"After the consultation with Wikimedia lawyers I can inform you that it is acceptable to import content to our Wiki under the licence disallowing its commercial re-use," wrote the admin of one of the Wikimedia projects and entered into a co-operation with a certain external service (with the aim of importing their content to the Wiki under such non-commmercial re-use only licence; although the service agreed to relicence their content as PD, the admin suggested CC BY-NC).
My personal opinion is that this goes against the policy of Wikimedia and violates the principles crucial to a lot of people who contribute to the Wikis. I don't mention names here as I believe it is a misunderstanding and that the person in question acts in good faith.
However, I'd like to hear the Board's official opinion: are there circumstances under which the above licence is acceptable for Wikimedia Wikis (texts)? Is it even debatable?
Thank you, [[m:user:tsca]]
"After the consultation with Wikimedia lawyers I can inform you that it is acceptable to import content to our Wiki under the licence disallowing its commercial re-use,"
It might be legally acceptable, but I don't personally feel it is acceptable from a policy point of view. The aim of Wikimedia is to create and distribute free content. CC-BY-NC is not a free licence since it can not be re-used commercially, unlike the rest of the content in our projects.
If e-Polityka.pl have agreed to relicence their content as PD, then I see no reason that we would not simply use it as PD content rather than putting NC restrictions on it.
Angela
If e-Polityka.pl have agreed to relicence their content as PD, then I see no reason that we would not simply use it as PD content rather than putting NC restrictions on it.
That would be a very simple solution.
I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as I can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it with restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would be. If someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love to hear them.
Andre Engels
On 5/5/05, Tomasz Sienicki tsca@edb.dk wrote:
"After the consultation with Wikimedia lawyers I can inform you that it is acceptable to import content to our Wiki under the licence disallowing its commercial re-use," wrote the admin of one of the Wikimedia projects and entered into a co-operation with a certain external service (with the aim of importing their content to the Wiki under such non-commmercial re-use only licence; although the service agreed to relicence their content as PD, the admin suggested CC BY-NC).
My personal opinion is that this goes against the policy of Wikimedia and violates the principles crucial to a lot of people who contribute to the Wikis. I don't mention names here as I believe it is a misunderstanding and that the person in question acts in good faith.
However, I'd like to hear the Board's official opinion: are there circumstances under which the above licence is acceptable for Wikimedia Wikis (texts)? Is it even debatable?
Thank you, [[m:user:tsca]] _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Thu, 05 May 2005 15:53:09 +0200, Andre Engels wrote:
I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as I can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it with restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would be. If someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love to hear them.
This concerns Wikinews, currently under PD.
On 5/5/05, Tomasz Sienicki tsca@edb.dk wrote:
On Thu, 05 May 2005 15:53:09 +0200, Andre Engels wrote:
I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as I can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it with restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would be. If someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love to hear them.
This concerns Wikinews, currently under PD.
In that case it's a matter of what is stated on the page about licensing information. If everything is automatically considered PD, it's not possible; if it does not give licensing information, it is. Still, as Angela says, if we can get it under PD (or CC-BY, CC-SA, CC-BY-SA, GNU/FDL, GPL or another license not significantly stricter than GNU/FDL), there is no reason to restrict it further.
Andre Engels
On Thu, 05 May 2005 16:04:31 +0200, Andre Engels wrote:
as Angela says, if we can get it under PD (or CC-BY, CC-SA, CC-BY-SA, GNU/FDL, GPL or another license not significantly stricter than GNU/FDL), there is no reason to restrict it further.
No question about it, this case is simple: of course there's no reason for adopting a non-commercial licence for the content that we can get under PD.
And about some next time, when we can't: it was my understanding that Wikimedia would not consider non-commercial licences as a rule, not on a case-by-case basis. I feel Angela's mail has confirmed this.
[[m:user:tsca]]
As things are now, Wikinews says "All content of the Wikinews Beta is in the public domain", so non-PD material cannot be included.
Andre Engels
On 5/5/05, Tomasz Sienicki tsca@edb.dk wrote:
On Thu, 05 May 2005 15:53:09 +0200, Andre Engels wrote:
I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as I can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it with restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would be. If someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love to hear them.
This concerns Wikinews, currently under PD.
On 5/5/05, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as I can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it with restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would be. If someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love to hear them.
Andre Engels
On 5/5/05, Tomasz Sienicki tsca@edb.dk wrote:
"After the consultation with Wikimedia lawyers I can inform you that it is acceptable to import content to our Wiki under the licence disallowing its commercial re-use," wrote the admin of one of the Wikimedia projects and entered into a co-operation with a certain external service (with the aim of importing their content to the Wiki under such non-commmercial re-use only licence; although the service agreed to relicence their content as PD, the admin suggested CC BY-NC).
