish material that impugns the honor of a president, king, revered religious figure, or some other such thing. Should we ignore these laws? If so, how do we distinguish between the ones we follow (apparently UK ones) and the ones we don't?
<rant - sorry, this isn't particularly directed at you, it's been simmering for a while>
The issue is that a British author entered into a contract made legally under British law to do something in Britain. This is by no means a bizzare or inhuman contract - "I will let you into private property, and let you take photographs, on the condition you don't use them commercially". Art galleries everywhere do much the same thing; it's nothing to do with copyright or draconian privacy laws, it's just a matter of a contract between an individual and an organisation.
So regardless of any legal situation in the US, it is a breach of contract *on the part of the author* to release those images for commercial use, even if he does it outside the UK. US copyright law doesn't come into it, US freedom of speech doesn't come into it, because it isn't about either - it's about the fact that the author has made a contract which is legally binding and *he personally* would be breaking it if he released the work under a free license.
Wikimedia is fine - we're not a party to the contract, and it's an open question as to what on earth the other party can do to us if the photographer decides to break his contract. But we should never be pretending we can get people out of their local legal constraints, unrelated to copyright, just because publishing in Florida gives us funky copyright possibilities.
It's fair to say "we publish in Florida and aren't bound by German laws on reproducing swastikas", because that's a German law binding on German publications. It's (usually) fair to say "we publish in Florida and aren't bound by overseas copyrights on PD-US work", because we're looking at a US law binding on US publications. It's not fair to say that publishing in Florida means editors can escape any restrictions they have fairly entered into or had placed on them, especially when those have nothing to do with copyright, because we're looking at local laws binding *on our editors*.
Even if the end result is an encyclopedia that breaks no laws in Florida, we should not be expecting or encouraging our editors to break their own laws to get there.
</rant>
Andrew Gray wrote:
The issue is that a British author entered into a contract made legally under British law to do something in Britain. This is by no means a bizzare or inhuman contract - "I will let you into private property, and let you take photographs, on the condition you don't use them commercially". Art galleries everywhere do much the same thing; it's nothing to do with copyright or draconian privacy laws, it's just a matter of a contract between an individual and an organisation.
So regardless of any legal situation in the US, it is a breach of contract *on the part of the author* to release those images for commercial use, even if he does it outside the UK. US copyright law doesn't come into it, US freedom of speech doesn't come into it, because it isn't about either - it's about the fact that the author has made a contract which is legally binding and *he personally* would be breaking it if he released the work under a free license.
Wikimedia is fine - we're not a party to the contract, and it's an open question as to what on earth the other party can do to us if the photographer decides to break his contract. But we should never be pretending we can get people out of their local legal constraints, unrelated to copyright, just because publishing in Florida gives us funky copyright possibilities.
I agree with all that, but the question remains whether *we* should enforce those contracts. We of course can't get the other person out of their contract, but we don't have to police their contracts either.
In the World Cup example, at least, Commons seems to have decided that it's not our job to enforce them---it's between FIFA and the photographer whether the pictures were taken in violation of a contract, and not really our job to pry into the matter, even if we suspect they were probably not taken with permission.
I'm not sure that's a position we *must* take, but it does seem to be the one we're currently taking. There are problems with the opposite position, too, that would at least require us to come up with something more complex/nuanced. For example, we'd probably want to reserve the right to publish pictures taken illegally in complex political situations---if somebody snapped a newsworthy photograph during a coup, for example, which the government later declared illegal, we would probably not want to take it down for that reason (or at least I wouldn't want us to have such a policy).
-Mark
On 19/09/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
In the World Cup example, at least, Commons seems to have decided that it's not our job to enforce them---it's between FIFA and the photographer whether the pictures were taken in violation of a contract, and not really our job to pry into the matter, even if we suspect they were probably not taken with permission.
Yeah. But there's a difference between "we're not going to ask" and "we're going to actively promote that you can do this quasi-legally", and we often seem to be slipping towards the latter, by assuming copyright is the only relevant factor.
