I'll be replying to many people at once...
Claudio Mastroianni wrote on Thu Feb 8 10:38:25 UTC 2007:
We found it (images with permission), WMF told this is not valid. We have no alternatives. Saying the "the italian is free to develop an exemption policy", then, is false.
I'm sorry, but with permission is by no means an alternative. Under the "fair dealing" (or in the US "fair use") laws of most countries we can use works even with the explicit disapproval of the copyright holder, we can use works with whom we can not contact the copyright holder, and most importantly *this ability is not limited only to us*.
Because out full goals go beyond running a website for the world to look at, we must find solutions better than "with permission".
Claudio Mastroianni wrote on Thu Feb 8 11:27:21 UTC 2007:
Il giorno 08/feb/07, alle ore 12:08, Gunnar René Øie ha scritto:
Because if the fair use claim is valid and strong enough, then commercial re-users can use those fair-use images.
Not in Italy, and in other coutries too I think. Gatto Nero
***Your claim that Italian copyright law does not permit fair dealing is incorrect: ***
Under Italian law you are permitted 'abridgment, quotation or reproduction of fragments or parts of a work for the purpose of criticism or discussion, or for instructional purposes.' (see Italian Copyright Act Article 70; Nimmer and Geller (1998-), Italy, §8[2][a])
Note that parody is not permitted. But since Wikipedia should not be performing parody, this difference is likely not material.
You will be hard pressed to find a country which does not permit excerpting for scholarly purposes, if not by the written law then by the actions of the courts. Such an exception from copyright is utterly necessary for a free society. While a few such places might exist, it is not in Wikimedia's or that world at large's interest to allow the policies of nations which do not respect the basic intellectual freedom of their citizens to have too much influence on our policy.
Jon Harald Søby wrote on Thu Feb 8 12:00:15 UTC 2007:
Wrong. If the fair use claim is valid and strong enough, then commercial re-users can use those fair-use images IN THE USA.
It takes some really selective reading to draw this conclusion from the orignal post: Whenever it mentions "fair use" it also specifies [[fair dealing]] which is the name of the same general concept in the law of many other countries.
We can't expect, nor should we want, the board to micromanage every detail of every action of ours. If we read the rationale of the board post it seems clear to me that in order to meet our mission our usage should conform to the "fair deailing"/"fair use" available in most of the world.
More than half of the Wikimedia board is from outside the United States. You are picking the wrong organization to blame of US centricism.
Andre Engels wrote on Thu Feb 8 12:21:46 UTC 2007:
Sorry, I don't think I made my point clear. What I meant was: "If there is a Wikipedia page with a fair use image, and the presence of that fair use image is (because of a strong enough fair use rationale) no impedence to further copying of the Wikipedia page, then having an ND image instead of the fair use one would definitely not be an impedence. Yet including the image as fair use is allowed, but including the ND image is not.
When we permit an image as "fair dealing" or "fair use" we do not care what other licenses it is available under. As such, ND images are permitted when they would be permitted as "fair dealing" / "fair use" images no matter what their license. This is made clear in the boards statement "Some works that are under licenses we do not accept (such as non-derivative) may meet these conditions."
This sort of thinking about the handling of non-free licenses is not new, Jimbo posted about it years ago.
The underlying rationale goes something like this: When we talk about a machine, we can show a picture of it to help people understand, when we talk about a place we can show a picture of it to help people understand... some times we will talk about a copyrighted work, and we should be able to show a picture of it to help people understand what we are saying. Copyright would prevent us, but the lawmakers or courts of most countries have realized that stifling public discourse in this way would be a terribly blow to freedom and the ability to educate the public. So the law permits it in many places... and we tolerate it because we have no other choice if we are to do a really good job of educating people.
There mere existence of a ND license for a work is substantial evidence that we may have another choice... It is evidence that we can probably reach the copyright the copyright holder, and it is evidence that they are willing to consider terms that differ from "all rights reserved".
If they are releasing under and ND license, it may even be because we already talked to them and failed to help them understand that a basic strong copyleft licenses will take care of most of the things that they really care about, such as preventing the fraud of someone making new versions and blaming them on the original author.. Whenever we see ND (and NC alike) we are seeing evidence of our own failure to advocate truly free licenses.
David Strauss wrote on Thu Feb 8 12:42:52 UTC 2007:
Yes, but I would want to see the ND license *and* the old fair-use rationale side-by-side for the image.
I would rather we not mention the ND license for an image that we use as fair use. By doing so we would be sending the wrong message: That ND licenses are somehow acceptable to us, even if only conditionally... that they aren't usually a result of a misunderstanding, and that we don't think the creative commons has made a mistake by mixing Free Content licenses under the same brand as far more restrictive licenses. We face a constant issue where people ask us "Why did you delete this? I released it under creative commons licensing so it is free!". People submit what they see, and if they see ND they will submit more of that.
Although, I don't think it's the end of the world that we do mention it.. it is a matter of fact, and because most of our permissible non-free images will come from the all-rights-reserved camp, I seriously hope we'll never see many NC / ND + "fair use" images. If we do, then we will know what a grave mistake for the world that the Creative Commons folks made by introducing so many licenses which are not free enough.
Il giorno 08/feb/07, alle ore 16:06, Gregory Maxwell ha scritto:
Under Italian law you are permitted 'abridgment, quotation or reproduction of fragments or parts of a work for the purpose of criticism or discussion, or for instructional purposes.' (see Italian Copyright Act Article 70; Nimmer and Geller (1998-), Italy, §8[2][a])
Oh nice: I'll upload a lot of "fragment" of IMAGES. Now I know I can.
Gatto Nero
On 08/02/07, Claudio Mastroianni gattonero@gmail.com wrote:
Il giorno 08/feb/07, alle ore 16:06, Gregory Maxwell ha scritto:
Under Italian law you are permitted 'abridgment, quotation or reproduction of fragments or parts of a work for the purpose of criticism or discussion, or for instructional purposes.' (see Italian Copyright Act Article 70; Nimmer and Geller (1998-), Italy, §8[2][a])
Oh nice: I'll upload a lot of "fragment" of IMAGES. Now I know I can.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Do_not_disrupt_Wikipedia_to_illustrat...
I'd be amazed if there isn't a similar page on it:wp.
- d.
Il giorno 08/feb/07, alle ore 16:20, David Gerard ha scritto:
Oh nice: I'll upload a lot of "fragment" of IMAGES. Now I know I can.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Wikipedia:Do_not_disrupt_Wikipedia_to_illustrate_a_point
I'd be amazed if there isn't a similar page on it:wp.
There is. But here in Italy we have a nice attitude toward IRONIA. The not-ironic answer should have been "You are talking of something you don't understand. Don't think to know an italian law better than an italian person". But that would have not been really kind.
That's why I've decided in an ironic way.
Gatto Nero
On 2/8/07, Claudio Mastroianni gattonero@gmail.com wrote:
Il giorno 08/feb/07, alle ore 16:06, Gregory Maxwell ha scritto:
Under Italian law you are permitted 'abridgment, quotation or reproduction of fragments or parts of a work for the purpose of criticism or discussion, or for instructional purposes.' (see Italian Copyright Act Article 70; Nimmer and Geller (1998-), Italy, §8[2][a])
Oh nice: I'll upload a lot of "fragment" of IMAGES. Now I know I can.
So you think Wikipedia must reproduce whole unabridged and high resolution copies of copyrighted works which suitable for replacing the commercial value of these works, in order to educate people?
If that is your view I really believe it is mistaken.
When we reproduce a copyrighted work, we should be careful to avoid our copy replacing the work on the marketplace and thereby harming the commercial value of that work... Not only is this the polite thing to do, it is what is required of us by law and not just in Italy. This includes providing only crops or low resolution versions ('fragments') and only as much as we need to facilitate our discussion.
The statement under Italian law is not all that different from the laws of other nations. Nor should it be, since all people everywhere have the same need to discuss and educate people about copyrighted works.
Il giorno 08/feb/07, alle ore 16:41, Gregory Maxwell ha scritto:
So you think Wikipedia must reproduce whole unabridged and high resolution copies of copyrighted works which suitable for replacing the commercial value of these works, in order to educate people?
If that is your view I really believe it is mistaken.
It's starting to be tiring. I *don't* think we should admit "images with permission" AND "fair use images" TOO. I *do* think that is utterly stupid to make a not-existent distinction between the freedom of a permission image and a fair use image. Cause they're similarly unfree. Worst: it seems that fair use images are less free than permission images.
Second.
Your references to an italian law was uncorrect. What you're talking about is "diritto di citazione" ("right of quotation"), that's not appliable to images. What are we gonna going to upload? An eye of the Guernica paint?
This includes providing only crops or low resolution versions ('fragments')...
Low resolution versions are not considered "fragments". Not in Italy, at least.
The statement under Italian law is not all that different from the laws of other nations. Nor should it be, since all people everywhere have the same need to discuss and educate people about copyrighted works.
I continue thinking that you're talking about something that you're not able to catch in his totality, I'm sorry.
Gatto Nero
On 2/8/07, Claudio Mastroianni gattonero@gmail.com wrote:
It's starting to be tiring.
Here we agree.
I *do* think that is utterly stupid to make a not-existent distinction between the freedom of a permission image and a fair use image. Cause they're similarly unfree. Worst: it seems that fair use images are less free than permission images.
You are incorrect. For example, If I fork Wikipedia I must instantly delete every single with permission image, but I would be no worse off than Wikipedia in keeping fair use images. Surely someone who so frequently screams about the foundation can appreciate the importance of the right to fork? :) Of course this is only one situation out of a great many where 'permission' is not as good as a reasonable fair use claim.
