I believe the matter has got some extra questions in it that are a bit out of the issues I raised in a previous post, which means most of those issues have not been really addressed yet. Some of the extra questions are:
*"Erik and Mike have the right to talk for Wikimedia" - I do not question this. They are both staff members, and I honestly do not know well enough the internal organization of Wikimedia Foundation to be asserting who has the right to talk about which issues. Indeed, the fact that they _were_ talking as Wikimedia staff and giving an explicit position is what prompted me to start fussing on foundation-l. Because I have failed to see whether their statements were done regarding the situation specifically in the UK, or in other countries too; and because I have still oblivious about which copyright law we *must* follow and which we *should* follow. I'll come back to this later. *"Local projects have the right to make their own amendments" - Absolutely! The Board is not to decide on how local projects should be regulated. Nor am I asking for external interference from the Foundation to revert any local decision. I have seen such requests (mainly for the English Wikipedia) on this mailing list, and the mantra "WMF does not interfere in local decisions" always comes up, and rightfully so. But again, a clarification about our licensing policies helps local projects to decide on their contents; and Commons is especially sensitive to that, and the result was that from a couple of statements, a major turn in the Licensing policy was done. Especially because the change was not to make it narrower, but broader. *"WMF is not going to be legally harmed for hosting such content" - I truly believe that too, and I really hope that. However, at this point, I couldn't care less about if WMF would be sued or not about images under the PD-art problem. I am mostly worried about: 1) Reusers of this content. We have to tell people that the media is PD, but actually it may not be so PD in their country, so you have to know your local legislation to know if you can reuse it or not. Not exactly very easy. So it's free content, but heh maybe not *that* free. Which takes me to point 2... 2) People in Free Software/Free Knowledge/Free Culture movements/organizations in affected countries. Suddenly, organizations in such countries supporting Wikimedia projects, lack a good reason to convince patrons to release media to the public - if the content can be used even against such organizations' will, why should they bother negotiating such release? I don't know how big this problem is, but it would be good if people from Wikimedia chapters from affected countries could weigh in their opinion. 3) Administrators and/or OTRS personnel receiving take-down orders. What should they do? Contact our designated agent (Mike Godwin/Sue Gardner)? The legal counselor (Mike Godwin)? Ignore such orders and show them {{PD-Art}}, stating we can't do anything because it's against policy? Even if that means ignoring local legislation? (in "local" here I mean where these people are physically located - do they become liable for not taking down such content when prompted to?) *"We're teaching the world to free up content" - by breaking/ignoring local laws? Again, I question the methods. Why are we then accepting the lack of Freedom of panorama in the USA, or even following USA's interpretation of the Rule of the shorter term? These are also limitations to freedom of use, and on Commons we accept media from other countries that are not following strictly USA's interpretations on these matters... are we doing wrong? Should we start choosing which laws we deem "stupid" (I actually read this term on the discussion about changing PD-Art) and ignore them, regardless of them being US laws or not? This is not a rhetorical question. So, I'm afraid that some things have not been really clarified... but the main one is: which copyright laws must/should Commons follow, in order to be absolutely compatible with WMF's values and licensing policies? Because the Board resolution from 2007 is not including Commons. Are we in a legal vacuum?
Patrícia
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Patricia Rodrigues wrote:
- Administrators and/or OTRS personnel receiving take-down orders. What should they do? Contact our designated agent (Mike Godwin/Sue Gardner)? The legal counselor (Mike Godwin)? Ignore such orders and show them {{PD-Art}}, stating we can't do anything because it's against policy? Even if that means ignoring local legislation? (in "local" here I mean where these people are physically located - do they become liable for not taking down such content when prompted to?)