I'm not sure that's a position we *must* take, but it does seem to be the one we're currently taking. There are problems with the opposite position, too, that would at least require us to come up with something more complex/nuanced. For example, we'd probably want to reserve the right to publish pictures taken illegally in complex political situations---if somebody snapped a newsworthy photograph during a coup, for example, which the government later declared illegal, we would probably not want to take it down for that reason (or at least I wouldn't want us to have such a policy).
We've quite the collection of illegally-produced material - most of the illustrations of revolutionary propaganda, for a start...
On 18/09/06, User:Unforgettableid unforgettableid@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
There may be rights issues as well. It's not as simple as just uploading a video, unfortunately. Some content I have shot is only available for non-commercial use because it was shot in Royal Parks, so this cannot be released under a free licence so cannot be included in Wikipedia.
Why would that be? Can a tree, a river, or a building be copyrighted? You claim that there "may" be rights issues but you have not cited any American law which back up your claim.
Recently, a lot of [[Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt]] has been spread regarding these issues: Popular Photography magazine discussed them recently. In reality, a building, a park, or such _cannot_ be trademarked.
To the best of my knowledge, the United States does not possess any "royal parks". Given Stephen appears to live in the UK, a country which does have royal parks, it seems reasonable to assume he shot the videos there. In which case, the question of what American laws apply to the filming seems a bit less relevant.
If you are going to complain about people spreading "fear, uncertainty and doubt" about legal issues, it may be useful to spend some time considering
a) that different jurisdictions have different laws; b) that moving to one jurisdiction does not magically invalidate any implicit or explicit contract you made in another; and c) that "trademarked" and "copyrighted" are Not The Same Thing At All.
Andrew Gray wrote:
To the best of my knowledge, the United States does not possess any "royal parks". Given Stephen appears to live in the UK, a country which does have royal parks, it seems reasonable to assume he shot the videos there. In which case, the question of what American laws apply to the filming seems a bit less relevant.
While the person filming has to worry about the law regarding filming, anyone redistributing the films in the United States does not---it is not necessarily illegal to redistribute illegally filmed video. This came up a while ago on Commons with World Cup photographs: The stadiums prohibited photography, but given that photographs were taken and uploaded under the GFDL, Wikimedia is violating no law by continuing to host them. The original photographer likely violated the prohibition, but that's a separate matter, not enforceable through copyright, and so not really our problem.
-Mark
On 18 Sep 2006, at 23:22, Delirium wrote:
Andrew Gray wrote:
To the best of my knowledge, the United States does not possess any "royal parks". Given Stephen appears to live in the UK, a country which does have royal parks, it seems reasonable to assume he shot the videos there. In which case, the question of what American laws apply to the filming seems a bit less relevant.
While the person filming has to worry about the law regarding filming, anyone redistributing the films in the United States does not---it is not necessarily illegal to redistribute illegally filmed video. This came up a while ago on Commons with World Cup photographs: The stadiums prohibited photography, but given that photographs were taken and uploaded under the GFDL, Wikimedia is violating no law by continuing to host them. The original photographer likely violated the prohibition, but that's a separate matter, not enforceable through copyright, and so not really our problem.
Would the original poster be liable in the UK for each copy made though? I don't have a clear answer on this yet. By releasing something under a free licence, am I saying: "you have the right to copy this" or am I saying "you have the right to copy this subject to applicable laws"? The second seems to make sense, but then why delete copyvio images if the images are subject to the law anyway?
Kim Bruning was saying he would like all content on Wikipedia to be free ie decisions on ownership to be resolved when images were uploaded.
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Stephen Streater wrote:
Would the original poster be liable in the UK for each copy made though? I don't have a clear answer on this yet. By releasing something under a free licence, am I saying: "you have the right to copy this" or am I saying "you have the right to copy this subject to applicable laws"? The second seems to make sense, but then why delete copyvio images if the images are subject to the law anyway?
