Newyorkbrad writes:
I'm also curious how the problem can run in both directions. I can understand that one license would be more restrictive than the other, such that material from project A couldn't be freely used in project B. But the nuances of the license requirements must be subtle indeed if the incompatability runs both ways. Not being a license terms aficionado, I'd appreciate a layman's explanation of the issues.
Keep in mind that this is unexplored territory even for me, but I can give you my impressions of the problems I see with the three licensing options Knol offers.
1) With regard to CC-BY:
It's not a question of one license's being more restrictive than the other, exactly. It's that the Share Alike (SA) requirement, which makes the content truly copyleft, can't be added or subtracted in any straightforward way that I can see. (Note that for purposes of simplicity I am lumping together GFDL -- Wikipedia's current licensing standard -- and CC-BY-SA. Their requirements are substantively mostly the same although formally different.)
How could you add SA, for example, without being the original licensor, for importing to Wikipedia? How could you subtract it without being the original licensor(s), for importing to Knol?
2) With regard to CC-NC:
That content flatly can't be added to Wikipedia, which expressly allows commercial reuse and derivative use. And, with regard to importing to Knol, how could you add the NC requirement without being the original licensor? Indeed, how could you add it at all if you've already granted, in effect, a commercial license by contributing the content to Wikipedia?
3) With regard to "All Rights Reserved," I think the problem of importing and exporting to and from Knol from Wikipedia is obvious.
Can/should the issues be addressed by discussion with Knol before the problem grows more serious over time?
Well, the question here is whether Knol's backers are intending the results of their licensing options. I see no reason to think they don't intend those results.
Perhaps I'm wrong about this. If so, I think it might be worthwhile for someone to raise publicly the question of whether Knol's licensing options are intentionally incompatible with Wikipedia's. I don't think it's optimal for the Foundation itself to do this -- it would sound like we're trying to impose our own paradigm on Google, which is not our aim.
--Mike
2008/7/31 Mike Godwin mgodwin@wikimedia.org:
How could you add SA, for example, without being the original licensor, for importing to Wikipedia? How could you subtract it without being the original licensor(s), for importing to Knol?
As long as you put the author's credits, respecting in this way the request of attribution, you can change the license for your derivative works and this includes also adding a SA clause. At least this is what I have ever believed.
Massimiliano
On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 3:39 PM, Mike Godwin mgodwin@wikimedia.org wrote:
- With regard to CC-NC:
That content flatly can't be added to Wikipedia, which expressly allows commercial reuse and derivative use. And, with regard to importing to Knol, how could you add the NC requirement without being the original licensor? Indeed, how could you add it at all if you've already granted, in effect, a commercial license by contributing the content to Wikipedia?
Of course assuming that the content on Wikipedia and Knol is exactly the same or with uncopyrightable changes. When you create a true derivative work you are as far as I am aware to license that work as BY-NC if the original work is CC-BY.
Bryan
On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 9:39 AM, Mike Godwin mgodwin@wikimedia.org wrote:
- With regard to CC-BY:
It's not a question of one license's being more restrictive than the other, exactly. It's that the Share Alike (SA) requirement, which makes the content truly copyleft, can't be added or subtracted in any straightforward way that I can see. (Note that for purposes of simplicity I am lumping together GFDL -- Wikipedia's current licensing standard -- and CC-BY-SA. Their requirements are substantively mostly the same although formally different.)
How could you add SA, for example, without being the original licensor, for importing to Wikipedia?
On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 9:39 AM, Mike Godwin mgodwin@wikimedia.org wrote:
- With regard to CC-BY:
It's not a question of one license's being more restrictive than the other, exactly. It's that the Share Alike (SA) requirement, which makes the content truly copyleft, can't be added or subtracted in any straightforward way that I can see. (Note that for purposes of simplicity I am lumping together GFDL -- Wikipedia's current licensing standard -- and CC-BY-SA. Their requirements are substantively mostly the same although formally different.)
How could you add SA, for example, without being the original licensor, for importing to Wikipedia?
The SA license would apply to the derivative work. The non-SA license would apply to the original work. You aren't "adding SA", you're creating a new work, and licensing that new work under SA.
I really don't understand the question. If it can't be legally done, what law are you breaking? Whose copyright is being violated?
How could you add SA, for example, without being the original licensor, for importing to Wikipedia?
The SA license would apply to the derivative work. The non-SA license would apply to the original work. You aren't "adding SA", you're creating a new work, and licensing that new work under SA.
That's my understanding as well. There's nothing stopping a bit of content being available under multiple licenses. In this case it's available under CC-BY as a stand-alone work and GFDL as part of a large work. I don't see any problem with that. There's nothing stopping people using the original work under the original license just because you've used it under a more restrictive one.
Mike Godwin wrote:
Newyorkbrad writes:
I'm also curious how the problem can run in both directions. I can understand that one license would be more restrictive than the other, such that material from project A couldn't be freely used in project B. But the nuances of the license requirements must be subtle indeed if the incompatability runs both ways. Not being a license terms aficionado, I'd appreciate a layman's explanation of the issues.
Keep in mind that this is unexplored territory even for me, but I can give you my impressions of the problems I see with the three licensing options Knol offers.
- With regard to CC-BY:
It's not a question of one license's being more restrictive than the other, exactly. It's that the Share Alike (SA) requirement, which makes the content truly copyleft, can't be added or subtracted in any straightforward way that I can see. (Note that for purposes of simplicity I am lumping together GFDL -- Wikipedia's current licensing standard -- and CC-BY-SA. Their requirements are substantively mostly the same although formally different.)
How could you add SA, for example, without being the original licensor, for importing to Wikipedia? How could you subtract it without being the original licensor(s), for importing to Knol?
Perhaps I am being just too dense, but my answer would be _not_ "without being the original licensor(s)". That is, by *being* the original licensor, or by obtaining their explicit permission.
I am not clear that CC-BY constitutes an explicit permission to use in Wikipedias current fashion, since I am not either a copyleft specialist, but I could imagine some would so argue.
We have, as far as I know, no problem accepting contributions from people who live in countries which acknowledge "moral rights", such as my own (Finland), and which are thus fundamentally *more* restrictive than CC-BY as a baseline in a form that makes is so that PD does not really exist in those countires at all.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
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