I think that this begins to hit at the core of the debate.
That said, even what is permitted by law seems to be more restrictive than what is currently occurring on the English Wikipedia.
Danny
In a message dated 1/7/2008 12:19:42 PM Eastern Standard Time, rarohde@gmail.com writes:
Some people, myself included, want to create the best possible no-cost encyclopedia. From that point of view, copyleft and free content is a means to that end.
Other people (including much of the WMF Board apparently) feel creating free content is an end in itself that justifies sacrificing some encyclopedic coverage and limiting our exercise of fair use rights to a much narrower set of circumstances than allowed by law.
I can understand that point of view, even though I don't agree with it.
**************Start the year off right. Easy ways to stay in shape. http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aolcmp00300000002489
That said, even what is permitted by law seems to be more restrictive than what is currently occurring on the English Wikipedia.
Really? If that's the case, then Mike needs to step in and tell us. If our use of images is actually illegal (or, could reasonably be considered illegal - I don't think fair use is sufficiently well defined to be sure until a judge makes a decision), then all our debate is meaningless and we just have to do what the law requires.
On 07/01/2008, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
That said, even what is permitted by law seems to be more restrictive than what is currently occurring on the English Wikipedia.
Really? If that's the case, then Mike needs to step in and tell us. If our use of images is actually illegal (or, could reasonably be considered illegal - I don't think fair use is sufficiently well defined to be sure until a judge makes a decision), then all our debate is meaningless and we just have to do what the law requires.
There are a couple of common use types that have potential issues album covers for example. However I don't know of enough case law in that area to say which way it would go.
On Jan 7, 2008 1:06 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
That said, even what is permitted by law seems to be more restrictive than what is currently occurring on the English Wikipedia.
Really? If that's the case, then Mike needs to step in and tell us.
Woah there. Mike Godwin is not your attorney.
He has more important (and less risky) tasks than following your contribs and wagging his finger at you for breaking the law.
When you publish material on Wikipedia ensuring that you are conforming with the law is your responsibility.
In order to avoid multiple posts, I'll just state the rest of what I would say to the thread here:
There clearly has been plenty of abuse of non-free images on Wikipedia in the past. Many cases of diagrams illustrations taken from recent textbooks and used to illustrate Wikipedia articles on the same subjects, for example.
The issue at hand here is, I think, one of conflating a half dozen different types of non-free image issue as one. There are issues of content shoveled into Wikipedia with nary a thought. There are issues of clearly illegal unlicensed use of copyrighted material. There are issues of material whos use discourages the creation of freely licensed replacements, etc.
Many Wikipedians call all these issues "fair use issues", and while there often is some amount of overlap, they are not the same.
When we pretend that they are the same we end up talking past each other, one person concerned about clearly illegal uses, another person responding that something isn't illegal just because it lacks a template. It's simply not productive.
I have been watching (and sometimes helping) with these matters as long as just about anyone else around here. I am quiet convinced that the worst of the issues have greatly improved over time, and that the average cases are not spirialing out of control.
Please take a breath and relax. Then thank the people around you who have been working on these issues, no matter what 'side' they appear to be arguing today. These are hard and stressful matters to work on and the people standing up to them deserve everyone's support, if not agreement.
Just remember that passion is often the enemy of reason. There are solid objective reasons that can be invoked to support your arguments on these subjects. Use them. And realize that all who are taking the time to address this battle care deeply for the project even if they do not share your exact position.
Wouldn't it make sense to enforce the restrictions on non-free images prior to upload rather than after, when its become viewed as 'content' part of an article and folks are distressed about deleting it?
If the object is to use non-free content only where we have to and until we no longer have to (which it is) then each instance of non-free content should be reviewed against this rubric before being uploaded into the article space. By a person, or a group of people. This may create a different sort of backlog than what we've got, but at least it is a review/inclusion backlog rather than a deletion backlog.
Uploading is easy - making a superficially sufficient fair use rationale is easy. Finding and deleting these images once they have been uploaded is difficult, and the images are a risk and a violation of our license while they remain. Therefore, the logical response is to make uploading non-free content harder.
Nathan
On Jan 7, 2008 2:04 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Jan 7, 2008 1:06 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
That said, even what is permitted by law seems to be more restrictive than what is currently occurring on the English Wikipedia.