I'm not entirely sure (IANAL etc.) but surely there is a chance that, if the person taking the photo/film was legally restrained from offering it under a particular licence (in this case, one that allowed commercial use), then any such licencing would be invalid.
Cynical
On 19/09/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
Would the original poster be liable in the UK for each copy made though? I don't have a clear answer on this yet. By releasing something under a free licence, am I saying: "you have the right to copy this" or am I saying "you have the right to copy this subject to applicable laws"?
My interpretation is that you're saying "I have the right to copy this, and I'm giving you these rights subject to the following conditions..."
If you don't have the right to make commercial copies (or whatever), you can't license the rights to do so. If you've attempted to license it under something like the GFDL without first possessing all the rights you're licensing, at the very least the license is invalid - and there's a nontrivial possibility you're liable for breach of contract. Even though you yourself haven't made commercial use of it, you've knowingly permitted people to do so...
(It becomes more complex if you distribute it legally and then *I* steal it and redistribute it under a free license - the license is still invalid, but you're probably no longer liable)
On 19 Sep 2006, at 12:58, Andrew Gray wrote:
On 19/09/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
Would the original poster be liable in the UK for each copy made though? I don't have a clear answer on this yet. By releasing something under a free licence, am I saying: "you have the right to copy this" or am I saying "you have the right to copy this subject to applicable laws"?
My interpretation is that you're saying "I have the right to copy this, and I'm giving you these rights subject to the following conditions..."
If you don't have the right to make commercial copies (or whatever), you can't license the rights to do so. If you've attempted to license it under something like the GFDL without first possessing all the rights you're licensing, at the very least the license is invalid - and there's a nontrivial possibility you're liable for breach of contract. Even though you yourself haven't made commercial use of it, you've knowingly permitted people to do so...
(It becomes more complex if you distribute it legally and then *I* steal it and redistribute it under a free license - the license is still invalid, but you're probably no longer liable)
Given that Fair Use is a US construct, does this mean Wikipedia can never have access to England-generated content which is available under non-commercial terms, such as shots of a Royal Park?
It would be breaking English law to put it up under a free licence or under Fair Use, and external linking of media on Wikipedia is being phased out, so I couldn't link to an external website hosting it either.
Is there a way around this?
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Stephen Streater wrote:
Given that Fair Use is a US construct, does this mean Wikipedia can never have access to England-generated content which is available under non-commercial terms, such as shots of a Royal Park?
It would be breaking English law to put it up under a free licence or under Fair Use, and external linking of media on Wikipedia is being phased out, so I couldn't link to an external website hosting it either.
Is there a way around this?
Well, short of allowing noncommercial licences, no. Since Wikipedia requires that all media is released under a 'free content' licence (GFDL, CC-Att-SA, whatever), it by definition cannot include content which cannot be licenced in such a way. In other words, because of the legal restrictions the author does not have the legal power to grant a commercial use licence, and therefore Wikipedia can never acquire a valid commercial use licence.
Cynical
On 19 Sep 2006, at 18:24, David Alexander Russell wrote:
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Stephen Streater wrote:
Given that Fair Use is a US construct, does this mean Wikipedia can never have access to England-generated content which is available under non-commercial terms, such as shots of a Royal Park?
It would be breaking English law to put it up under a free licence or under Fair Use, and external linking of media on Wikipedia is being phased out, so I couldn't link to an external website hosting it either.
Is there a way around this?
Well, short of allowing noncommercial licences, no. Since Wikipedia requires that all media is released under a 'free content' licence (GFDL, CC-Att-SA, whatever), it by definition cannot include content which cannot be licenced in such a way. In other words, because of the legal restrictions the author does not have the legal power to grant a commercial use licence, and therefore Wikipedia can never acquire a valid commercial use licence.
Doesn't this contradict Wikipedia's goal of containing all human knowledge?
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Stephen Streater wrote:
Doesn't this contradict Wikipedia's goal of containing all human knowledge?