Second. Your references to an italian law was uncorrect.
I am reasonably confident that it is not.
I hope, we will make our decisions based on reasoned thought and research, and not based on who can scream the loudest. To that end, wouldn't it be better if we did as suggested and sought guidance from experts on how best to set the policy for itwiki?
Please stop to consider for a moment: In no way does the board only allowing image which would be fair use/fair dealing preclude itwiki from getting permission.
Lets assume for a moment that under Italian law, there is no exception for excerpting for education. So, itwiki does not permit this exception. Instead, itwiki users will go obtain permission. This is fine, you can continue to do this, the foundation already said you may be more restrictive than they require and many projects already are. However, even with permission you may still only submit images which the rest of the world, which has the concept of fair dealing, could use as fair dealing. This ensures that itwiki are not getting non-free permission for images which we could easily create as free works ourselves, and it ensures that the work is maximally free.
Why does this make you mad? What do you think you are losing?
All I can see is itwiki losing images which are non-free and could be replaced with free ones... and that is a gain for everyone.
Il giorno 08/feb/07, alle ore 17:21, Gregory Maxwell ha scritto:
You are incorrect. For example, If I fork Wikipedia I must instantly delete every single with permission image, but I would be no worse off than Wikipedia in keeping fair use images.
If *I* fork Wikipedia, I must istantly delete every single fair use image, too. *Fair use/fair dealing* doesn't exist outside UK/US (and other 4 commonwealth country)
Surely someone who so frequently screams about the foundation can appreciate the importance of the right to fork? :)
Some it.wikiers thought about this possibility. Not me, for now, but I'm starting to doubt about the correctness of my opinion.
Second. Your references to an italian law was uncorrect.
I am reasonably confident that it is not.
Lucky you. That means that you know italian laws better than italian people.
I hope, we will make our decisions based on reasoned thought and research, and not based on who can scream the loudest. To that end, wouldn't it be better if we did as suggested and sought guidance from experts on how best to set the policy for itwiki?
This is not a question of "who scream the loudest", but a question of reality/unreality. Italians can't use fair use images. Period. Other people from other countries can't use fair use images. Period. Fair use images are not free. Period.
Please stop to consider for a moment: In no way does the board only allowing image which would be fair use/fair dealing preclude itwiki from getting permission.
I *do* think you've not read the first mail. There's no other explanation.
"It is for these reasons, which we have long supported, that all media on Wikimedia sites which are used under terms that specify non- commercial use only, no-derivatives only, or permission for Wikimedia only, need to be be phased out and replaced with media that does not have these restrictions."
*need* to be *phased out*
Lets assume for a moment that under Italian law, there is no exception for excerpting for education.
There is, for text.
So, itwiki does not permit this exception. Instead, itwiki users will go obtain permission. This is fine, you can continue to do this, the foundation already said you may be more restrictive than they require and many projects already are.
Read the quote here above. WMF considers "having a permission" to be *less* restrictive.
However, even with permission you may still only submit images which the rest of the world, which has the concept of fair dealing, could use as fair dealing. This ensures that itwiki are not getting non-free permission for images which we could easily create as free works ourselves, and it ensures that the work is maximally free.
Probably I've not understood this piece.
Why does this make you mad? What do you think you are losing? All I can see is itwiki losing images which are non-free and could be replaced with free ones... and that is a gain for everyone.
Let's repeat. Images with permission? Not allowed. Fair use images? Allowed.
What make me "mad" - better, what are making a lot of it,wikiers pissed off - is that there is an evidence of not equity in this statement. "Non free images are not permitted, but ehy... uhm... considering that en.wiki makes a large usage of non-free images we are gonna allow fair use images".
Gatto Nero
I am not responding to the rest of your email right now. Not out of disrespect but instead because I think we can go much further once one misunderstanding is cleared up.
On 2/8/07, Claudio Mastroianni gattonero@gmail.com wrote:
Let's repeat. Images with permission? Not allowed. Fair use images? Allowed.
Images which would be fairuse/dealing in places where that is permitted (which is far more than 4 or 5 countries) plus permission? Allowed.
Wikimedia is an international project. Where the laws of nations differ we must deal with a few hard constraints (the laws of where the WMF itself legally operates) and otherwise try to strike a balance which makes the most sense in most of the world.
Yes, the foundation sees permission as more restrictive than fair dealing, because it is for the foundations larger goals. Itwiki is still able to accept permission, it only must also make an effort to make sure these images would be fair use/fair dealing in the places where these concepts are codified in law.
Again, what do you lose?
Il giorno 08/feb/07, alle ore 17:54, Gregory Maxwell ha scritto:
I am not responding to the rest of your email right now. Not out of disrespect but instead because I think we can go much further once one misunderstanding is cleared up.
On 2/8/07, Claudio Mastroianni gattonero@gmail.com wrote:
Let's repeat. Images with permission? Not allowed. Fair use images? Allowed.
Images which would be fairuse/dealing in places where that is permitted (which is far more than 4 or 5 countries) plus permission? Allowed.
How are you going to obtain it? There's no way for an italian (or other people from other countries which don't have fair use/dealing) to upload an image "under fair use". The only way to upload these images, is by permission. But permission doesn't mean "You have the right to use it in every way you want": permission means "You can use it in these precise conditions". Then: it's impossible for a "image with permission" to be tagged as "fair use", cause a tag like this would not respect the deal who brought to the permission.
I'm not sure if I've been clear.
The way permission works is: "Ehy, copyright holder, could we use an image of your *whatever* on Wikipedia?" "Yes, wikipedian. You can use it ON http://it.wikipedia.org, but no printing" (or similar)
That's why, if I put a "fair use tag" or permitt another one to use a "fair use tag", the deal is broken.
Wikimedia is an international project. Where the laws of nations differ we must deal with a few hard constraints (the laws of where the WMF itself legally operates) and otherwise try to strike a balance which makes the most sense in most of the world.
That's the point. UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore are not "the most of the world". Surely we can't allow copyrighted images, that's why we can't allow fair use images.
Yes, the foundation sees permission as more restrictive than fair dealing, because it is for the foundations larger goals.
Making money in the Commonwealth? Distributing information in the Commonwealth, where fair use images are legal?
Itwiki is still able to accept permission, it only must also make an effort to make sure these images would be fair use/fair dealing in the places where these concepts are codified in law.
Again, what do you lose?
Again, "all media on Wikimedia sites which are used under terms that specify non-commercial use only, no-derivatives only, or permission for Wikimedia only, need to be be phased out and replaced with media that does not have these restrictions"
Gatto Nero
On 2/8/07, Claudio Mastroianni gattonero@gmail.com wrote:
Images which would be fairuse/dealing in places where that is permitted (which is far more than 4 or 5 countries) plus permission? Allowed.
How are you going to obtain it?
The same way you obtain it now. You ask.
There's no way for an italian (or other people from other countries which don't have fair use/dealing) to upload an image "under fair use". The only way to upload these images, is by permission. But permission doesn't mean "You have the right to use it in every way you want": permission means "You can use it in these precise conditions". Then: it's impossible for a "image with permission" to be tagged as "fair use", cause a tag like this would not respect the deal who brought to the permission.
You can make a tag which says something like:
"The copyright holder of this image has granted permission to use this image only on Wikipedia. Normally Wikipedia does not accept images which can only be used on Wikipedia, however, the [[fair dealing]] laws of some countries make other uses of this image possible. Fair dealing does not exist in Italy, but because we have both permission and the possibility for fair dealing outside of Italy we have accepted the copyright holders permission."
I'm not sure if I've been clear. The way permission works is: "Ehy, copyright holder, could we use an image of your *whatever* on Wikipedia?" "Yes, wikipedian. You can use it ON http://it.wikipedia.org, but no printing" (or similar) That's why, if I put a "fair use tag" or permitt another one to use a "fair use tag", the deal is broken.
I do not follow your leap of reasoning. The fact that an image in an article would be fair use dealing, say, Canada is a fact which you do not control. That you do not admit it today on your image pages does not make it any less true.
That's the point. UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore are not "the most of the world". Surely we can't allow copyrighted images, that's why we can't allow fair use images.
These are by no means the only countries which have the at least a parallel concept to fair dealing in their practical law. Where did you get the idea that only those countries have something like fair dealing?
Yes, the foundation sees permission as more restrictive than fair dealing, because it is for the foundations larger goals.
Making money in the Commonwealth? Distributing information in the Commonwealth, where fair use images are legal?
So ... Now we see the real reason that you are upset. You are still convinced that the foundation is out to exploit you in an evil and commercial way.
Again, what do you lose?
Again, "all media on Wikimedia sites which are used under terms that specify non-commercial use only, no-derivatives only, or permission for Wikimedia only, need to be be phased out and replaced with media that does not have these restrictions"
"Some works that are under licenses we do not accept (such as non-derivative) may meet these conditions." "However, no project may have content policies less restrictive, or that allow licenses other than those allowed on Wikimedia Commons and limited fair use."
I am completely confident that the foundations statement was in no way intending to say that you could not seek permission in addition to the image being accepted under fair dealing law where it exists. The foundation allows projects to have more restrictive rules, a fair dealing claim plus permission is one possibly way of being more restrictive.
Claudio Mastroianni wrote:
There's no way for an italian (or other people from other countries which don't have fair use/dealing) to upload an image "under fair use". The only way to upload these images, is by permission. But permission doesn't mean "You have the right to use it in every way you want": permission means "You can use it in these precise conditions". Then: it's impossible for a "image with permission" to be tagged as "fair use", cause a tag like this would not respect the deal who brought to the permission.
