Wikijunior, as many already know, is publishing a series of books, the first of which is funded by the mysterious Beck Foundation.
This message has worried many of us:
"According to the United States Code for registering a copyrighted work, you must include your nationality (what country you claim citizenship in) and the country you are currently residing in, if different. It is also suggested by the U.S. Copyright office to include the year you were born, for identification purposes. They also ask for the year of death, and if you know of a Wikibookian who has passed away, this would also be useful. How exactly we are going to collect this information for users and contributors of this Wikibooks is totally unknown, and is going to be an interesting little ride. Please add comments in the discussion pagehttp://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikijunior_Big_Cats/Authors&action=editif you have any reservations about giving this information out. This is moving into new territory here, so we don't know exactly what is going to be required or if new policies should or ought to be developed."
(sample of the pages in question: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior_Big_Cats/Authors)
We are going to publish formal credit to any contributor that provides their name, but the project's shot if we do indeed need everybodies' info, no matter what. Many don't feel comfortable revealing such detailed info, like their birth year, and we should respect that.
Can anyone provide insight on the level of necessity to include everyone's info.
Nick/Zanimum
Nicholas Moreau wrote:
Wikijunior, as many already know, is publishing a series of books, the first of which is funded by the mysterious Beck Foundation.
This message has worried many of us:
"According to the United States Code for registering a copyrighted work, you must include your nationality (what country you claim citizenship in) and the country you are currently residing in, if different. It is also suggested by the U.S. Copyright office to include the year you were born, for identification purposes. They also ask for the year of death, and if you know of a Wikibookian who has passed away, this would also be useful. How exactly we are going to collect this information for users and contributors of this Wikibooks is totally unknown, and is going to be an interesting little ride. Please add comments in the discussion pagehttp://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikijunior_Big_Cats/Authors&action=editif you have any reservations about giving this information out. This is moving into new territory here, so we don't know exactly what is going to be required or if new policies should or ought to be developed."
(sample of the pages in question: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior_Big_Cats/Authors)
We are going to publish formal credit to any contributor that provides their name, but the project's shot if we do indeed need everybodies' info, no matter what. Many don't feel comfortable revealing such detailed info, like their birth year, and we should respect that.
Can anyone provide insight on the level of necessity to include everyone's info.
Nick/Zanimum
??????
Can you cite this piece of law ? Is the law the same in all countries ? If not, why having to respect this one ? If this is correct, should we follow the law ? Or explore a new territory ?
I am really not happy with the idea of crediting only those who will provide all this information. It is very contrary to my idea of what our project is. I am even less happy seeing editors should supposingly put that public on the net. What about everyone privacy ? When I buy a book by the way, nowhere is such an information provided on the book.
Can the lawyer guys here give some feedback on this issue ?
Anthere
Anthere wrote:
Nicholas Moreau wrote:
Wikijunior, as many already know, is publishing a series of books, the first of which is funded by the mysterious Beck Foundation.
This message has worried many of us:
"According to the United States Code for registering a copyrighted work, you must include your nationality (what country you claim citizenship in) and the country you are currently residing in, if different.
??????
Can you cite this piece of law ? Is the law the same in all countries ? If not, why having to respect this one ? If this is correct, should we follow the law ? Or explore a new territory ?
I am really not happy with the idea of crediting only those who will provide all this information. It is very contrary to my idea of what our project is. I am even less happy seeing editors should supposingly put that public on the net. What about everyone privacy ? When I buy a book by the way, nowhere is such an information provided on the book.
Can the lawyer guys here give some feedback on this issue ?
Anthere
I am not a "lawyer", but I have studied copyright law extensively and feel competent to answer some of these questions.
U.S. copyright code does require this information if you are going to formally "register" the copyrighted work. The idea is that the author's nationality directly influences what copyright laws apply to a given piece of literature, even if it was originally published in a place that is different from the nationality of the author. For instance, French law applies to French citizens for copyright even if the book was originally published in the USA, with all of the gory details that go with that issue as well. This is information that is also required under international copyright treaties as well.