Wikipedia has never pretended to aim to contain all human knowledge regardless of copyright law - after all, there is an awful lot of 'knowledge' out there that Wikipedia could copy illegally (e.g. the entire contents of Encarta, for example). Wikipedia's aims can't overrule copyright law.
Cynical
On 19 Sep 2006, at 18:43, David Alexander Russell wrote:
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Stephen Streater wrote:
Doesn't this contradict Wikipedia's goal of containing all human knowledge?
Wikipedia has never pretended to aim to contain all human knowledge regardless of copyright law - after all, there is an awful lot of 'knowledge' out there that Wikipedia could copy illegally (e.g. the entire contents of Encarta, for example). Wikipedia's aims can't overrule copyright law.
True. But by insisting that Wikipedia be self-contained, there is knowledge that Wikipedia has chosen to exclude, even though links to it can be released freely.
Hi Stephen,
On 9/19/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote: ...
external linking of media on Wikipedia is being phased out, so I couldn't link to an external website hosting it either.
Why is it being phased out?
Cheers, Jason
On 19 Sep 2006, at 21:52, [[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
Hi Stephen,
On 9/19/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote: ...
external linking of media on Wikipedia is being phased out, so I couldn't link to an external website hosting it either.
Why is it being phased out?
The idea is that content should be included within Wikipedia. Apart from anything else, CD ROMs of WIkipedia would then be self-contained, but also content could not be altered or withdrawn by third parties.
On 19/09/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
On 19 Sep 2006, at 21:52, [[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
On 9/19/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
external linking of media on Wikipedia is being phased out, so I couldn't link to an external website hosting it either.
Why is it being phased out?
The idea is that content should be included within Wikipedia. Apart from anything else, CD ROMs of WIkipedia would then be self-contained, but also content could not be altered or withdrawn by third parties.
First I've heard of it. You mean, in the 'external links' section? That's ridiculous. Where can I find this?
[cc: wikipedia-l]
- d.
On 20 Sep 2006, at 10:12, David Gerard wrote:
On 19/09/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
On 19 Sep 2006, at 21:52, [[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
On 9/19/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
external linking of media on Wikipedia is being phased out, so I couldn't link to an external website hosting it either.
Why is it being phased out?
The idea is that content should be included within Wikipedia. Apart from anything else, CD ROMs of WIkipedia would then be self-contained, but also content could not be altered or withdrawn by third parties.
First I've heard of it. You mean, in the 'external links' section? That's ridiculous. Where can I find this?
Have a look at my RfA. It's full of other stuff too, but once you take out the usual RfA storms, this was one of the points people tended to agree on. Also look at the Gmaxwell talk page. There are several discussions there as he has removed external media links from several articles, and given explanations when asked.
In fact, Gregory Maxwell is probably the best person to explain this, and he is on the list.
Stephen Streater wrote:
On 18 Sep 2006, at 23:22, Delirium wrote:
While the person filming has to worry about the law regarding filming, anyone redistributing the films in the United States does not---it is not necessarily illegal to redistribute illegally filmed video. This came up a while ago on Commons with World Cup photographs: The stadiums prohibited photography, but given that photographs were taken and uploaded under the GFDL, Wikimedia is violating no law by continuing to host them. The original photographer likely violated the prohibition, but that's a separate matter, not enforceable through copyright, and so not really our problem.
Would the original poster be liable in the UK for each copy made though? I don't have a clear answer on this yet. By releasing something under a free licence, am I saying: "you have the right to copy this" or am I saying "you have the right to copy this subject to applicable laws"? The second seems to make sense, but then why delete copyvio images if the images are subject to the law anyway?
It probably depends specifically on what law was violated in taking the original picture. In the World Cup case, the photographer violated FIFA's "no photographs" policy, but while that may subject him to having his ticket revoked and possibly other FIFA sanctions if they feel like it, there's no legal mechanism for FIFA to revoke his copyright on the photograph---so he may still perfectly well license it under the GFDL.
-Mark
On 9/18/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 18/09/06, User:Unforgettableid unforgettableid@gmail.com wrote:
...