My personal opinion is that this goes against the policy of Wikimedia and violates the principles crucial to a lot of people who contribute to the Wikis. I don't mention names here as I believe it is a misunderstanding and that the person in question acts in good faith.
However, I'd like to hear the Board's official opinion: are there circumstances under which the above licence is acceptable for Wikimedia Wikis (texts)? Is it even debatable?
Thank you, [[m:user:tsca]]
It seems to me that this would immediately be a problem for any Wikimedia content mirror that includes ads. Couldn't that be construed as a commercial use? Perhaps Wikimedia would not be legally responsible, since Wikimedia would not be using it for a commercial purpose, but do we really want to put all the mirrors into such a position?
Is Wikimedia syndicating content for a fee? Is that a "commercial purpose"?
All of which says nothing of the more basic problem that m:user:tsca raises -- GFDL compliance. What happens when someone posts content to one of the Wikimedia sites and simultaneously claims a more restrictive license? Does the standard language "by posting you agree that the content is released under GFDL..." take precedent over the user's statement that "this content is released under CC BY-NC..."?
I notice that on en:Wikipedia there are templates for such things as {MultiLicenseWithCC-ByNCSA}} and {{MultiLicenseWithCC-ByNCND}} that attempt to do just that.
Of course, IANAL...in case anyone had any doubts ;-)
-- Rich Holton
[[W:en:User:Rholton]]
It seems to me that this would immediately be a problem for any Wikimedia content mirror that includes ads. Couldn't that be construed as a commercial use?
Yes
Perhaps Wikimedia would not be legally responsible, since Wikimedia would not be using it for a commercial purpose, but do we really want to put all the mirrors into such a position?
Can't they select the content they use ?
All of which says nothing of the more basic problem that m:user:tsca raises -- GFDL compliance. What happens when someone posts content to one of the Wikimedia sites and simultaneously claims a more restrictive license? Does the standard language "by posting you agree that the content is released under GFDL..." take precedent over the user's statement that "this content is released under CC BY-NC..."?
I am not sure I exactly understand your case, but that would be dual-licensing. The user would be able to choose the license he prefers for this content.
Andre Engels wrote:
I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as I can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it with restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would be. If someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love to hear them.
Andre Engels
On 5/5/05, Tomasz Sienicki tsca@edb.dk wrote:
"After the consultation with Wikimedia lawyers I can inform you that it is acceptable to import content to our Wiki under the licence disallowing its commercial re-use," wrote the admin of one of the Wikimedia projects and entered into a co-operation with a certain external service (with the aim of importing their content to the Wiki under such non-commmercial re-use only licence; although the service agreed to relicence their content as PD, the admin suggested CC BY-NC).
My personal opinion is that this goes against the policy of Wikimedia and violates the principles crucial to a lot of people who contribute to the Wikis. I don't mention names here as I believe it is a misunderstanding and that the person in question acts in good faith.
However, I'd like to hear the Board's official opinion: are there circumstances under which the above licence is acceptable for Wikimedia Wikis (texts)? Is it even debatable?
Thank you, [[m:user:tsca]]
I don't understand this non-commercial license restriction either. There is nothing in the GFDL that prohibits commercial redisitribution of content. The only thing that it does restrict is exclusive redistribution agreements by anybody (like the Wikimedia Foundation) to still yet other parties. If you want to take the Wikipedia content and publish it onto some CD-ROMs and sell them for $20 a piece, you are free to do that. You are also welcome to make your own website with the content and put ads or whatever you want... as long as you comply with the terms of the GFDL (with all of its inviolate portions and whatnot). You can even publish a set of hardcover books with wikipedia content. You just have to allow people who get the content from you do be able to do the same thing with no further restrictions.
Not all "free" licenses are this way, I admit, and there is a certain group within the free content community that simply doesn't want commercial licensing. The GFDL does not provide for that sort of protection, and I would like to know what "Wikimedia lawyers" were giving this sort of incredibly wrong advise. In addition, I don't know what sort of scam any admin would be getting involved with that would give him/her any more authority than is given to anybody else. And it is indeed a scam for an admin to claim that they could even enter into any sort of contract over content for anything other than what they personally have contributed to any Wikimedia projects.
That is the crucial detail you have to remember. If you are the originator of content, you can "relicense" what you have done to any other licensing agreement... even EULA's like from Microsoft or Prentiss-Hall. But that is limited to only what you have personally contributed, and if it is already in the Wikipedia (for example) the rest of us still can do whatever is legal according to the GFDL.
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