For some more specific details of at least registration forms required for U.S. publication and registration, see: http://www.copyright.gov/
The information that I was requesting specifically when I wrote the stuff in question at Wikijunior asking for the full complete name was based on the registration forms from the above web site. This is also a matter of copyright law in the sense that we are asking for full details from anybody that wants to make a copyright claim on something that is found on Wikimedia content pages. Other authors that may want to stay anonymous can do so, but their ability to make a copyright claim later is going to be much more difficult. The U.S. copyright office does require information about all potential copyright claims for a given work.
Although not specifically stated on all Wikimedia websites, there is an implicit copyright applied to all content (except for older Wikinews content that was previously public domain content). We use various "licenses" to permit redistirbution and duplication of the information, but the copyright claim is still there. If we want to enforce the GFDL at some point due to somebody trying to abuse the content, at some point we as a community will have to collect all of the information asked above for each author in order to take the case to court and force the copyright violator to comply with the GFDL (taking Wikipedia content and claiming it as their own, for instance, under a propritary license).
BTW, if you buy a book all of that information can be found at the national copyright registration office, even if it isn't specifically provided inside the front cover of the book. And that information is going to be available generally through the internet anyway, but it may be a little harder to find than simply a single click from the main page of the on-line version of the book.
As far as being "very contrary to my idea of what our project is", I don't see how asking for voluntary information about nationality is contrary to the spirit of a Wiki. It is not required if you don't want to give the information, and as I pointed out is required if we want to keep the information "free" and availble under a copyleft arrangement. As far as privacy, that is up to you to decide on how much privacy you want to have in your life. If you are going to make waves in public (like trying to enforce your copyrights), you need to make claims to what you have written in a public manner. Authors throughout time have done this, and goes with the public nature of the written word. Yes, some authors may go to jail because of what they've written, and you can point to many people who have had that happen throughout all of time. That is what happens when you stick your neck out in public, and why in general you as a citizen of whatever country you live in should try to support free speech laws.
I tried to make a bug report on this earlier, asking for this information to be collected as a part of the user record directly on each Mediawiki project, but the bug report was squashed because the developers felt this is something that should have been debated first (presumably on Wikipedia by the comment of the one developer who opposed the bug). I still feel that this should be something that can and should be collected for each user, on a voluntary basis. From my reading of the GFDL, this may even be required information if we want to be able to enforce the GFDL.
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
Anthere wrote:
Nicholas Moreau wrote:
Wikijunior, as many already know, is publishing a series of books, the first of which is funded by the mysterious Beck Foundation.
This message has worried many of us:
"According to the United States Code for registering a copyrighted work, you must include your nationality (what country you claim citizenship in) and the country you are currently residing in, if different.
??????
Can you cite this piece of law ? Is the law the same in all countries ? If not, why having to respect this one ? If this is correct, should we follow the law ? Or explore a new territory ?
I am really not happy with the idea of crediting only those who will provide all this information. It is very contrary to my idea of what our project is. I am even less happy seeing editors should supposingly put that public on the net. What about everyone privacy ? When I buy a book by the way, nowhere is such an information provided on the book.
Can the lawyer guys here give some feedback on this issue ?
Anthere
I am not a "lawyer", but I have studied copyright law extensively and feel competent to answer some of these questions.
U.S. copyright code does require this information if you are going to formally "register" the copyrighted work. The idea is that the author's nationality directly influences what copyright laws apply to a given piece of literature, even if it was originally published in a place that is different from the nationality of the author. For instance, French law applies to French citizens for copyright even if the book was originally published in the USA, with all of the gory details that go with that issue as well. This is information that is also required under international copyright treaties as well.
For some more specific details of at least registration forms required for U.S. publication and registration, see: http://www.copyright.gov/
The information that I was requesting specifically when I wrote the stuff in question at Wikijunior asking for the full complete name was based on the registration forms from the above web site. This is also a matter of copyright law in the sense that we are asking for full details from anybody that wants to make a copyright claim on something that is found on Wikimedia content pages. Other authors that may want to stay anonymous can do so, but their ability to make a copyright claim later is going to be much more difficult. The U.S. copyright office does require information about all potential copyright claims for a given work.
Although not specifically stated on all Wikimedia websites, there is an implicit copyright applied to all content (except for older Wikinews content that was previously public domain content). We use various "licenses" to permit redistirbution and duplication of the information, but the copyright claim is still there. If we want to enforce the GFDL at some point due to somebody trying to abuse the content, at some point we as a community will have to collect all of the information asked above for each author in order to take the case to court and force the copyright violator to comply with the GFDL (taking Wikipedia content and claiming it as their own, for instance, under a propritary license).