Recently, a lot of [[Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt]] has been spread regarding these issues: Popular Photography magazine discussed them recently. In reality, a building, a park, or such _cannot_ be trademarked.
To the best of my knowledge, the United States does not possess any "royal parks". Given Stephen appears to live in the UK, a country which does have royal parks, it seems reasonable to assume he shot the videos there. In which case, the question of what American laws apply to the filming seems a bit less relevant.
If you are going to complain about people spreading "fear, uncertainty and doubt" about legal issues, it may be useful to spend some time considering
a) that different jurisdictions have different laws; b) that moving to one jurisdiction does not magically invalidate any implicit or explicit contract you made in another; and c) that "trademarked" and "copyrighted" are Not The Same Thing At All.
Andrew, points taken.
Also, Stephen, I did not mean any personal attacks against you. I apologize.
On 9/18/06, User:Unforgettableid unforgettableid@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
There may be rights issues as well. It's not as simple as just uploading a video, unfortunately. Some content I have shot is only available for non-commercial use because it was shot in Royal Parks, so this cannot be released under a free licence so cannot be included in Wikipedia.
Why would that be? Can a tree, a river, or a building be copyrighted? You claim that there "may" be rights issues but you have not cited any American law which back up your claim.
I suspect that the issues here are not copyright nor trademark law but contract law. The contract a film-maker must sign in order to be allowed to film in a certain place may restrict the film-maker's ability to issue the work under a free license.
-Matt
G'day UnforgettableID,
On 9/18/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
There may be rights issues as well. It's not as simple as just uploading a video, unfortunately. Some content I have shot is only available for non-commercial use because it was shot in Royal Parks, so this cannot be released under a free licence so cannot be included in Wikipedia.
Why would that be? Can a tree, a river, or a building be copyrighted? You claim that there "may" be rights issues but you have not cited any American law which back up your claim.
American law can go to Hell.
Recently, a lot of [[Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt]] has been spread regarding these issues: Popular Photography magazine discussed them recently. In reality, a building, a park, or such _cannot_ be trademarked.
It's not a matter of copyright or trademark law[0]. If I wanted to restrict the things you could do with photographs you take of the interior of my house, I wouldn't claim copyright. Oh, no! I would simply make it a condition of entry to my house that, if you wish to enter and take photographs, you do not use the photographs in a commercial manner or release it under a licence that permits others to do so.
If you took a photograph of my bedroom (planning to reveal the dead sexy secrets within), and released it under the GFDL, I couldn't claim copyright on my rose-petal-strewn bed[1] ... but I could say you breached our contract.
[0] Rumour has it, in France, it's no longer possible to claim copyright over a photograph of the Eiffel Tower at night?
[1] Or, as I like to call it, "the groove-maker".
On 9/19/06, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
[0] Rumour has it, in France, it's no longer possible to claim copyright over a photograph of the Eiffel Tower at night?
That would depend if the lights were switched on.
Hi Jason, No problem, as long as the videos are not edited. What do I have to do?
I'd love to get a link from wiki (en) from the urban exploration page, would that be possible?
Best regards, Sylvain
-----Message d'origine----- De : . Unforgettableid [mailto:unforgettableid@gmail.com] Envoyé : lundi 18 septembre 2006 22:44 À : info@forbidden-places.be Cc : wikien-l@wikipedia.org Objet : Would you like one of your videos posted on Wikipedia?
To: info@forbidden-places.be
Hello,
My name is Jason and I am a volunteer editor for Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia anyone can edit. I saw your SAFEA chemical factory urban exploration video at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7772963855357017766 on Google Video and enjoyed it very much. (The train video sounds interesting too but it seems you want to keep it private.) We at Wikipedia are considering using your video to illustrate our articles - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_exploration (English) and - http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_urbaine (French).