*"We're teaching the world to free up content" - by breaking/ignoring local laws? Again, I question the methods. Why are we then accepting the lack of Freedom of panorama in the USA, or even following USA's interpretation of the Rule of the shorter term? These are also limitations to freedom of use, and on Commons we accept media from other countries that are not following strictly USA's interpretations on these matters... are we doing wrong? Should we start choosing which laws we deem "stupid" (I actually read this term on the discussion about changing PD-Art) and ignore them, regardless of them being US laws or not? This is not a rhetorical question. So, I'm afraid that some things have not been really clarified... but the main one is: which copyright laws must/should Commons follow, in order to be absolutely compatible with WMF's values and licensing policies? Because the Board resolution from 2007 is not including Commons. Are we in a legal vacuum?
Actually, any take-down orders (DMCA or otherwise legal) should be sent directly to the foundation office as designated agent (via email, fax or mail) for handling. - -- Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator
Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia Foundation today: http://donate.wikimedia.org Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Phone: 415.839.6885 x 601 Fax: 415.882.0495
E-Mail: cary@wikimedia.org
Yes, exactly. Thus, if the Italian-language OTRS receives a takedown notice, the appropriate response, I think (correct me if I'm wrong) is not to cave and delete everything out of fear but to 1) direct the sender of the notice to send it to the Foundation itself, and 2) to ask the Foundation office for further advice as well.
Mark
On 25/08/2008, Cary Bass cary@wikimedia.org wrote:
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Patricia Rodrigues wrote:
- Administrators and/or OTRS personnel receiving take-down orders. What
should they do? Contact our designated agent (Mike Godwin/Sue Gardner)? The legal counselor (Mike Godwin)? Ignore such orders and show them {{PD-Art}}, stating we can't do anything because it's against policy? Even if that means ignoring local legislation? (in "local" here I mean where these people are physically located - do they become liable for not taking down such content when prompted to?) *"We're teaching the world to free up content" - by breaking/ignoring local laws? Again, I question the methods. Why are we then accepting the lack of Freedom of panorama in the USA, or even following USA's interpretation of the Rule of the shorter term? These are also limitations to freedom of use, and on Commons we accept media from other countries that are not following strictly USA's interpretations on these matters... are we doing wrong? Should we start choosing which laws we deem "stupid" (I actually read this term on the discussion about changing PD-Art) and ignore them, regardless of them being US laws or not? This is not a rhetorical question. So, I'm afraid that some things have not been really clarified... but the main one is: which copyright laws must/should Commons follow, in order to be absolutely compatible with WMF's values and licensing policies? Because the Board resolution from 2007 is not including Commons. Are we in a legal vacuum?
Actually, any take-down orders (DMCA or otherwise legal) should be sent directly to the foundation office as designated agent (via email, fax or mail) for handling.
Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator
Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia Foundation today: http://donate.wikimedia.org Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Phone: 415.839.6885 x 601 Fax: 415.882.0495
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--- On Mon, 8/25/08, Patricia Rodrigues snooze210904@yahoo.se wrote:
So, I'm afraid that some things have not been really clarified... but the main one is: which copyright laws must/should Commons follow, in order to be absolutely compatible with WMF's values and licensing policies? Because the Board resolution from 2007 is not including Commons. Are we in a legal vacuum?
Commons is only excluded from being able to make an EDP [1] The rest of the resolution still applies to Commons. No one with any authority is going to tell you what copyright law should be followed. The standard answer is: Commons needs to work out their local policy within the bounds of resolution.
Personally I don't think the resolution offers much in the way of clarity, *especially* in regards to "public domain". But for better or worse, the board has not been willing to touch the issue since the resolution was passed.
However if both sides of the debate were not compatible with WMF's values and licensing policies, I am sure the board would be vocal in pointing out the problem. They spoke up loudly enough when it.WP was using "with permission" images. So I would interpret Domas saying "I'd really like to trust the community [with preserving WMF values]" (as well as silence from the rest of board) to mean "both sides of the debate seem to be inbounds of WMF policy and values right now". it.WP certainly wasn't told that their community was trusted to do as they saw fit to preserve WMF values. They were pretty much told to change their policy.