BTW, if you buy a book all of that information can be found at the national copyright registration office, even if it isn't specifically provided inside the front cover of the book. And that information is going to be available generally through the internet anyway, but it may be a little harder to find than simply a single click from the main page of the on-line version of the book.
As far as being "very contrary to my idea of what our project is", I don't see how asking for voluntary information about nationality is contrary to the spirit of a Wiki. It is not required if you don't want to give the information, and as I pointed out is required if we want to keep the information "free" and availble under a copyleft arrangement. As far as privacy, that is up to you to decide on how much privacy you want to have in your life. If you are going to make waves in public (like trying to enforce your copyrights), you need to make claims to what you have written in a public manner. Authors throughout time have done this, and goes with the public nature of the written word. Yes, some authors may go to jail because of what they've written, and you can point to many people who have had that happen throughout all of time. That is what happens when you stick your neck out in public, and why in general you as a citizen of whatever country you live in should try to support free speech laws.
I tried to make a bug report on this earlier, asking for this information to be collected as a part of the user record directly on each Mediawiki project, but the bug report was squashed because the developers felt this is something that should have been debated first (presumably on Wikipedia by the comment of the one developer who opposed the bug). I still feel that this should be something that can and should be collected for each user, on a voluntary basis. From my reading of the GFDL, this may even be required information if we want to be able to enforce the GFDL.
I understand all what you read.
But I believe you are forgetting something in your reasonning. And you make it doubly clear in your answer to me on wikibooks. You suggest that * either an author could leave his name in the list and add all the information you are requesting OR * the author can remove himself from the list of authors, and even possibly go for anonymous editing;
Just above, you wrote "Other authors that may want to stay
anonymous can do so..."
You here completely neglect the fact that for many editors, having their name amongst authors of a work offers a unique gift : being recognised for what they did. At least here on our projects, or at least on the printed wikijunior. Many will not have the desire of going to a tribunal to enforce their rights. I know I would not. I am happy if someone recognised that I wrote something. But would I spent money to ensure that someone does not illegally claim authorship and ownership over something I wrote, when this text is still free HERE ?
Putting all this information is ONLY REQUIRED if one wants to enforce the copyright. If someone does not wish to get involved in this, he does not need to put all this private information. If someone wants to participate to building a free resource, he should have the right to get the credit of his work, without being forced to provide private information.
What I find odd in the page you did on Wikibooks, and which is reinforced by the comment you left in the talk page, is that it appears as if there is no choice : either give private information, real name, country of birth, year of birth and so on and be an author with ability to enforce the copyright... or be just plain nothing. If some editors are willing to provide this information, I have no problem with it. But suggesting editors they should remove their name amongst authors or go anonymous if they do not agree to provide this information... is imho not good. I wish that our projects stay open, with some editors giving their adress and their shoe size if they wish, others only known under a pseudonyme, and others anonymous. We welcome it all. And everyone is worth.
I edited the page accordingly to clarify this to editors.
And yes, your request was not a bug, it is something to be debated. Developers were correct in their answer ihmo. We should be very careful about that Robert.
Anthere wrote:
And yes, your request was not a bug, it is something to be debated. Developers were correct in their answer ihmo. We should be very careful about that Robert.
I have tried to start the discussion about this issue in the past, but most places I made the request about the topic it became a dead issue with most people suggesting that it was a non-issue. In this particular instance with the Wikijunior Solar System (and moving on subsequently to other Wikijunior books like the Big Cats volume) I decided to "BE BOLD" and try to collect the information for that volume alone. On the Wikijunior Solar System side, there have been many contributions to this information, and I've had the notice up there requesting comments for at least two months now with absolutely no discussion what so ever. In this regard I am grateful that you are even asking about and questioning the request for this information. Seriously. At least there is a difference of opinion and now a serious discussion can take place rather than a one-sided discussion where nobody seems to care.
All I'm trying to do is collect what public information is already available for each of the authors listed. That is a problem sometimes with computer databases in that when the information is scattered around and not collected you don't think anything of it to mention personal details of your life, but when you actually see it gathered together in an easily searchable form you start to question the rationale of having that information widely available. Information about you is currently being kept by governments and private corporations all of the time, and legitimate social discussions do need to take place about how much privacy should we expect when we leave a public paper trail that can be researched and have data mining performed on that information.