Since Wikipedia's video system is new, the upload process is not as easy as Google Video's. However, we will help you through the process step-by-step, and you will get free promotion for your website and for the hobby of urban exploration. As well, you will be helping Wikipedia by helping us to find out how to optimize our video upload process and make it easier for non-Wikipedians to upload videos.
We are wondering: Are you interested?
Please use the "Reply to All" button if you reply.
Regards, Jason http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Unforgettableid
On 9/18/06, Forbidden Places postmaster@forbidden-places.be wrote:
Hi Jason, No problem, as long as the videos are not edited.
We will not edit the video. Other people will be able to edit the video in the future once it is posted on Wikipedia, but we at Wikipedia have no plans to. It would be nice if you remove the ad for your website in the corner of your video though... :-)
What do I have to do?
1. We need to know who made the video and the music.
(We need to know who owns the copyright on the video and the music to ensure there will be no issues. We would ask for the full names (or Internet nicknames) and email addresses of these people.)
2. You would need to agree to license the videos under an open-content license. My recommended way to do this is to state in an email that you "dual-license the videos under the current GNU Free Documentation License and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 2.5 and any later version". All copyright holders, including for the video and the music, would need to agree to this. This basically means that anyone will be able to copy the video from Wikipedia, remix it or do other things with it, and post it on other sites, as long as they mention who created the video. Licensing is a necessary step for Wikipedia. If you don't understand these terms, or want different terms, please do "Reply to All" again and tell us. The people on the wikien-l@wikipedia.org mailing list can then help you with licensing.
3. Ogg Theora re-encoding.
We would need to encode your video in Ogg Theora format, the video codec we use at Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Media#Video ). We may be able to re-encode the high-resolution video you have at http://www.forbidden-places.be/videos.php for you, but to get the best quality, you would want to do the Ogg encoding yourself from the original film in your video-editing program. Our maximum video file size is 20 MB.
I'd love to get a link from wiki (en) from the urban exploration page, would that be possible?
Sorry, Wikipedia is not a web directory. :-( We link to infiltration.org but we are unable to link to all the smaller urbex sites.
What do you think of the above 3 steps?
Cheers, Jason
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[[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
On 9/18/06, Forbidden Places postmaster@forbidden-places.be wrote:
Hi Jason, No problem, as long as the videos are not edited.
We will not edit the video. Other people will be able to edit the video in the future once it is posted on Wikipedia, but we at Wikipedia have no plans to. It would be nice if you remove the ad for your website in the corner of your video though... :-)
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.
- -- Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
~ Ubi olim vita, nunc vita ~
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Ben McIlwain stated for the record:
[[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
On 9/18/06, Forbidden Places postmaster@forbidden-places.be wrote:
Hi Jason, No problem, as long as the videos are not edited.
We will not edit the video. Other people will be able to edit the video in the future once it is posted on Wikipedia, but we at Wikipedia have no plans to. It would be nice if you remove the ad for your website in the corner of your video though... :-)
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.
-- Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
~ Ubi olim vita, nunc vita ~
Emphatic agreement with Ben. The video ''will'' be edited -- I personally guarantee it. Please ensure that Forbidden Places postmaster@forbidden-places.be knows that I have said so, and that you have no authority to revoke parts of the GFDL.
- -- Sean Barrett | I'm tired of getting the fuzzy sean@epoptic.com | end of the lollipop. --Sugar Kane
On 19 Sep 2006, at 05:51, Sean Barrett wrote:
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Ben McIlwain stated for the record:
[[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
On 9/18/06, Forbidden Places postmaster@forbidden-places.be wrote:
Hi Jason, No problem, as long as the videos are not edited.
We will not edit the video. Other people will be able to edit the video in the future once it is posted on Wikipedia, but we at Wikipedia have no plans to. It would be nice if you remove the ad for your website in the corner of your video though... :-)
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.
-- Ben McIlwain ("Cyde Weys")
~ Ubi olim vita, nunc vita ~
Emphatic agreement with Ben. The video ''will'' be edited -- I personally guarantee it. Please ensure that Forbidden Places postmaster@forbidden-places.be knows that I have said so, and that you have no authority to revoke parts of the GFDL.