Birgitte SB
[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy
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Birgitte SB wrote:
However if both sides of the debate were not compatible with WMF's values and licensing policies, I am sure the board would be vocal in pointing out the problem. They spoke up loudly enough when it.WP was using "with permission" images. So I would interpret Domas saying "I'd really like to trust the community [with preserving WMF values]" (as well as silence from the rest of board) to mean "both sides of the debate seem to be inbounds of WMF policy and values right now". it.WP certainly wasn't told that their community was trusted to do as they saw fit to preserve WMF values. They were pretty much told to change their policy.
Birgitte SB
I've noticed that Italian Wikipedia contains a rather large number of cc-by-nd, cc-by-nc and various different combinations thereof images like that[1]. I was not aware of any moment when the Foundation told it.wp it wasn't trusted to preserve WMF values, and feel secure that if this took place after the EDP policy went into effect then I would have heard something about it...can you source that? - -- Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator
[1] http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categoria:Immagini_creative_commons
Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia Foundation today: http://donate.wikimedia.org Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Phone: 415.839.6885 x 601 Fax: 415.882.0495
E-Mail: cary@wikimedia.org
--- On Mon, 8/25/08, Cary Bass cary@wikimedia.org wrote:
From: Cary Bass cary@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Monday, August 25, 2008, 5:13 PM -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Birgitte SB wrote:
However if both sides of the debate were not
compatible with WMF's values and licensing policies, I am sure the board would be vocal in pointing out the problem. They spoke up loudly enough when it.WP was using "with permission" images. So I would interpret Domas saying "I'd really like to trust the community [with preserving WMF values]" (as well as silence from the rest of board) to mean "both sides of the debate seem to be inbounds of WMF policy and values right now". it.WP certainly wasn't told that their community was trusted to do as they saw fit to preserve WMF values. They were pretty much told to change their policy.
Birgitte SB
I've noticed that Italian Wikipedia contains a rather large number of cc-by-nd, cc-by-nc and various different combinations thereof images like that[1]. I was not aware of any moment when the Foundation told it.wp it wasn't trusted to preserve WMF values, and feel secure that if this took place after the EDP policy went into effect then I would have heard something about it...can you source that?
Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator
[1] http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categoria:Immagini_creative_commons
I never said it.WP was told it wasn't trusted to preserve WMF values. (a negative statement)
Rather when the issue was brought up here (just like the PD-Art issue) they were NOT told what Commons has been told regarding being trusted to decide the issue internally. (a positive statement)
It.WP was told to change it's policy (a positive statement)
Just wanted to clear that up even though I don't have time to dig through the archives. Don't know if that actually clarifies. But not being told what Commons has been told != Being told the negative of what Commons has been told.
Birgitte SB
BTW this did not happen after EDP
On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 12:13 AM, Cary Bass cary@wikimedia.org wrote:
I've noticed that Italian Wikipedia contains a rather large number of cc-by-nd, cc-by-nc and various different combinations thereof images like that[1]. I was not aware of any moment when the Foundation told it.wp it wasn't trusted to preserve WMF values, and feel secure that if this took place after the EDP policy went into effect then I would have heard something about it...can you source that?
Just to explain, the Italian law does not admit fair use, so the EDP of it.wp requires that the non-free images (those which qualify for fairuse in the licensing policy) need a permission for their use on it.wp (a not-free-enough cc counts as a permission). Others may have a double license, such as public domain in Italy (non-artistic photos become PD in Italy after 20 years - but they are not accepted on commons). So, yes, we changed our policy, we deleted a lot of stuff, some members of the community were pissed off by the resolution, but nonetheless we complied.
Regarding the take-down notice, if I remember it was 2 years ago. We managed to make the news know of it, and some proposal of law changes introducing a kind of fair use were made (then afaik the Government fell and it all got stuck).
The point is: there are a lot of things in Italy that have restrictions on their use that are not related to copyright, and commons/the WMF only speak copyright, so we get the contradiction of having something which is free (from copyright) but that still requires permission to be used. And of course when you ask the WMF for legal advice, the answer is see it by yourselves (I perfectly understand the reasons - such as mixing of copyright laws of different countries is too complicated to give a precise answer). Cruccone
A side-note:
some proposal of law changes introducing a kind of fair use were made (then afaik the Government fell and it all got stuck).