I'm not sure if I've been clear.
The way permission works is: "Ehy, copyright holder, could we use an image of your *whatever* on Wikipedia?" "Yes, wikipedian. You can use it ON http://it.wikipedia.org, but no printing" (or similar)
That's why, if I put a "fair use tag" or permitt another one to use a "fair use tag", the deal is broken.
Gatto, the point is: an Italian person which will like to reuse that media will have to ask the copyright owner: "Hey, I saw this picture on Wikipedia, I'd like to use it in Lumacapedia, can I?" An American person will be able to use it in Snailpedia and print and sell the Snailpedia DVD in the US and some other countries without asking the copyright owner. That's it.
Now, I understand there will be guidelines on what fair use is going to be allowed in Wikimedia. I guess a low-res reproduction of Guernica by Picasso will be allowed on the articles about Guernica by Picasso, while probably a promo photograph of Britney Spears will not be allowed. As soon as this is clarified, an Italian user may need to ask permission to Picasso's heirs to upload the picture of the painting, and say that where it applies the image is used under fair use. Plus you have the copyright owner's placet, in case you can't claim fair use.
As far as the Italian wikipedia is concerned, I think that many images we use with permission will qualify for Wikimedia fair use. Coat of arms of communes, paintings in the museums of Florence, maybe comics characters. For the copyrighted photos of places, well, a free alternative is possible, so it doesn't seem unreasonable not to use them.
Marco (Cruccone)
On 2/8/07, Marco Chiesa chiesa.marco@gmail.com wrote:
Claudio Mastroianni wrote:
There's no way for an italian (or other people from other countries which don't have fair use/dealing) to upload an image "under fair use". The only way to upload these images, is by permission. But permission doesn't mean "You have the right to use it in every way you want": permission means "You can use it in these precise conditions". Then: it's impossible for a "image with permission" to be tagged as "fair use", cause a tag like this would not respect the deal who brought to the permission.
I'm not sure if I've been clear.
The way permission works is: "Ehy, copyright holder, could we use an image of your *whatever* on Wikipedia?" "Yes, wikipedian. You can use it ON http://it.wikipedia.org, but no printing" (or similar)
That's why, if I put a "fair use tag" or permitt another one to use a "fair use tag", the deal is broken.
Gatto, the point is: an Italian person which will like to reuse that media will have to ask the copyright owner: "Hey, I saw this picture on Wikipedia, I'd like to use it in Lumacapedia, can I?" An American person will be able to use it in Snailpedia and print and sell the Snailpedia DVD in the US and some other countries without asking the copyright owner. That's it.
Now, I understand there will be guidelines on what fair use is going to be allowed in Wikimedia. I guess a low-res reproduction of Guernica by Picasso will be allowed on the articles about Guernica by Picasso, while probably a promo photograph of Britney Spears will not be allowed. As soon as this is clarified, an Italian user may need to ask permission to Picasso's heirs to upload the picture of the painting, and say that where it applies the image is used under fair use. Plus you have the copyright owner's placet, in case you can't claim fair use.
As far as the Italian wikipedia is concerned, I think that many images we use with permission will qualify for Wikimedia fair use. Coat of arms of communes, paintings in the museums of Florence, maybe comics characters. For the copyrighted photos of places, well, a free alternative is possible, so it doesn't seem unreasonable not to use them.
Marco (Cruccone)
Ah, good, I was writing a response to that post but it seems better coming from another Italian. :-)
This is a fair statement, and this sort of discussion is what you should have on itwiki to determine what you ultimately decide to allow... it is not perhaps so bad as some are thinking and I don't know that I am the one to convince you.
-Kat
Kat Walsh wrote:
Ah, good, I was writing a response to that post but it seems better coming from another Italian. :-)
This is a fair statement, and this sort of discussion is what you should have on itwiki to determine what you ultimately decide to allow... it is not perhaps so bad as some are thinking and I don't know that I am the one to convince you.
-Kat
Thanks Kat. Of course the itwiki community is not just composed by Gatto Nero and me, and to be honest I haven't read yet what's going on on our Village Pump. Here I'm just representing myself.Also, I'm looking forward to see the Board decision on the limits of the Wikimedia-accepted fair use, with possibly some estimate on how many fairuse images on en.wiki will be deleted because of this decision. The Italian community may find the policy more acceptable if they're made aware that, say, 50% of the images tagged as fair use on en.wiki won't be accepted any more. When Jimbo recently wrote that we should get rid of non-free material, many a voice was saying: "Hey, why shouldn't we used stuff we worked hard to get permission when en.wiki uses {{fairuse}} for the same purpose?"
Marco (Cruccone)
On 08/02/07, Marco Chiesa chiesa.marco@gmail.com wrote:
be accepted any more. When Jimbo recently wrote that we should get rid of non-free material, many a voice was saying: "Hey, why shouldn't we used stuff we worked hard to get permission when en.wiki uses {{fairuse}} for the same purpose?"
Note that en:wp used to have a LOT of with-permission images, which many contributors worked very hard to get permission for (e.g. User:Secretlondon ... who is now carrying her camera everywhere to generate free images). I believe these are almost all now gone. That is: en:wp went through this already.
- d.
On 2/8/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 08/02/07, Marco Chiesa chiesa.marco@gmail.com wrote:
be accepted any more. When Jimbo recently wrote that we should get rid of non-free material, many a voice was saying: "Hey, why shouldn't we used stuff we worked hard to get permission when en.wiki uses {{fairuse}} for the same purpose?"
Note that en:wp used to have a LOT of with-permission images, which many contributors worked very hard to get permission for (e.g. User:Secretlondon ... who is now carrying her camera everywhere to generate free images). I believe these are almost all now gone. That is: en:wp went through this already.
- d.
a bit over 600 left although the exact number depends on how full CAT:CSD is.
On 08/02/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 08/02/07, Marco Chiesa chiesa.marco@gmail.com wrote:
be accepted any more. When Jimbo recently wrote that we should get rid of non-free material, many a voice was saying: "Hey, why shouldn't we used stuff we worked hard to get permission when en.wiki uses {{fairuse}} for the same purpose?"
Note that en:wp used to have a LOT of with-permission images, which many contributors worked very hard to get permission for (e.g. User:Secretlondon ... who is now carrying her camera everywhere to generate free images). I believe these are almost all now gone. That is: en:wp went through this already.
Yeah. Edict to kill was May '05 (or so); they hung around for a long time, but are now all gone AIUI. (Someone did a big cleanout lately)
(I seem to be carrying my camera everywhere too, now; go for a ten-minute walk after lunch and try to photograph something, anything, just to get in the habit. Most days, admittedly, this is rather futile - I work in a secluded location in the countryside - but I've a lot of nice photos of the Oxfordshire landscape out of it, and you never know what interesting things will appear at short notice...)
On 08/02/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 08/02/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Note that en:wp used to have a LOT of with-permission images, which many contributors worked very hard to get permission for (e.g. User:Secretlondon ... who is now carrying her camera everywhere to generate free images). I believe these are almost all now gone. That is: en:wp went through this already.
Yeah. Edict to kill was May '05 (or so); they hung around for a long time, but are now all gone AIUI. (Someone did a big cleanout lately)
Not all, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Zenon-panoussis-karin-spaink-leipzig-2003... - which I personally secured permission for, but hey - if it's got to go, it's got to go.
- d.
On 2/8/07, Marco Chiesa chiesa.marco@gmail.com wrote:
Kat Walsh wrote:
Thanks Kat. Of course the itwiki community is not just composed by Gatto Nero and me, and to be honest I haven't read yet what's going on on our Village Pump. Here I'm just representing myself.Also, I'm looking forward to see the Board decision on the limits of the Wikimedia-accepted fair use, with possibly some estimate on how many fairuse images on en.wiki will be deleted because of this decision.
The Italian community may find the policy more acceptable if they're made aware that, say, 50% of the images tagged as fair use on en.wiki won't be accepted any more. When Jimbo recently wrote that we should get rid of non-free material, many a voice was saying: "Hey, why shouldn't we used stuff we worked hard to get permission when en.wiki uses {{fairuse}} for the same purpose?"
I'm afraid you may be disappointed if you are expecting something quite so specific; there are so many individual cases and circumstances that it would simply be impossible to say in detail "this kind is allowed, this kind is not" in such a way that everyone would know. For the most part it is up to the informed and reasonable members of the community to come to these decisions for their projects.
It is definitely the case that there are a lot of images being used on enwiki that shouldn't be. Partially because it is a divisive issue and partially because many people simply do not know what the rules are. Estimating how many those are would be nearly impossible... but it is enough to keep a large group of people busy for quite some time.
(Side note, as I think from previous experience that I need to make this clear: this is not license to be a jerk when deleting images, and on the flip side you do not have license to accuse someone deleting these images of doing so to be a jerk. Treat each other with courtesy and understanding, darn it.)
The hardest part about a message like this is knowing how much trouble some people have gone to. (I have asked people to release things under free content licenses myself and sometimes it is very difficult to explain...) It may help somewhat to know there are many people in the enwiki community who are upset at how restrictive this is even as some others are complaining how much enwiki is permitted to do...
Enwiki went through something similar when the with-permission, non-commercial, and non-derivative images that were permitted (or at last tolerated) early on became speedy deletion candidates... many people upset at the loss of their hard work, and no one is ever happy about making that happen even where the ends are something we want.
