On Sun, Apr 6, 2008 at 8:57 PM, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
On 07/04/2008, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
I talked with a young journalist at one of our events in New York this Friday, and this was very much a reason she appreciated Wikimedia, because the wonder of free content helps her everyday in her job.
Imagine the potential attitude of a journalist like that, used to interacting with free content on a regular basis, when she has a mature journalism career, and maybe a position of editorial authority in a few years.
Now imagine us telling her free content is over for her, that Wikimedia is no longer interested in helping journalists unless they fulfill our strict ideological requirements.
Then her experience with free content comes to a sudden stop, and the whole concept seems like a brief fad that is no longer relevant to her carreer. Do you think she will have the same positive attitude toward Wikimedia and free content when she becomes an editor then?
CC-BY is not going anywhere. Lots of people release content under this license and will continue to do so. Not to mention public domain releases.
In fact, for contributors who *don't* want a "strong interpretation" of sharealike to apply to their work, if CC-BY-SA is clarified to have this intent, they may switch to make their work available under CC-BY.
I dislike CC-BY for the same reason that others dislike CC-BY. If I take a photograph, I want my photograph (and its modifications) to remain free.
What seems wrong to me is the idea that we require a "purity test" for re-users, so that I can demand the book that my photograph is published in is also free. Now, I think it's a morally right thing for books to be free. But maybe I have other moral opinions too.
Maybe I think all books should be free, and refuse my photographs to any publisher that has -any- non-free books in its catalog.
Or maybe I think printing presses should all have good working conditions for employees, and would refuse my photographs to publishers that go against these principles.
These are all ideals that many of us support, but how are they related to my copyright on my photograph?
And how does tying in purity tests encourage re-use in the real world?
The perfect, we must recognize, can very much be the enemy of the good.
Thanks, Pharos