Also, remember that in Belgium, the architect can have some rights over a photograph containing his work. This may apply here - I'm not an expert on Belgian law.
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Sean Barrett wrote:
Emphatic agreement with Ben. The video ''will'' be edited -- I personally guarantee it. Please ensure that Forbidden Places postmaster@forbidden-places.be knows that I have said so, and that you have no authority to revoke parts of the GFDL.
Well we've explicitly stated that the video will be GFDL or CC-Att-SA licenced, both of these allow modification. If he doesn't bother to read a legal document before agreeing to it then that's his problem - if he has then he should be more than adequately aware of the fact that modification is allowed.
Cynical
On 9/19/06, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com wrote:
Ben McIlwain stated for the record:
[[User:Unforgettableid]] wrote:
On 9/18/06, Forbidden Places postmaster@forbidden-places.be wrote:
Hi Jason, No problem, as long as the videos are not edited.
We will not edit the video. Other people will be able to edit the video in the future once it is posted on Wikipedia, but we at Wikipedia have no plans to. It would be nice if you remove the ad for your website in the corner of your video though... :-)
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.
Emphatic agreement with Ben. The video ''will'' be edited -- I personally guarantee it. Please ensure that Forbidden Places postmaster@forbidden-places.be knows that I have said so, and that you have no authority to revoke parts of the GFDL.
Hi Sylvain,
I was incorrect about editing. The video will be edited.
I believe that if the video is edited, the person doing the editing must label it as a "derivative work" of your video and provide full credit when they publish the edited work. I do not know the full set of rules for the licenses; those are available at www.creativecommons.org for the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License and www.gnu.org for the GNU Free Documentation License.
Is this a problem?
Cheers, Jason
Hi again, Yeah I know Creative Commons pretty well, my brother is in the music field.
It is not possible for the moment, but I would agree on the principle.
Why not? Well the videos use commercial music currently. I am in the process of re-doing them with a friend of mine doing electronic music. Anyway, I find these videos crappy now, needed to re-edit them again.
Do you have an urgent needs for these videos? Cheers! S.
Hi,
On 9/19/06, Forbidden-Places postmaster@forbidden-places.be wrote:
Hi again, Yeah I know Creative Commons pretty well, my brother is in the music field.
It is not possible for the moment, but I would agree on the principle.
Why not? Well the videos use commercial music currently. I am in the process of re-doing them with a friend of mine doing electronic music. Anyway, I find these videos crappy now, needed to re-edit them again.
Great! (I like the old music: I personally think it's worth it for us to request GFDL and/or CC-licensing for it, but if you plan to redo the music, that's fine too. Just have him post a note on his webpage or to permissions@wikipedia.org saying that the music in the video is dual-licensed under the current GNU Free Documentation License and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Deed or any later version.)
Do you have an urgent needs for these videos?
No, the process of adding videos to Wikipedia is a gradual one. :-) I wish we had more but it's very hard to find free-licensed videos.
When the video is done editing, though, we would appreciate it if you export to Ogg Theora format (maximum filesize 20 MB) for us to upload to Wikipedia. Let us know, we will help you.
Best regards, Jason
. Unforgettableid wrote:
To: info@forbidden-places.be
<snip>
Please do NOT post such things here in the future. The correct place is the permissions # wikimedia ! org (you can figure it out) OTRS queue, where such things can be discussed IN PRIVATE and CLUEFULLY.
On 9/19/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
. Unforgettableid wrote:
To: info@forbidden-places.be
<snip>
Please do NOT post such things here in the future. The correct place is the permissions # wikimedia ! org (you can figure it out) OTRS queue, where such things can be discussed IN PRIVATE and CLUEFULLY.
Thank you for the tip. I am starting to regret CC'ing the main wikien list. I wanted to get permissions from the video's author, not to start a legal debate. :-)
Oh well, I guess there's nothing I can do to close the thread now that it's on wikien-l now...