On 5/1/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
the English Wikipedia allows anything legally allowed in regards to US fair use. Such material is much less free than the any non-derivatives existing on enWS.
Just a nit: you're incorrect about English Wikipedia.
On English wikipedia what we allow is more complex. There are two broad classes: 1) Things we 'allow' because no one who cares has noticed yet. (Including things which are outright illegal for us to distribute) 2) Things we intend to allow.
Class (1) is most likely larger than class (2) right now, but it's not interesting to discuss so I won't mention it any more. It is important to mention because if you don't know it you'll think that you can determine what is permitted by looking at what is there.... You can't.
In the case the things we permit, Obviously GFDLed (and other similarly licensed) content is permitted. The way I explain it, Wikipedia is intended to be the "Free (content) encyclopedia". Here we mean free content in much the same sense that Erik describes, including unlimited redistribution for any purpose and derivative works. You can break the goal of the project this into two primary parts: "Produce an encyclopedia" "which is free content."
It is the widespread belief on the English Wikipedia that in order to really fulfil our goal of producing a free encyclopedia which is useful and competitive in all subject areas we '''must''' be able to excerpt from copyrighted works. Examples would include things like using part of a famous painting to illustrate text describing how he draws flowers. We can do this because the the US has fairuse which is specifically intended for this application, and many other English speaking countries have fair dealings type precedents which affirm that a copyright holder's monopoly on distribution does not extend far enough to stop academic discourse.
We recognize that the inclusion of this content is a violation of the other half the goal of the project. As a result it is only permitted to include fair use in English wikipedia where doing so compromises our ability to be a quality encyclopedia.
Thus, being legal in the US is a necessary but not sufficient criteria for inclusion of non-freely licensed works in English wikipedia.