Really? If that's the case, then Mike needs to step in and tell us.
Woah there. Mike Godwin is not your attorney.
He has more important (and less risky) tasks than following your contribs and wagging his finger at you for breaking the law.
When you publish material on Wikipedia ensuring that you are conforming with the law is your responsibility.
In order to avoid multiple posts, I'll just state the rest of what I would say to the thread here:
There clearly has been plenty of abuse of non-free images on Wikipedia in the past. Many cases of diagrams illustrations taken from recent textbooks and used to illustrate Wikipedia articles on the same subjects, for example.
The issue at hand here is, I think, one of conflating a half dozen different types of non-free image issue as one. There are issues of content shoveled into Wikipedia with nary a thought. There are issues of clearly illegal unlicensed use of copyrighted material. There are issues of material whos use discourages the creation of freely licensed replacements, etc.
Many Wikipedians call all these issues "fair use issues", and while there often is some amount of overlap, they are not the same.
When we pretend that they are the same we end up talking past each other, one person concerned about clearly illegal uses, another person responding that something isn't illegal just because it lacks a template. It's simply not productive.
I have been watching (and sometimes helping) with these matters as long as just about anyone else around here. I am quiet convinced that the worst of the issues have greatly improved over time, and that the average cases are not spirialing out of control.
Please take a breath and relax. Then thank the people around you who have been working on these issues, no matter what 'side' they appear to be arguing today. These are hard and stressful matters to work on and the people standing up to them deserve everyone's support, if not agreement.
Just remember that passion is often the enemy of reason. There are solid objective reasons that can be invoked to support your arguments on these subjects. Use them. And realize that all who are taking the time to address this battle care deeply for the project even if they do not share your exact position.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Jan 7, 2008 2:12 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Wouldn't it make sense to enforce the restrictions on non-free images prior to upload rather than after, when its become viewed as 'content' part of an article and folks are distressed about deleting it?
If the object is to use non-free content only where we have to and until we no longer have to (which it is) then each instance of non-free content should be reviewed against this rubric before being uploaded into the article space. By a person, or a group of people. This may create a different sort of backlog than what we've got, but at least it is a review/inclusion backlog rather than a deletion backlog.
Uploading is easy - making a superficially sufficient fair use rationale is easy. Finding and deleting these images once they have been uploaded is difficult, and the images are a risk and a violation of our license while they remain. Therefore, the logical response is to make uploading non-free content harder.
I'd be for that. There would be problems with people falsifying licenses, but that's probably more manageable than the current situation. Right now, fair use abuse creeps into the project over time, and the tools to manage it are woefully inadequate to that task. An approvals board would go a long, long way (possibly all the way) to halting this problem in its tracks.
Hammersoft
On 07/01/2008, Brian Hammer hammersoft123@gmail.com wrote:
I'd be for that. There would be problems with people falsifying licenses, but that's probably more manageable than the current situation. Right now, fair use abuse creeps into the project over time, and the tools to manage it are woefully inadequate to that task. An approvals board would go a long, long way (possibly all the way) to halting this problem in its tracks.
Hammersoft
Really. Okey lets test both your theories. Category:Images of people replacing placeholders. Everything there claims to be a free image. Have a go at approving only those which are (and no I'm not sure what Louis Du Pasquier is up to.yet).
On 07/01/2008, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Wouldn't it make sense to enforce the restrictions on non-free images prior to upload rather than after, when its become viewed as 'content' part of an article and folks are distressed about deleting it?
If the object is to use non-free content only where we have to and until we no longer have to (which it is) then each instance of non-free content should be reviewed against this rubric before being uploaded into the article space. By a person, or a group of people. This may create a different sort of backlog than what we've got, but at least it is a review/inclusion backlog rather than a deletion backlog.
Uploading is easy - making a superficially sufficient fair use rationale is easy. Finding and deleting these images once they have been uploaded is difficult, and the images are a risk and a violation of our license while they remain. Therefore, the logical response is to make uploading non-free content harder.
That would involve a very large amount of bureaucracy and a lot of effort. I think Bold-Revert-Discuss is a good method for dealing with such images, just as it is for other types of content. The discussion is going to be just as heated whether it happens before or after the image is added. All this would do is reduce the number of images by creating more hoops to jump through - such a reduction doesn't discriminate between good and bad images.
