I think a small interactive quiz or 30-60 sec videos at point of upload / contribution.. may help "encourage" people to get informed about these subjects and properly tag the media. For media pulled from external archive we should ideally only support importing compatible licensed media I don't think there is an issue of lack of quality documentation so much as reading that documentation is not a literal barrier to contributing. And possibly as you outline more people reaching out to inform. --michael Jovan Cormac wrote: (Meta link: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CommonsForce). *actively* educate people about the concepts of public domain and the Creative Commons. media archives such as Flickr for PD and CC material wrongly labelled as being "copyright, all rights reserved" and the likes, and notifying the person who wrongly used the label about the problem (using whatever means are provided by the site), along with a link to a small wiki designed exclusively to educate about PD and CC. will never contain any threats, whether legal, moral or personal. Rather, the project aims to educate the many, many internet users who don't worry about rights at all, because they truly don't know jack about them. They might know copyright, but overestimate its reach and/or not be aware that there are alternatives. When being told about the wide world of rights and how copyright alternatives like Creative Commons can promote access to free knowledge they might consider re-licensing most or all of their works. the Open-source Ticket Request System on Commons. Instead of receiving license information about media on Commons, the idea is to send out license information about media on the internet to those whom it concerns. people's awareness of key open content concepts like PD and CC, the proposal is in line with the very heart of Wikimedia's goals. page, http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:CommonsForce. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

I think a small interactive quiz or 30-60 sec videos at point of upload / contribution.. may help "encourage" people to get informed about these subjects and properly tag the media. For media pulled from external archive we should ideally only support importing compatible licensed media I don't think there is an issue of lack of quality documentation so much as reading that documentation is not a literal barrier to contributing. And possibly as you outline more people reaching out to inform. --michael Jovan Cormac wrote: > I'd like to propose a project I tentatively refer to as "Commons Force" (Meta link: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CommonsForce). > > Commons Force is a wiki used to coordinate a force of volunteers who *actively* educate people about the concepts of public domain and the Creative Commons. > > That entails those volunteers systematically searching the internet and media archives such as Flickr for PD and CC material wrongly labelled as being "copyright, all rights reserved" and the likes, and notifying the person who wrongly used the label about the problem (using whatever means are provided by the site), along with a link to a small wiki designed exclusively to educate about PD and CC. > > The goal is *not* to threaten those people in any way, and messages sent will never contain any threats, whether legal, moral or personal. Rather, the project aims to educate the many, many internet users who don't worry about rights at all, because they truly don't know jack about them. They might know copyright, but overestimate its reach and/or not be aware that there are alternatives. When being told about the wide world of rights and how copyright alternatives like Creative Commons can promote access to free knowledge they might consider re-licensing most or all of their works. > > In essence, what's being proposed is a Wiki that acts as a complement to the Open-source Ticket Request System on Commons. Instead of receiving license information about media on Commons, the idea is to send out license information about media on the internet to those whom it concerns. > > Since this would obviously promote both the free access to knowledge and people's awareness of key open content concepts like PD and CC, the proposal is in line with the very heart of Wikimedia's goals. > > > Your opinions & input are more than welcome at the project's discussion page, http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:CommonsForce. > > > Cheers, > Jovan Cormac > >

Michael, I'm afraid you didn't understand the proposal. The proposal has nothing to do whatsoever with people contributing to Commons not being educated about licenses. It's about contacting to people *outside* of Commons, people who may not be involved in any Wikimedia project, and tell them about PD or CC media wrongly tagged with copyright notices *on their own websites* or their accounts on media archives like Flickr. Please read again if in doubt.

That's a great idea. They might even do it...

On the subject of Flickr, I have a proposal. I'd like to see an option given to Flickr users to check "license for use on Wikipedia" which would be an easy way for people to a) make their pictures available to us and b) easier to find by Wikipedians.

On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 8:40 PM, <wiki-lists(a)phizz.demon.co.uk> wrote: That's easily answered. I'm not "renaming the license". I'm proposing that there be a tick box for that very same license with a more friendly tag that tells the user "can be used on Wikipedia". The license doesn't change, it's just the way it's communicated. I love and support the Creative Commons licenses, but they can present you with a lot of reading. A decision that says "can be used on Wikipedia" would be much more immediate.

That's a very fair comment. Is it possible to keep my proposal intact and address those issues?

2009/9/7 Bod Notbod <bodnotbod(a)gmail.com>om>: Yes. Just put "(This will allow your image to be used on Wikipedia)" next to the "CC-BY-SA" option.

wiki-lists(a)phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: If that was true, it would mean that any worrying about licensing on Commons is void as well, because after all, "just because some Commons user thinks something is public domain doesn't mean it really is". Obviously, there *are* lots of cases where media files clearly are copyrighted, and cases where they are clearly in public domain. Those cases are the interesting ones, and the one we should focus on.

I agree, vigilantism is not necessary and counter productive. The Commons Force proposal represents a clear and present danger, both for whoever hosts it and participates in it. It is not for a third party to intervene in a contract between two people and only two people. If the Commons Force restricted itself to documenting potential copyvios and reporting them to the copyright owners, I could see some merit to the proposal. Otherwise it will do more harm than good.

If a copyleft license is being violated, that is potentially of concern beyond the two legal parties, since properly using the license would mean that derivative works are also part of the commons and available for others to use and adapt.

Sage Ross wrote: The problem is that YOU have no knowledge whether a copyleft license is being violated or not. It is a gross arrogance on your part presume that because it is CC-BY-SA in one context that all such uses must be CC-BY-SA. If someone write a piece of music and releases it under a CC-BY-SA license, they can also allow uses under other conditions. Now assume that you hear that music in some TV advert is the advert CC-BY-SA? Not if the creator of the music relicensed it to the advertizer minus the copyleft requirement. Being an outsider to the agreement between the two parties you simple do not know.

The last time someone just said 'Creative Commons license' on one of my pics they were linking back to the flickr page which has the CC license link. Now most dont bother saying CC though they do link back to the flickr photopage, the information is available you just have to go look for it a bit. Does that count in your world?

On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Geoffrey Plourde<geo.plrd(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

> The Commons Force proposal represents a clear and present danger, both for whoever hosts it and participates in it. It is not for a third party to intervene in a contract between two people and only two people.

This kind of attitude seems to me to be a byproduct of the fact that, despite being intended to help fix the flaws in the copyright system, Creative Commons and other free licenses are "hacks" that are built on top of copyright. The construction of CC licenses as contracts between copyright owner and user is part of the hack, but not necessarily ideal for promoting a robust creative commons (in the lower case, general sense).