-Kat
On 08/02/07, Kat Walsh kwalsh@wikimedia.org wrote:
Enwiki went through something similar when the with-permission, non-commercial, and non-derivative images that were permitted (or at last tolerated) early on became speedy deletion candidates... many people upset at the loss of their hard work, and no one is ever happy about making that happen even where the ends are something we want.
That can't possibly be the case! Because that sounds like it's not a conspiracy against it:wp on behalf of en:wp ...
When do we start shooting the contents of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_used_with_permission ? Somewhere just under 640 images there, most of which are only with-permission ... including ones I secured the permission for. Ah well :-)
- d.
Kat Walsh wrote:
It is definitely the case that there are a lot of images being used on enwiki that shouldn't be. Partially because it is a divisive issue and partially because many people simply do not know what the rules are. Estimating how many those are would be nearly impossible... but it is enough to keep a large group of people busy for quite some time.
(Side note, as I think from previous experience that I need to make this clear: this is not license to be a jerk when deleting images, and on the flip side you do not have license to accuse someone deleting these images of doing so to be a jerk. Treat each other with courtesy and understanding, darn it.)
This is what I'm personally concerned about. I recall the "call to arms" about our "spam issue" that resulted in 40-something articles on cookies being deleted on en and causing a protracted situation that could have easily been avoided. I'm hoping the Foundation can keep the inevitable reactions of some people on BOTH sides of the issue in mind when crafting this final statement, or whatever it ends up being.
-Jeff
Kat, would you PLEASE put something like your comments below into a nice neat package specifically clarifying that you were not seeking to spell out detailed new 'rules' on fair use... because the usual suspects are now 'interpreting' your original statement to mean anything from '90% of all fair use must be deleted immediately and without discussion' to 'any reasonable fair use rationale is now valid for all of Wikimedia'. With resulting deletion purges, cries of 'admin abuse', et cetera breaking out as the 'jihadists' on all sides arm themselves with this latest excuse to treat each other badly.
* Kat Walsh wrote:
I'm afraid you may be disappointed if you are expecting something quite so specific; there are so many individual cases and circumstances that it would simply be impossible to say in detail "this kind is allowed, this kind is not" in such a way that everyone would know. For the most part it is up to the informed and reasonable members of the community to come to these decisions for their projects.
(Side note, as I think from previous experience that I need to make this clear: this is not license to be a jerk when deleting images, and on the flip side you do not have license to accuse someone deleting these images of doing so to be a jerk. Treat each other with courtesy and understanding, darn it.)
On 2/8/07, Conrad Dunkerson conrad.dunkerson@att.net wrote:
Kat, would you PLEASE put something like your comments below into a nice neat package specifically clarifying that you were not seeking to spell out detailed new 'rules' on fair use... because the usual suspects are now 'interpreting' your original statement to mean anything from '90% of all fair use must be deleted immediately and without discussion' to 'any reasonable fair use rationale is now valid for all of Wikimedia'. With resulting deletion purges, cries of 'admin abuse', et cetera breaking out as the 'jihadists' on all sides arm themselves with this latest excuse to treat each other badly.
Oh, geez, getting into any active thread on the en: administrators' noticeboard is something that takes a lot of time and intestinal fortitude. :-) I don't know what to make a nice neat package out of; you're certainly welcome to quote those paragraphs (and for that matter anything else I say on a public list).
-Kat
Kat Walsh wrote:
Enwiki went through something similar when the with-permission, non-commercial, and non-derivative images that were permitted (or at last tolerated) early on became speedy deletion candidates... many people upset at the loss of their hard work, and no one is ever happy about making that happen even where the ends are something we want.
Making the deletion speedy can be as much of a problem as deleting at all. Sometimes a more respectful process might take a little longer, but it gives people the opportunity to feel they have been heard. For a questionable image that has hung around for a couple of years, an extr week should make little difference.
Ec
On 2/8/07, Marco Chiesa chiesa.marco@gmail.com wrote:
When Jimbo recently wrote that we should get rid of non-free material, many a voice was saying: "Hey, why shouldn't we used stuff we worked hard to get permission when en.wiki uses {{fairuse}} for the same purpose?"
I'll use this message to try to clarify a few points.
The idea of "special permission" for Wikipedia is inherently harmful and utterly antithetical to our mission. The Wikimedia Foundation is _not_ just running a bunch of cool websites, it's trying to help people spread free culture across the planet. In its impediment of the spread of free culture, "special permission" is much more noxious than even the least free Creative Commons license. If we want to reach those who need free educational content the most, collaboration with organizations (and companies or local entrepreneurs) is imperative. Special permission content is utterly useless in this context. It is a waste of our time.
Fair use is somewhat different in that many third party uses, especially educational ones, will be permissible as well. Beyond that, fair use and similar exemptions are a good way to describe a set of content which we, pragmatically, will accept, but which we can communicate clearly as being philosophically incompatible with our core mission. The important point is that there is a clear division into two spheres: * fair use / fair dealing and similar exemptions * free content
These two spheres are very different. Files under fair use exemption are essentially on constant parole. They cannot be put in Commons. They will be wiped out when orphaned. They require an article context. They may not be put in galleries. They can and should be replaced whenever possible with freely licensed ones. They need a rationale. And in many cases, we will immediately remove them if there is the slightest problem with them.
Free content, on the other hand, is free in every sense of the word. It can be used throughout our projects, and we encourage its creation wherever possible. We systematically do everything we can to liberate as much useful content as possible.
Allowing files under special permission, NC, ND, or any other non-free license, erodes this wall of separation. This is not hypothetical; it has happened wherever such licenses have begun to proliferate. They were used without care, without distinction. Non-free and free were treated the same. This then reduces the incentive for our community members to use free licenses. It confuses the public. It advertises bad licensing choices.
A genuine free culture movement depends on establishing and following a standard of freedom: http://freedomdefined.org/Definition - without such a standard, what you end up with is something like Creative Commons. Not a movement, just a hodgepodge of licenses. Creative Commons is about giving choices to authors within a legal framework. Wikimedia is about building free culture.
This is to me the key point of an official licensing policy: hardcoding the distinction between free and non-free, and clearly emphasizing one over the other. We can talk, if need be, about putting some things explicitly in the non-free sphere if a legal system leaves us no other option. But I'd prefer to always make that decision implicitly if at all possible, to never mention that a fair use image is also ND or NC, because these licenses, "Creative Commons" or not, are in fact an enclosure of the commons. They are anti-commons; they relate to free content like shareware and freeware relate to open source software. They should not be advertised.
As much as it generally annoys me when people quote a whole message just to say "me too", me too. I really like the way this is put.
-Kat
On 2/8/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'll use this message to try to clarify a few points.
The idea of "special permission" for Wikipedia is inherently harmful and utterly antithetical to our mission. The Wikimedia Foundation is _not_ just running a bunch of cool websites, it's trying to help people spread free culture across the planet. In its impediment of the spread of free culture, "special permission" is much more noxious than even the least free Creative Commons license. If we want to reach those who need free educational content the most, collaboration with organizations (and companies or local entrepreneurs) is imperative. Special permission content is utterly useless in this context. It is a waste of our time.
Fair use is somewhat different in that many third party uses, especially educational ones, will be permissible as well. Beyond that, fair use and similar exemptions are a good way to describe a set of content which we, pragmatically, will accept, but which we can communicate clearly as being philosophically incompatible with our core mission. The important point is that there is a clear division into two spheres:
- fair use / fair dealing and similar exemptions
- free content
These two spheres are very different. Files under fair use exemption are essentially on constant parole. They cannot be put in Commons. They will be wiped out when orphaned. They require an article context. They may not be put in galleries. They can and should be replaced whenever possible with freely licensed ones. They need a rationale. And in many cases, we will immediately remove them if there is the slightest problem with them.
Free content, on the other hand, is free in every sense of the word. It can be used throughout our projects, and we encourage its creation wherever possible. We systematically do everything we can to liberate as much useful content as possible.
Allowing files under special permission, NC, ND, or any other non-free license, erodes this wall of separation. This is not hypothetical; it has happened wherever such licenses have begun to proliferate. They were used without care, without distinction. Non-free and free were treated the same. This then reduces the incentive for our community members to use free licenses. It confuses the public. It advertises bad licensing choices.
A genuine free culture movement depends on establishing and following a standard of freedom: http://freedomdefined.org/Definition - without such a standard, what you end up with is something like Creative Commons. Not a movement, just a hodgepodge of licenses. Creative Commons is about giving choices to authors within a legal framework. Wikimedia is about building free culture.
This is to me the key point of an official licensing policy: hardcoding the distinction between free and non-free, and clearly emphasizing one over the other. We can talk, if need be, about putting some things explicitly in the non-free sphere if a legal system leaves us no other option. But I'd prefer to always make that decision implicitly if at all possible, to never mention that a fair use image is also ND or NC, because these licenses, "Creative Commons" or not, are in fact an enclosure of the commons. They are anti-commons; they relate to free content like shareware and freeware relate to open source software. They should not be advertised.
On 2/8/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
Fair use is somewhat different in that many third party uses, especially educational ones, will be permissible as well. Beyond that, fair use and similar exemptions are a good way to describe a set of content which we, pragmatically, will accept, but which we can communicate clearly as being philosophically incompatible with our core mission. The important point is that there is a clear division into two spheres:
- fair use / fair dealing and similar exemptions
- free content
As much as I condemn the whole revolutionary clash. As much as I agree with the strong statement let's ban ND, NC and "with permission", as much as I agree with the fact that "fair use" is "more permissive" than those non free licenses or those non-licenses, I cannot help but feel sorry that two members of the board have expressed the differences in these terms.