If this is going to turn into a general discussion about how much people can do by trying to do data mining on Wikimedia projects, I welcome that sort of discussion. In this case, I'm doing data mining of authors on a particuar Wikiproject, trying to get information about the authors including their full real name, nationality, and other related information. Some of this I've been able to find through means other than a voluntary contribution of this information, including searching talk pages and user pages. Should I stop that sort of searching, even if I can find that sort of data in a "public" forum (like talk pages generally are)? Should the privacy policy be expanded to specifically prohibit this sort of data mining? I don't know the answers to these questions, but at least I'm doing this sort of research out in the open and in public. There is nothing stopping anybody else from doing this sort of research and keeping it for themselves either, or keeping it in a private database for some purpose that you may not appreciate or like.
As far as I understood this is not mandatory information but only recommended stuff.
One fact is that identification of the author and of his year of death is very important for copyright law since his work will fall into public domain 70 years after he died.
But there is nothing mandatory in these informations !
Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Legal CERSA-CNRS PARIS 2
Anthere wrote:
Nicholas Moreau wrote:
Wikijunior, as many already know, is publishing a series of books, the first of which is funded by the mysterious Beck Foundation.
This message has worried many of us:
"According to the United States Code for registering a copyrighted work, you must include your nationality (what country you claim citizenship in) and the country you are currently residing in, if different. It is also suggested by the U.S. Copyright office to include the year you were born, for identification purposes. They also ask for the year of death, and if you know of a Wikibookian who has passed away, this would also be useful. How exactly we are going to collect this information for users and contributors of this Wikibooks is totally unknown, and is going to be an interesting little ride. Please add comments in the discussion pagehttp://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikijunior_Big_Cats/Authors&action=editif
you have any reservations about giving this information out. This is moving into new territory here, so we don't know exactly what is going to be required or if new policies should or ought to be developed."
(sample of the pages in question: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior_Big_Cats/Authors)
We are going to publish formal credit to any contributor that provides their name, but the project's shot if we do indeed need everybodies' info, no matter what. Many don't feel comfortable revealing such detailed info, like their birth year, and we should respect that.
Can anyone provide insight on the level of necessity to include everyone's info.
Nick/Zanimum
??????
Can you cite this piece of law ? Is the law the same in all countries ? If not, why having to respect this one ? If this is correct, should we follow the law ? Or explore a new territory ?
I am really not happy with the idea of crediting only those who will provide all this information. It is very contrary to my idea of what our project is. I am even less happy seeing editors should supposingly put that public on the net. What about everyone privacy ? When I buy a book by the way, nowhere is such an information provided on the book.
Can the lawyer guys here give some feedback on this issue ?
Anthere
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:
As far as I understood this is not mandatory information but only recommended stuff.
One fact is that identification of the author and of his year of death is very important for copyright law since his work will fall into public domain 70 years after he died.
But there is nothing mandatory in these informations !
Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Legal CERSA-CNRS PARIS 2
Is there any reason why we should not collect this information as voluntary information fields on the user configuration page? Are there any realisitc legal roadblocks or some other reason why this information should not be there associated with the contributions to each change with the Wikimedia projects?
This seems as though I'm asking for identification numbers like Social Security numbers, bank account information, or other related information. I am not. What I am asking for is that if you want to claim copyright on your contribution, you need to give this minimum amount of information for legal protection and to give a realistic copyright claim on your contributions. As it stands right now, there is no way that you can realisticly claim copyright on any of your contributions right now, and certainly there is no way that you can resolve potential copyright claims on material if it goes to court in a dispute.
I really don't see what the big deal about this is anyway. If you want to be an anonymous contributor... even with a "registered user" account, that is still possible. That will not be taken away, but at the same time you can't be anonymous and maintain control of copyright. Those are mutually exclusive issues. And all content for Wikimedia projects is copyrighted... just with generous redistrubtion licenses available to anybody who is interested.
I guess it will take a formal legal disupte to force the issue here, but by then it will be too late. I would be willing to be an "expert witness" for a plaintiff willing to invalidate copyright claims for anybody who has currently done contributions toward Wikimedia Foundation projects right now.
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