Yes. An under-secretary said that we have panorama freedom because tha law does not say the contrary, and that our "short quotation right" is similar to the USA fair use, but the state machinery does not seem to think so. The parliamentary Culture committee approved a law emendation to extend the quotation right to images and music for didactic non commercial sites, but a further decree was required...
Nemo
- Reusers of this content. We have to tell people that the media is PD,
but actually it may not be so PD in their country, so you have to know your
local legislation to know if you can reuse it or not.
In Norway there is no such thing as PD. John
2008/8/25 John at Darkstar vacuum@jeb.no:
- Reusers of this content. We have to tell people that the media is PD,
but actually it may not be so PD in their country, so you have to know your
local legislation to know if you can reuse it or not.
In Norway there is no such thing as PD. John
Huh? Yes chapter 6 does give some some pretty strong moral rights but copyright expires after life+70.
geni skrev:
2008/8/25 John at Darkstar vacuum@jeb.no:
- Reusers of this content. We have to tell people that the media is PD,
but actually it may not be so PD in their country, so you have to know your
local legislation to know if you can reuse it or not.
In Norway there is no such thing as PD. John
Huh? Yes chapter 6 does give some some pretty strong moral rights but copyright expires after life+70.
Sorry, not much solutions here, mostly just a bunch of new questions.
The exclusive rights to control the use of the works vanishes, but the overall rights does not transform into something like public domain. [http://www.lovdata.no/all/hl-19610512-002.html] I think it is a common misconception to call this "moral rights". Its in the law, and as such they are binding.
I have several times tried to get lawyers to explain "public domain" in a Norwegian context. So far none has been willing to do such a thing. If there is any such written explanation I sure would be glad to get a note about it.
One expert opinion I got was that CC-by-sa-nd was within the law, CC-by-sa could be within the law, and CC-by and CC was not according to the law. Same person said that because you have to adjust them to the law they simply got the same limitations as CC-by-sa. Because someone could refuse to accept a specific derivative work he said CC-by-sa-nd would be more comparative to the Norwegian law. He also said that nd-type of licenses was a lot more flexible then we regards them, and that adaption to suit a specific use, even cropping and color adjusting, would be well within what is acceptable. (This is somewhat out of the question for us as CC-by-nd -type of work are voted out, on this grounds I can't understand why)
Another person said that if someone still alive donated a work on given terms, ie GFDL or whatever, then it would be very difficult to change that will. When I asked if she could say that they couldn't change if, she wouldn't say that for sure. That could potentially create a problem when someone donates work under a specific license, then that person dies and his or hers heirs then revokes the license. (Probably we could just drop the use as they have to make such a revoke of the license known somehow)
I've also asked about the GFDL, and the thing about the five most prominent contributors. That is interesting, as it seems like the "main creators" of a work can do more or less as they chooses, without regard to contributors, but all of them has to be attributed. GFDL used in a Norwegian context then has to identify all creators of the work. (Identifying creators are a mess, compared to contributors. The easiest way is to go for the last.)
A problem is then, does the concept of «creating a work» changes over time? Ie, is a creation easier when the work is small?
Then we have the §41a which say; Den som første gang rettmessig gjør tilgjengelig for allmennheten et åndsverk som ikke er blitt offentliggjort innen utløpet av vernetiden etter §§ 40 og 41, tilkommer samme rett som en opphavsmann etter § 2. Denne rett varer i 25 år etter utløpet av det år verket første gang ble gjort tilgjengelig for allmennheten.
In short, if someone finds an old work of art, and publishes it after the 70th year of the creation or the death of the creator, then he gets the exclusive rights for 25 years. Now, assume a wikipedian that finds an old image in a book. He checks and finds that the original creator has went to dust, so he uses it. Then we gets sued because the publisher of the book has the exclusive rights to the image! (Probably we can claim that we didn't know, and then remove all use of the image)
John
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