As we say in French, I would appreciate if we called a cat a cat. When you say "we will communicate clearly as being incompatible with our core mission" I find this utterly contradictory.
I'm sorry. Clearly communicating for me, means expressing a clear YES or a clear NO. And if we are to take our core mission as witness, then either we are true to it, or we are not. And if we are not, because to some extent, for the time being, we cannot, fine. Let's say it. If the board decision is that we're keeping the status-quo as far as fair use is concerned, this is totally fine by me. Your decision, I will defer to it.
But let's face it, fair use is unfree, a little less than another maybe. The only difference is that the en community and also the WMF has decided to accept it, out of, as Erik points out, pragmatism. This, for me would be the right phrasing. And the fair one, to everyone.
Do not forget that there are probably 100 wikipedias with enough articles to be of note, and that probably one and only one of them is going to invoke fair use. Granted, it's the biggest one. But that does not make it the "right" one. So tell me we're accepting fair use because the English community is divided, tell me it's because the Foundation is in the US and it makes sense there. Tell me it's a political move.
Tell me anything but don't tell me that fair-use can be used for this that and the rest and that it's not so bad, after all. (at least, this is what I repreatedly hear, this manichean speech that says ND/NC and permission are EVIL, fair use is LESS EVIL). Don't even hint at it. I said it earlier, I believe fair-use is evil. ;-) And it seems I am not the only one.
If anything, I think it very sad that the biggest Wikipedia is condemning itself to be distributed "as such" only in countries where the fair use doctrine exists, and bars itself from being distributed in the rest of the world.
I have, however, faith that the other wikipedias will show the light. Slowly, but surely...
Cheers,
Delphine
On 2/8/07, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
If anything, I think it very sad that the biggest Wikipedia is condemning itself to be distributed "as such" only in countries where the fair use doctrine exists, and bars itself from being distributed in the rest of the world.
[snip]
I will offer you an interesting point for consideration here:
If and only if we are really good at only allowing "fair use" when no free image is possible (i.e. only after we've tried to get the copyright holder to make a release, only after we're sure that no Wikipedian can create a comparable image) AND only if we are really good about tagging the non-free images in a machine readable way....
Then:
It would only take a trivial script to make a computer instantly convert "Wikipedia, The Free* Encyclopedia. *includes some non-free parts" into "Wikipedia, The Free (and we really mean it) Encyclopedia".
To me, this would be a perfectly fine solution which does not represent a compromise of our ideals. You may not agree, but I hope you agree that it is better than many other alternatives.
However, for it to be true, we need to be really good at figuring out what we can and can not expect to become free ... and we need to exert constant pressure to move in the direction of freedom. We are certainly not there yet... our tagging isn't even really machine readable and this reaction has shown us that there are still too many people in our communities who do not share the dream of free content.
But ... I think we can do it. In order for it to work, however, we all need to stand together.
I hope that those of us who don't think any concession to the non-free world is acceptable, even temporally, can still stand along side those of us who are more favor getting there through successive approximation.
On 2/9/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/8/07, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
If anything, I think it very sad that the biggest Wikipedia is condemning itself to be distributed "as such" only in countries where the fair use doctrine exists, and bars itself from being distributed in the rest of the world.
[snip]
I will offer you an interesting point for consideration here:
If and only if we are really good at only allowing "fair use" when no free image is possible (i.e. only after we've tried to get the copyright holder to make a release, only after we're sure that no Wikipedian can create a comparable image)
Maybe I'm an eternal optimist. But frankly, in the long run, I don't think that there is going to be ANYTHING worth mentionning in an encyclopedia which will not provide at least one kind of media that is free.
Because if we are true to our mission, we're going to fight to make these things free. Images from space, images from artworks, images from celebrities (well, for those we can already all turn into paparazzi).
So yes, I have no doubt that one day we will be the "free encyclopedia".
And definitely, I agree that cooperation is the only way forward. We've got time. Don't we?
Delphine
I love all of this consolidated discussion and writing on the subject. There are still a host of uncertainties... my two cents on clarity:
Core statements - about freedom, accessibility, collaboration, and so on - benefit from being clear, bold, and without qualification.
Erik: your statement earlier today was powerful -- except for the sections defending fair use. This is not because the writing was poor, nor the logic faulty, but because defending a complicated exemption weakens any argument. For instance:
Fair use is somewhat different in that many third party uses, especially educational ones, will be permissible as well.
One can make a parallel argument to defend -NC.
These two spheres are very different. Files under fair use exemption are essentially on constant parole. They cannot be put in Commons. They will be wiped out when orphaned. They require an article context. They may not be put in galleries. They can and should be replaced whenever possible with freely licensed ones. They need a rationale.
This is complicated and distracting. It leaves the door open for confusion, both on the part of content owners who complain and uploaders who don't understand these subtleties. The fact that we cannot benefit from the obvious advantages of Commons -- and must duplicate such images on every wiki -- highlights how unfree this is. [The logical extension of the Commons prohibition is to have special tags to explicitly and directly include such images without providing Image: pages for them...]
Greg: your comments likewise make what could be a crystal clear goal and title a bit ambiguous, but you suggest a solution.
On Thu, 8 Feb 2007, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
It would only take a trivial script to make a computer instantly convert "Wikipedia, The Free* Encyclopedia. *includes some non-free parts" into "Wikipedia, The Free (and we really mean it) Encyclopedia".
I like this script idea... let's invert it. "Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia" is a good name. Keep it, and ditch the caveats.
For fair use enthusiasts: develop a simple script and tags to convert Wikipedia into "Wikipedia, The Free* Encyclopedia. *includes some non-free parts". Wikipedia wouldn't host those non-free parts. It would of course include explicit links to non-free materials, just as it does today.
WP could even host freely-licensed markup that says "there's a cool non-free part you should insert HERE", which would be invisible to those who didn't want to see it. This might be an interesting project.
However, for it to be true, we need to be really good at figuring out what we can and can not expect to become free ... and we need to exert constant pressure to move in the direction of freedom. We are certainly not there yet... our tagging isn't even really machine readable...
By stating simply that our projects are free, without denigrating the work of those who want to include more license-encumbered materials, we can at once clarify our own goals, push part of the burden of clever tagging onto the less-free efforts, and implicitly exert stronger pressure to find free representations, images, and recordings of important subjects.
I hope that those of us who don't think any concession to the non-free world is acceptable, even temporally, can still stand along side those of us who are more favor getting there through successive approximation.
For me this is not a matter of philosophical absolutes, or of what is acceptable. It is a question of clarity and focus. It is a question of pragmatism, though not in the way Erik suggested.
Even those of us who dream of the best possible "Fair Use + NC + ND Wikipedia", including the best materials available at every level of freeness, should support a core project focused on building a Free Encyclopedia without restriction.
--SJ
On 2/8/07, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
Fair use is somewhat different in that many third party uses, especially educational ones, will be permissible as well.
One can make a parallel argument to defend -NC.
[snip]
I don't agree that one can.
Fair use is not a license, it's an escape clause in copyright that enables the the public to engage in reasoned and informed discussion about copyrighted works, effectively a form of free speech.
We do not accept non-free materials which we are licensed to use, but we may accept some materials whos exclusion would effectively equate to a suppression of our free speech. Fair use is special not because it is a copyright loophole, but because it is critical to free speech.
There are other copyright loopholes which we explicitly reject. For example, we do not accept copyrighted works from Iran except which we can make a fair use claim for... We could legally do so, because as a non-signature to any of the international copyright treaties, their copyright law (which is very similar to that of most countries) is not enforceable outside of Iran.
In my eyes, this confusion you see with respect to fair use is removed when you view it in this light and don't try to consider fair use a copyright license. Fair use isn't a license.
By stating simply that our projects are free, without denigrating the work of those who want to include more license-encumbered materials, we can at once clarify our own goals, push part of the burden of clever tagging onto the less-free efforts, and implicitly exert stronger pressure to find free representations, images, and recordings of important subjects.
I'm not sure we disagree so much, since I certainly don't support the claim that anything we could replace is fair use.
On Thu, 8 Feb 2007, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 2/8/07, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
Fair use is somewhat different in that many third party uses, especially educational ones, will be permissible as well.
One can make a parallel argument to defend -NC.
[snip]
I don't agree that one can.
"-NC is somewhat different in that many third praty uses and reuses, especially educational ones, are permissible as well."
What's the problem with NC? Reuse is hard. Incompatible licenses can't be merged, and maintaining the separation incurs overhead. Allowing NC material, regardless of warnings against it, encourages people to think that is "free enough". All this is true for fair use.
We ignore much of this for fair use in part because we as a culture have been slow at developing tools for editing, splitting, and merging images and media... but this is changing.
Defending fair use is confusing, as this thread's arguments show, even to intelligent people who have thought about this and know what it means.
We should not be confusing when inspiring people to create free materials.
--SJ
Fair use is not a license, it's an escape clause in copyright that enables the the public to engage in reasoned and informed discussion about copyrighted works, effectively a form of free speech.
We do not accept non-free materials which we are licensed to use, but we may accept some materials whos exclusion would effectively equate to a suppression of our free speech. Fair use is special not because it is a copyright loophole, but because it is critical to free speech.
There are other copyright loopholes which we explicitly reject. For example, we do not accept copyrighted works from Iran except which we can make a fair use claim for... We could legally do so, because as a non-signature to any of the international copyright treaties, their copyright law (which is very similar to that of most countries) is not enforceable outside of Iran.
In my eyes, this confusion you see with respect to fair use is removed when you view it in this light and don't try to consider fair use a copyright license. Fair use isn't a license.