All this would do is reduce the number of images by
creating more hoops to jump through - such a reduction doesn't discriminate between good and bad images.
Sure it does. You can't add an image with a non-free license to an article without approval, and non-free license content that is not attached to an article is deleted automatically.
The bureacracy is at least centralized - a single process for review, not spread out among hundreds of people using their own methods and interpretations. The object is not to include as much non-free content as we can, after all, but as little as we can. BRD is a recipe for what we have now - chaos and dissent on a daily basis, with multiple AN/I threads active at any given time just on this subject alone.
(At this point, this should be a WikiEn-L thread).
Nathan
On Jan 7, 2008 2:22 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 07/01/2008, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Wouldn't it make sense to enforce the restrictions on non-free images prior to upload rather than after, when its become viewed as 'content' part of an article and folks are distressed about deleting it?
If the object is to use non-free content only where we have to and until we no longer have to (which it is) then each instance of non-free content should be reviewed against this rubric before being uploaded into the article space. By a person, or a group of people. This may create a different sort of backlog than what we've got, but at least it is a review/inclusion backlog rather than a deletion backlog.
Uploading is easy - making a superficially sufficient fair use rationale is easy. Finding and deleting these images once they have been uploaded is difficult, and the images are a risk and a violation of our license while they remain. Therefore, the logical response is to make uploading non-free content harder.
That would involve a very large amount of bureaucracy and a lot of effort. I think Bold-Revert-Discuss is a good method for dealing with such images, just as it is for other types of content. The discussion is going to be just as heated whether it happens before or after the image is added. All this would do is reduce the number of images by creating more hoops to jump through - such a reduction doesn't discriminate between good and bad images.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 07/01/2008, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
All this would do is reduce the number of images by
creating more hoops to jump through - such a reduction doesn't discriminate between good and bad images.
Sure it does. You can't add an image with a non-free license to an article without approval, and non-free license content that is not attached to an article is deleted automatically.
The reduction I'm talking about isn't the images that get rejected, it's the images that people don't even try to add because they can't be bothered with the hassle. *That* is indiscriminate. The images that get rejected are going to the same images as get removed at the moment, it will just happen earlier, that's all.
Well, if they can't be bothered to submit to the process of reviewing fair use images then that is a minor problem, we want to limit these images anyway.
On Jan 7, 2008 3:21 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 07/01/2008, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
All this would do is reduce the number of images by
creating more hoops to jump through - such a reduction doesn't discriminate between good and bad images.
Sure it does. You can't add an image with a non-free license to an article without approval, and non-free license content that is not attached to an article is deleted automatically.
The reduction I'm talking about isn't the images that get rejected, it's the images that people don't even try to add because they can't be bothered with the hassle. *That* is indiscriminate. The images that get rejected are going to the same images as get removed at the moment, it will just happen earlier, that's all.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Exactly.
Chad H.
On Jan 7, 2008 3:29 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Well, if they can't be bothered to submit to the process of reviewing fair use images then that is a minor problem, we want to limit these images anyway.
On Jan 7, 2008 3:21 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 07/01/2008, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
All this would do is reduce the number of images by
creating more hoops to jump through - such a reduction doesn't discriminate between good and bad images.
Sure it does. You can't add an image with a non-free license to an article without approval, and non-free license content that is not attached to an article is deleted automatically.
The reduction I'm talking about isn't the images that get rejected, it's the images that people don't even try to add because they can't be bothered with the hassle. *That* is indiscriminate. The images that get rejected are going to the same images as get removed at the moment, it will just happen earlier, that's all.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 07/01/2008, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Jan 7, 2008 1:06 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
That said, even what is permitted by law seems to be more restrictive than what is currently occurring on the English Wikipedia.
Really? If that's the case, then Mike needs to step in and tell us.
Woah there. Mike Godwin is not your attorney.
He has more important (and less risky) tasks than following your contribs and wagging his finger at you for breaking the law.
When you publish material on Wikipedia ensuring that you are conforming with the law is your responsibility.
I haven't uploaded any fair use images, I'm not asking for personal legal advice. I'm asking for legal advice for the good of the project. Yes, the WMF may be protected from legal liability for the actions of users, but it's still a legal issue which affects a foundation project, so it seems like a reasonable thing for the WMF legal counsel to give advice on.
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org