I always supported a more effective centralized policy for NC. I don't think that
will discourage organizations from adopting more free license per se, the same way that
adopting certain NC material on local Wikis did not so far. it's not an absolute
consequence, it's how you do it.
At least, we should start centralizing that non-free material locally uploaded since
it's already there. I would like logos of Universities and coat of arms of public
administration and doubtful old images that according to some platforms are free but for
Commons are not (gray areas), to be on a NC part of Commons, or a dedicated platform (i
always link
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/NonFreeWiki and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/NonFreeWiki_(2). it's just more rational.
If we did so, we could start from there and see where it goes. We will have a list of
established exceptions (that we accept already, just locally), we can add few more ones.
it's not a definitive solution, it's a process that we should face together.
I think specifically we should accept NC if it's better than what it is currently
available from the uploader. For example if an artist give us a reproduction of its
artwork in NC for Wikipedia, is it still better than nothing? Are we really sure he would
have done something in any case if we did not provide such options? We probbaly all
suspect it's the max we can can get to the world in that scenario. This approach for
example will not apply to the case of WHO, in their case is not a clear improvement, so no
upload.
If you put a limited group of users in charge of that process, or some funnel step in the
procedure, it will never be massive, but it might be targeted and useful, IMHO.
Alex
Il domenica 12 luglio 2020, 02:33:04 CEST, James Heilman <jmh649(a)gmail.com> ha
scritto:
Yes one of the stronger reasons to reject all use of the NC license is that
it increases incentives for other organizations to actually adopt open
licenses. I simply wish that such a position would convince more
organizations. WHO has repeatedly told me that we, as a non-profit, are
already free to use their work and if we chose not to, that is on us.
James
On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 6:19 PM Erik Moeller <eloquence(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi James :)
(This is my last reply for today, given the recommended posting limit
on this list.)
We all agree that NC licenses are exceedingly
poor due to the reasons
listed, yet we leave a lot of useful content (such as Khan academy
videos)
less accessible to our readers because we
disallow any such use.
I completely agree. I'm wondering if efforts have been made at the WMF
or chapter level to partner with these organizations on new
initiatives, where a more permissive license could be used? This could
perhaps help to introduce CC-BY-SA/CC-BY to orgs like Khan Academy,
and help lay the groundwork for potentially changing their default
license.
This is a balance between pragmatism and
idealism.
I disagree with your framing here. There are many pragmatic reasons to
want to build a knowledge commons with uniform expectations for how it
can be built upon and re-used. It's also pragmatic to be careful about
altering the incentive structure for contributors. Right now,
Wikimedia Commons hosts millions of contributions under permissive
licenses. How many of those folks would have chosen an "exceedingly
poor" (your words) option like NC, if that was available? And if a
nonfree carve-out is limited to organizations like Khan Academy, how
is such a carve-out fair and equitable to contributors who have, in
some cases, given up potential commercial revenue to contribute to
Wikimedia projects?
If a license is "exceedingly poor" and harmful to the goals of the
free culture movement, incorporating more information under such terms
strikes me as neither idealistic nor pragmatic -- it would just be
short-sighted.
Warmly,
Erik
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