By stating simply that our projects are free, without denigrating the work of those who want to include more license-encumbered materials, we can at once clarify our own goals, push part of the burden of clever tagging onto the less-free efforts, and implicitly exert stronger pressure to find free representations, images, and recordings of important subjects.
I'm not sure we disagree so much, since I certainly don't support the claim that anything we could replace is fair use.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
There are other copyright loopholes which we explicitly reject. For example, we do not accept copyrighted works from Iran except which we can make a fair use claim for... We could legally do so, because as a non-signature to any of the international copyright treaties, their copyright law (which is very similar to that of most countries) is not enforceable outside of Iran.
But you use copyrighted work from Europe (some paintings by Picasso) on en.wiki because you use a copyright loophole that they're PD in the US. You don't consider these fair use, but PD.
Marco (Cruccone)
I do not see fair use as evil. True, fair use and fair dealing do not exist in many jurisdictions, but the legal statutes of a country have never alone been justification for labeling something "good" or "evil."
On the contrary, I see fair use is an essential component of free speech. It is the right to contextualize commentary and criticism. Without context, such forms of speech wane in relevance.
The justification for copyright is to create incentives for people to produce works of merit. Whether fair use is ethical should hinge on its effect on those incentives. Fair use is specifically designed to avoid undermining these incentives, and I believe it succeeds in that goal.
With that settled, what could still make fair use "evil"? Is it evil because some people cannot use it? By that standard, we would have to limit many topics on Wikimedia projects, but we readily allow material that would be banned for viewing -- let alone republishing -- in many countries.
If we're willing to stand for the right to fairly cover the Falun Gong, we should be willing to stand for the right to fairly cover a world-famous Beatles album, including a discussion of the album art.
Instead of charging ahead to eliminate fair use everywhere, we should celebrate our ability to use it *when necessary*.
Our goal is to liberate knowledge, and fair use is an important part of that goal. Our goal is also to provide more than facts; it's to provide facts with context. Fair use is part of that, too.
This is not to say that we should seek out fair-use media. Of course, we should use free alternatives at every opportunity. But we should never be ashamed of invoking fair use when it allows us to improve Wikipedia.
Delphine Ménard wrote:
Tell me anything but don't tell me that fair-use can be used for this that and the rest and that it's not so bad, after all. (at least, this is what I repreatedly hear, this manichean speech that says ND/NC and permission are EVIL, fair use is LESS EVIL). Don't even hint at it. I said it earlier, I believe fair-use is evil. ;-) And it seems I am not the only one.
If anything, I think it very sad that the biggest Wikipedia is condemning itself to be distributed "as such" only in countries where the fair use doctrine exists, and bars itself from being distributed in the rest of the world.
I have, however, faith that the other wikipedias will show the light. Slowly, but surely...
Cheers,
Delphine
Il giorno 08/feb/07, alle ore 18:53, Marco Chiesa ha scritto:
Gatto, the point is: an Italian person which will like to reuse that media will have to ask the copyright owner: "Hey, I saw this picture on Wikipedia, I'd like to use it in Lumacapedia, can I?" An American person will be able to use it in Snailpedia and print and sell the Snailpedia DVD in the US and some other countries without asking the copyright owner. That's it.
Gregory - very politely - came to #wikipedia-it on IRC, trying to explain something (and then flying away, insulting).
As far as I've understood of his clarification, this is right but not reversable. A user from Snailpedia can use an image of Lumacopedia (and only in this case, the image won't be deleted). But a user from Lumacopedia can't use an image from Snailpedia without permission. And if he can't obtain this permission, the image will be stay - in every case - on Lumacopedia, and won't be deleted.
[In italiano: Se un utente di Lumacopedia carica una immagine con permesso, questa immagine potrà essere mantenuta solo se gli utenti di Snailpedia potranno caricarla sulla loro pedia come fair use. Se non sarà possibile, l'immagine deve essere cancellata. Non succede lo stessl contrario: Se un utente di Snailpedia carica una immagine fair use, questa resterà anche se l'utente di Lumacopedia non potrà utilizzarla. Cosa vuol dire? Che Snailpedia "sfrutterà" Lumacopedia, ma non il contrario. E cioè che l'unica cosa che conta è Snailpedia, non Lumacopedia. Ho detto "Beh ma io vedo una certà disparità fra le due cose" e lui ha risposto - circa meno quasi, parafrasando - "Oh sì, c'è qualche disparità in effetti, ma whatever"]
If Gregory is right, the question is - personally - worst than I've imagined.
Gatto Nero
On 2/8/07, Claudio Mastroianni gattonero@gmail.com wrote:
Gregory - very politely - came to #wikipedia-it on IRC, trying to explain something (and then flying away, insulting).
I did not intend to insult. My parting comment was
"gattonero, if you are going to try to turn this yet another fight about your paranoia about commercial use and Wikipedia, then I will not participate. Caio Caio"
I already worked my knuckles raw talking to you about your fears of exploitation by the Wikimedia Foundation last month. If I have to do much more if it, I may just kill myself. :) I recognize that your position will not change through discussion with me. So I run and hide, please forgive my weakness.
Il giorno 08/feb/07, alle ore 19:09, Gregory Maxwell ha scritto:
I did not intend to insult. My parting comment was
"gattonero, if you are going to try to turn this yet another fight about your paranoia about commercial use and Wikipedia, then I will not participate. Caio Caio"
No, you're right. You've been very kind and polite to come to #wikipedia-it, change our topic using *your* point of view, and then "flying away" calling me a paranoid as soon as other people but me started to not agree with you.
Me silly.
Gatto Nero.
On 2/8/07, Claudio Mastroianni gattonero@gmail.com wrote:
Il giorno 08/feb/07, alle ore 19:09, Gregory Maxwell ha scritto:
I did not intend to insult. My parting comment was
"gattonero, if you are going to try to turn this yet another fight about your paranoia about commercial use and Wikipedia, then I will not participate. Caio Caio"
No, you're right. You've been very kind and polite to come to #wikipedia-it, change our topic using *your* point of view, and then "flying away" calling me a paranoid as soon as other people but me started to not agree with you.
Me silly.
I changed the topic to say that with permission images are allowed iff they could be claimed to be fair use too... This is a fact, it is not my opinion. When I entered the topic implied that the simple fact that you obtained permission would have meant you had to delete the image, no matter what other reasons you also had to keep it, this is not correct.
I also talked for many minutes, but as I said, I will not participate if you're going to spin this as some evil conspiracy to commercialize your labor.
Il giorno 08/feb/07, alle ore 19:23, Gregory Maxwell ha scritto:
I also talked for many minutes, but as I said, I will not participate if you're going to spin this as some evil conspiracy to commercialize your labor.
You may have some problems, 'cause that's not the point here. I've talk of inequity and en.centrism. Not "commercial use of my work".
On 2/8/07, Claudio Mastroianni gattonero@gmail.com wrote:
*Fair use/fair dealing* doesn't exist outside UK/US (and other 4 commonwealth country)
Fair dealing is very different from fair use. Do not lump them together. It makes about as much sense as lumping Italian law together with French.
Fair dealing is pretty standard throughout the former british empire. So india uses a version of it and I suspect most of our former african holdings do. That is about 25% of the earth's surface and probably a simular amount of it's population.
By comparision fair use exists in the US and the philippines. -- geni
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
I hope, we will make our decisions based on reasoned thought and research, and not based on who can scream the loudest. To that end, wouldn't it be better if we did as suggested and sought guidance from experts on how best to set the policy for itwiki?
Please stop to consider for a moment: In no way does the board only allowing image which would be fair use/fair dealing preclude itwiki from getting permission.
Lets assume for a moment that under Italian law, there is no exception for excerpting for education. So, itwiki does not permit this exception. Instead, itwiki users will go obtain permission. This is fine, you can continue to do this, the foundation already said you may be more restrictive than they require and many projects already are. However, even with permission you may still only submit images which the rest of the world, which has the concept of fair dealing, could use as fair dealing. This ensures that itwiki are not getting non-free permission for images which we could easily create as free works ourselves, and it ensures that the work is maximally free.
Why does this make you mad? What do you think you are losing?
All I can see is itwiki losing images which are non-free and could be replaced with free ones... and that is a gain for everyone.
I agree with this view, personally I think it satisfies both the needs of being free in the US (because of the fair use) and being acceptable in those unfortunate countries where you need permission. But, ehm, in the previous email you said that you shouldn't say that the author authorizes every ND or NC use, so where are we going to write that we have the explicit permission to use that media?
Marco (Cruccone)
On 2/8/07, Marco Chiesa chiesa.marco@gmail.com wrote:
I agree with this view, personally I think it satisfies both the needs of being free in the US (because of the fair use) and being acceptable in those unfortunate countries where you need permission. But, ehm, in the previous email you said that you shouldn't say that the author authorizes every ND or NC use, so where are we going to write that we have the explicit permission to use that media?
You make a fair point.
Which is why my personal views are my personal views, and they are not policy. They are sometimes not completely considered.
However, I firmly believe that we should probably avoid getting permission/nc/nd on most projects (although perhaps not itwiki) because of the large number of places where we can use fair use and the risk for making the impression that these limited permissions are what we want. If at some point in time someone convinces me that there is not a parallel to fair use in the effective law (i.e. the actions of the courts) in a substantial part of the world, then I would probably change my mind.
