Erik, thanks for posting the essay here. Glad to see the interest in this topic.
I wrote this because I have found that when somebody asks me about the NC provision, I often want to point them to a simple webpage (rather than "reinventing the wheel" every time it comes up). There are some pages out there (I listed some in the "See also" section), but I have yet to find somewhere this particular point -- the need of a general license to issue clear guidance -- articulated anywhere in a concise, accessible way.
I'm surprised (and a little disappointed) to see that the possibility of Wikimedia generally accepting NC-licensed work is being discussed. But apart from that discussion, I think many of you in this discussion have, at one time or another, wanted to help guide someone toward using a more permissive license, rather than a NC license.
For those who have, do you have favorite webpages you find helpful to share? Does this one seem like a useful addition? I'd appreciate any feedback or constructive edits to this essay; I also think it would be useful to have some of the other arguments, currently collected in longer documents, expressed in more "bite-sized" pieces like this, which could be linked together. Do others agree, and if so, are you inclined to help draft some complementary pages?
-Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 3:23 PM effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
The question is however as well: how many open licensed content creators would switch to NC if they were aware that this would be 'good enough' for Wikipedia - even if that means in reality only English Wikipedia (but who cares about other languages) and without actually allowing to build on top of it?
I have found the argument 'don't use NC because then it can't be used on Wikipedia' rather convincing in the past. It will not always work, and I also wish it would convince /more/ organizations. But then, I would also wish that enwiki wouldn't use fair use exceptions - so maybe I'm not the benchmark you'd be looking at anyway.
Lodewijk
On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 5:32 PM James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
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@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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