On 2/8/07, Claudio Mastroianni gattonero@gmail.com wrote:
It's starting to be tiring. I *don't* think we should admit "images with permission" AND "fair use images" TOO. I *do* think that is utterly stupid to make a not-existent distinction between the freedom of a permission image and a fair use image. Cause they're similarly unfree. Worst: it seems that fair use images are less free than permission images.
Allow me to disagree here.
Case in point.
Tomorrow, Carlo, residing in Italy decides to take the content of the Italian Wikipedia and start another encyclopedia project somewhere, let's call it Carlopedia. Carlo *cannot* take the images with permission and import them in his new database, because those images are tied to Wikipedia and nothing else. If anything, Carlo needs to go back to every single person that gave the permission to Wikipedia and ask for the permission to be given to Carlopedia. (minus one for permission images)
Tomorrow, John, residing in the US decides to take the content of the English Wikipedia and start another encyclopedia project somewhere. The Johnopedia. He *can* take the content under fair use and use it in his own project. (+1 for fair use)
Now, let's say Carlo wants to take the content of the English Wikipedia, he's stuck and needs to get out the fair-use content because in Italy, fair-use does not apply. (minus one for fair use)
And if John was to take the content of the Italian Wikipedia to start his new Johnopedia, he'd be stuck because he's got to go through the same whole process of asking for new permissions (minus one for permission images)
For the record, I am as much against the use of fair use as can be. I hate fair use, I think fair use is *evil* and that it should be erradicated from every single Wikimedia project.
But if you want to get into one being free-er than the other, by all means, learn to count.
That's -1*2 for permission = -2 and -1+1 for fair use.=0
Cheers,
Delphine PS. Thank you Mathias for pointing this out.
Gregory,
You write: "Under the "fair dealing" (or in the US "fair use") laws of most countries we can use works even with the explicit disapproval of the copyright holder"
And "the lawmakers or courts of most countries have realized "
I don't believe your conclusion is correct. Fair use exists in the US, Canada and probably a bunch of (ex) UK countries. Other countries indeed have something related, but usually the rules are much, much stricter than what US courts allow.
It is not only Italy, it is in many other countries. For example, the Dutch law has someting called "citaatrecht", or "citation right". This allow the reproduction of "parts of textual works, images, sounds, ...". Though the text is ambiguous as to the reproduction of parts of images or the reproduction of the entire image, the latter is usually assumed.
It is allowed for "announcement, judgement, discussion, criticism, or scientific debate."
Note that education is not in this list, as it is in the US and Italy. An announcement is for example a news event when a photo exhibition would be openend: the announcement may briefly show a remarkable photo from the exhibit. So wikinews would benefit, but not wikipedia. Judgement/recension: an author giving his judgment about the work of an other author. Criticism: when a critic writes an essay on a painting, he is allowed to show a pohoto of the painting. Scientific debate: when one scientists writes a treatise, and another disagrees, it's ok to cite portions, else OR would be impossible to criticize. So your argument That "fair use" images can be used in a fork and "by permission" can not, is invalid. Education is dealt separately, one may publish it without consent, but is obligated to pay the author.
In all cases, the following requirements must be met: * mention name of author * mention source * the cited work must already be legaly published * citation may not be too long * moral rights must be observed, no distortion of the citation * the purpose must in relation to the size of the citation * citation must be according to what is considered decent social behaviour
The use of images just as an illustration of a text is, according to the site of the dutch photographers federation, explicitly not considered a legal citation.
When I browse through the album covers on the english wiki, I guess 99% of the album covers is mere illustration, and not discussed in the text.
I wonder how the laws of Japan, Belgium, France and Germany are in this respect. It is my guess that japans law might be based on US laws after WWII.
My conclusion for the moment is and remains that fair use is basically a US law. It is not a license. It is not free content except the US, Canada and some (ex) UK countries. We should not look at "what is allowed under US law?" We should not look at "can we push the borders of the US law?" We should look at the questions: "How can we make existing content free? How can we create new free content?"
I wish you health and happiness, teun spaans
On 2/8/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/8/07, Claudio Mastroianni gattonero@gmail.com wrote:
Il giorno 08/feb/07, alle ore 16:06, Gregory Maxwell ha scritto:
Under Italian law you are permitted 'abridgment, quotation or reproduction of fragments or parts of a work for the purpose of criticism or discussion, or for instructional purposes.' (see Italian Copyright Act Article 70; Nimmer and Geller (1998-), Italy, §8[2][a])
Oh nice: I'll upload a lot of "fragment" of IMAGES. Now I know I can.
So you think Wikipedia must reproduce whole unabridged and high resolution copies of copyrighted works which suitable for replacing the commercial value of these works, in order to educate people?
If that is your view I really believe it is mistaken.
When we reproduce a copyrighted work, we should be careful to avoid our copy replacing the work on the marketplace and thereby harming the commercial value of that work... Not only is this the polite thing to do, it is what is required of us by law and not just in Italy. This includes providing only crops or low resolution versions ('fragments') and only as much as we need to facilitate our discussion.
The statement under Italian law is not all that different from the laws of other nations. Nor should it be, since all people everywhere have the same need to discuss and educate people about copyrighted works. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 2/26/07, teun spaans teun.spaans@gmail.com wrote:
Gregory,
You write: "Under the "fair dealing" (or in the US "fair use") laws of most countries we can use works even with the explicit disapproval of the copyright holder"
And "the lawmakers or courts of most countries have realized "
I don't believe your conclusion is correct. Fair use exists in the US, Canada and probably a bunch of (ex) UK countries. Other countries indeed have something related, but usually the rules are much, much stricter than what US courts allow.
Fair dealing is far stricter than US law. Do not lumb to two together (fair dealing probably covers around 25% of the planet mind).
On 2/8/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
"fair dealing" / "fair use"
Any equiverlence between the two is nominal at best. If we restricted en to fair dealing we would probably be deleting 1/4 million images (movie posters album covers pics of people basicaly everything except art and some screenshots)
On 2/8/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/8/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
"fair dealing" / "fair use"
Any equiverlence between the two is nominal at best. If we restricted en to fair dealing we would probably be deleting 1/4 million images (movie posters album covers pics of people basicaly everything except art and some screenshots)
You yourself admitted to me that, so long as we are discussing/commenting on/criticizing the posters or album covers, that they are fine.
I think your mistake is thinking that they are fine without discussion under US law. Even with a most hopeful reading of the case law in the US it's still clear that our position is stronger when we discuss.
In any case, it makes more sense in the long run to solve those cases by including some discussion rather than by deleting the images.... if the image really is so boring that it deserves no discussion, then I do not think we lose much by deleting it.
On 2/8/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/8/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/8/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
"fair dealing" / "fair use"
Any equiverlence between the two is nominal at best. If we restricted en to fair dealing we would probably be deleting 1/4 million images (movie posters album covers pics of people basicaly everything except art and some screenshots)
You yourself admitted to me that, so long as we are discussing/commenting on/criticizing the posters or album covers, that they are fine.
Sure. So we will have maybe 6 covers that are not deleted. This covers only a timy percentage of our images. Most are without commentry
I think your mistake is thinking that they are fine without discussion under US law. Even with a most hopeful reading of the case law in the US it's still clear that our position is stronger when we discuss.
I know this. I also know that that is a battle I cannot win on en as things stand.
In any case, it makes more sense in the long run to solve those cases by including some discussion rather than by deleting the images.... if the image really is so boring that it deserves no discussion, then I do not think we lose much by deleting it.
Tried that. The wikiproject albums people had a fit. I don't want to try this with the movie people I'm not usre I can afford to be that unpopular right now.
On 2/8/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Sure. So we will have maybe 6 covers that are not deleted. This covers only a timy percentage of our images. Most are without commentry
In any case, it makes more sense in the long run to solve those cases by including some discussion rather than by deleting the images.... if the image really is so boring that it deserves no discussion, then I do not think we lose much by deleting it.
Tried that. The wikiproject albums people had a fit. I don't want to try this with the movie people I'm not usre I can afford to be that unpopular right now.
Perhaps their position will change now that they see high level support for being more careful about what we include? ... This is the advantage of being somewhat strict about our "big goals": People who do not care if Wikipedia is free will now help make it more free, because they must in order to achieve the pretty articles they desire. :)
It's my view that it's a little counter productive for you to only point out the negative "We must delete a zillion images" rather than saying the more useful "We must add a lot of discussion to wikipedia or remove images" just because you think people will not do it. Have some confidence in our communities. :)
I think your mistake is thinking that they are fine without discussion under US law. Even with a most hopeful reading of the case law in the US it's still clear that our position is stronger when we discuss.
I know this. I also know that that is a battle I cannot win on en as things stand.
I don't know why it's so hard, at least on enwiki that we must discuss has long been an established requirement. This is why enwiki does not permit fair use galleries.
When you run into these discussions, please invite me.
On 2/8/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps their position will change now that they see high level support for being more careful about what we include?
I doubt it.
... This is the advantage of being somewhat strict about our "big goals": People who do not care if Wikipedia is free will now help make it more free, because they must in order to achieve the pretty articles they desire. :)
It's my view that it's a little counter productive for you to only point out the negative "We must delete a zillion images" rather than saying the more useful "We must add a lot of discussion to wikipedia or remove images" just because you think people will not do it. Have some confidence in our communities. :)
these were all tagged over a month ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Album_covers_with_no_commentary
I don't know why it's so hard, at least on enwiki that we must discuss has long been an established requirement. This is why enwiki does not permit fair use galleries.
When you run into these discussions, please invite me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums/Archive_11#Al...
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Perhaps their position will change now that they see high level support for being more careful about what we include? ... This is the advantage of being somewhat strict about our "big goals": People who do not care if Wikipedia is free will now help make it more free, because they must in order to achieve the pretty articles they desire. :)
Thsat requires standing back, and taking a big picture look at the situation. Significant judgements will not be made on the basis of whether this album cover or that production still is protected. We can almost always delete the specific picture in case of an argument from the owner. The general pattern about how we use these things can be more convincing if we ever have to present it to a judge.
Ec
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
***Your claim that Italian copyright law does not permit fair dealing is incorrect: ***
Under Italian law you are permitted 'abridgment, quotation or reproduction of fragments or parts of a work for the purpose of criticism or discussion, or for instructional purposes.' (see Italian Copyright Act Article 70; Nimmer and Geller (1998-), Italy, §8[2][a])
IANAL, but I'm not sure this can be applied to works of art, photographs and all the non-text things we're talking about. Last months SIAE (Italian Society of Authors and Publishers) enforced copyright on an amateurial art website which was showing contemporary paintings. The website was describing and commenting these works, so the use of the pictures was "to illustrate what it was talking about". Still, this is copyright infringement under the Italian Law. Instructional purposes means that a teacher can distribute N copies of a copyrighted media to his/her students, but if you print a book well you have to pay the copyright owner his/her fair royalty.
I would rather we not mention the ND license for an image that we use as fair use. By doing so we would be sending the wrong message: That ND licenses are somehow acceptable to us, even if only conditionally... that they aren't usually a result of a misunderstanding, and that we don't think the creative commons has made a mistake by mixing Free Content licenses under the same brand as far more restrictive licenses. We face a constant issue where people ask us "Why did you delete this? I released it under creative commons licensing so it is free!". People submit what they see, and if they see ND they will submit more of that.
Although, I don't think it's the end of the world that we do mention it.. it is a matter of fact, and because most of our permissible non-free images will come from the all-rights-reserved camp, I seriously hope we'll never see many NC / ND + "fair use" images. If we do, then we will know what a grave mistake for the world that the Creative Commons folks made by introducing so many licenses which are not free enough. _______________________________________________
Fair use is NOT a license. It's a way to defend yourself when challenged about copyright infringement. If you have a NC media used in Wikipedia under fair use, why should someone who wants to use it non-commercially be tricked into thinking that it is (c)All rights reserved when the media is actually a bit more free? Ok, not free enough for Wikimedia, but hey someone else may have other interests out there...
Marco (Cruccone)
On 2/8/07, Marco Chiesa chiesa.marco@gmail.com wrote:
IANAL, but I'm not sure this can be applied to works of art, photographs and all the non-text things we're talking about. Last months SIAE (Italian Society of Authors and Publishers) enforced copyright on an amateurial art website which was showing contemporary paintings. The website was describing and commenting these works, so the use of the pictures was "to illustrate what it was talking about". Still, this is copyright infringement under the Italian Law. Instructional purposes means that a teacher can distribute N copies of a copyrighted media to his/her students, but if you print a book well you have to pay the copyright owner his/her fair royalty.
My understanding from talking to someone I know who is a professor at a university is Italy (i.e. not a legal authority), is that the Italian law takes a much more aggressive stance on the commercial impact of a work than does the law other places. I don't believe that the foundation policy should be to conform to the most restrictive laws in the world, ... we should still be able to discuss democracy even if the Chinese government forbids such discussion. Rather, we should adopt rules reflecting a common subset.
In any case, I wasn't claiming to have solved itwiki's copyright issues... I was only pointing out that the very loud voice screaming that there was no parallel to fair dealing in Italian law was in error.
Fair use is NOT a license.
Where did I say it was?
It's a way to defend yourself when challenged about copyright infringement.
Sure, although it is equally true that "I have a license" is a way to defend yourself when challenged about copyright infringement. :)
If you have a NC media used in Wikipedia under fair use, why should someone who wants to use it non-commercially be tricked into thinking that it is (c)All rights reserved when the media is actually a bit more free? Ok, not free enough for Wikimedia, but hey someone else may have other interests out there...
Because "a bit more free" is nowhere near free enough, and by advertising that it is a bit more free we dramatically reduce the interest in getting it free enough, because there will be some people who are happy with the "bit more free" and their voices will be removed from the chorus asking and looking for ways to make it free enough.
In any case, thats my personal view. It's not policy, nor have I ever asked it to be policy. I provided it as contrast to show that there are people who not only disagree with accepting such licenses, but whom consider them so harmful that they'd rather we not do anything which could possibly seen as promoting them.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 2/8/07, Marco Chiesa chiesa.marco@gmail.com wrote:
IANAL, but I'm not sure this can be applied to works of art, photographs and all the non-text things we're talking about. Last months SIAE (Italian Society of Authors and Publishers) enforced copyright on an amateurial art website which was showing contemporary paintings. The website was describing and commenting these works, so the use of the pictures was "to illustrate what it was talking about". Still, this is copyright infringement under the Italian Law. Instructional purposes means that a teacher can distribute N copies of a copyrighted media to his/her students, but if you print a book well you have to pay the copyright owner his/her fair royalty.
My understanding from talking to someone I know who is a professor at a university is Italy (i.e. not a legal authority), is that the Italian law takes a much more aggressive stance on the commercial impact of a work than does the law other places. I don't believe that the foundation policy should be to conform to the most restrictive laws in the world, ... we should still be able to discuss democracy even if the Chinese government forbids such discussion. Rather, we should adopt rules reflecting a common subset.
Winks and nods seem to work well in Chinese copyright. The new unhackable MS operating system was immediately available as quickly as it came out in the US. Some countries enforce copyrights by occasionally seizing a big stack of pirated CDs and running them over with a bulldozer in front of the cameras. :-)
Ec
Ok, no NC, no ND... but yes for Fair Use.
Than, only free images but with some "adjusting" for en.wiki. Do you think it's a free image an image that is not editable (fair use like ND) ? That you can't use for commercial use except publish in a "To payment paper wikipedia" (because you can't put a fair use image on a bag, on a pc... fair use like NC) ?
Do you really think that a fair use image it's free and an nd-nc not ?
Ok... may be, WMF will delete the italian protected images but,
"it's easy to be gay when dealing with somebody else's ass"
Senpai
Marco Chiesa wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
***Your claim that Italian copyright law does not permit fair dealing is incorrect: ***
Under Italian law you are permitted 'abridgment, quotation or reproduction of fragments or parts of a work for the purpose of criticism or discussion, or for instructional purposes.' (see Italian Copyright Act Article 70; Nimmer and Geller (1998-), Italy, §8[2][a])
IANAL, but I'm not sure this can be applied to works of art, photographs and all the non-text things we're talking about. Last months SIAE (Italian Society of Authors and Publishers) enforced copyright on an amateurial art website which was showing contemporary paintings. The website was describing and commenting these works, so the use of the pictures was "to illustrate what it was talking about". Still, this is copyright infringement under the Italian Law. Instructional purposes means that a teacher can distribute N copies of a copyrighted media to his/her students, but if you print a book well you have to pay the copyright owner his/her fair royalty.
It's in the nature of artists' societies to act aggressively, even when their rights are uncertain. Did the owners of the website even try to claim fair dealing? We don't know what would happen if somebody with a reasonable case called their bluff. Just like a poker game.
Fair use is NOT a license.
That's what we've been saying.
It's a way to defend yourself when challenged about copyright infringement.
More than that, it's a positive defence. You can apply it before you're challenged
Ec
2007/2/8, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com:
If they are releasing under and ND license, it may even be because we already talked to them and failed to help them understand that a basic strong copyleft licenses will take care of most of the things that they really care about, such as preventing the fraud of someone making new versions and blaming them on the original author.. Whenever we see ND (and NC alike) we are seeing evidence of our own failure to advocate truly free licenses.
If every ND license is such a failure, we are truly in a horrible state, because the text of the GFDL itself is under an ND license, and thus we are not allowed to put it on a Wikipedia page, except for the fact that we must....
On 2/8/07, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
If every ND license is such a failure, we are truly in a horrible state, because the text of the GFDL itself is under an ND license, and thus we are not allowed to put it on a Wikipedia page, except for the fact that we must....
OMG! The wikipedia logo is non-free too!!!!
To every rule there is exceptions, but yet we can still say that a rule is bad. It is understood by most reasonable people that saying that something is bad does not imply that every single instance is bad when considered from all possible perspectives.
... and plus, many people would prefer the FSF licenses were themselves more permissively licensed. Hopefully in the future we will advocate to the FSF that they find terms which preserve their interest (people making an infinite number of confusing license forks is bad), without denying the world the freedom to modify.
On Thu, 8 Feb 2007, Andre Engels wrote:
2007/2/8, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com:
If they are releasing under and ND license, it may even be because we already talked to them and failed to help them understand that a basic strong copyleft licenses will take care of most of the things that they really care about, such as preventing the fraud of someone making new versions and blaming them on the original author.. Whenever we see ND (and NC alike) we are seeing evidence of our own failure to advocate truly free licenses.
If every ND license is such a failure, we are truly in a horrible state, because the text of the GFDL itself is under an ND license, and thus we are not allowed to put it on a Wikipedia page, except for the fact that we must....
This has always been a basic problem with the license.
Neroden puts it well in a comment on the GSFDL draft:
'As usual, this is a "non-free license text". Really, the license text needs to have a free license. Since some degree of license proliferation is unavoidable, we want people to reuse good clauses rather than inventing their own.
Since you don't want to encourage license proliferation or confuse people, it's OK to grant the permission to make derivative works of the license text somewhere less prominent, such as on your website. But it really ought to be done somewhere.'
SJ
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