On 7/4/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
It would also be nice to once and for all answer the question as to whether or not Wikimedia claims to be the "publisher" as the term is used in the GFDL.
This is the first time this has come to my attention, and I would also appreciate a response on this issue. The GFDL explicitly requires the "publisher" to be credited in the history of modified versions (section 4.I), though not in the title (indeed, it explicitly states that the new publisher should be credited instead). It does not provide a definition for the term "publisher." It is not our current practice to require publisher credit to the WMF, though it is also somewhat unclear when section 2, "Verbatim Copying" and when section 4, "Modifications" would apply; "Verbatim Copying" only places minimal requirements on third parties.
Does the WMF consider itself the publisher?
I think it would be quite important to have a legally authoritative interpretation of the GFDL as it applies to Wikimedia Foundation project content. So far we've been basically "playing it by ear" when it comes to GFDL compliance. As the Wikibooks case demonstrates, this can lead to serious problems when contributors try to do the right thing, but end up doing the opposite of what we want.
I suggest that such an interpretation be undertaken after a community consultation on Meta, so that as many people as possible can add their questions about the GFDL (which does not necessarily mean that all of them will be answered, of course).
Erik
I don't know how relevant this is, but under the Communications Decency Act, Wikimedia is technically a provider and not a publisher.
On 7/4/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/4/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
It would also be nice to once and for all answer the question as to whether or not Wikimedia claims to be the "publisher" as the term is used in the GFDL.
This is the first time this has come to my attention, and I would also appreciate a response on this issue. The GFDL explicitly requires the "publisher" to be credited in the history of modified versions (section 4.I), though not in the title (indeed, it explicitly states that the new publisher should be credited instead). It does not provide a definition for the term "publisher." It is not our current practice to require publisher credit to the WMF, though it is also somewhat unclear when section 2, "Verbatim Copying" and when section 4, "Modifications" would apply; "Verbatim Copying" only places minimal requirements on third parties.
Does the WMF consider itself the publisher?
I think it would be quite important to have a legally authoritative interpretation of the GFDL as it applies to Wikimedia Foundation project content. So far we've been basically "playing it by ear" when it comes to GFDL compliance. As the Wikibooks case demonstrates, this can lead to serious problems when contributors try to do the right thing, but end up doing the opposite of what we want.
I suggest that such an interpretation be undertaken after a community consultation on Meta, so that as many people as possible can add their questions about the GFDL (which does not necessarily mean that all of them will be answered, of course).
Erik _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 7/4/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
It would also be nice to once and for all answer the question as to whether or not Wikimedia claims to be the "publisher" as the term is used in the GFDL.
Under US Law, Wikimedia is the "publisher" because they create "collections" of works of the Wikipedia site and "publish" them to the world as XML dumps. Whether electronic or in book form, they are publishing. This being said, given the nebulous and undefined state of internet IP law, whether they are a publisher or not, there's no legal precedence to determine liability, so at present they are operating in an area of experimental law on the frontiers of human knowledge.
Jeff
This is the first time this has come to my attention, and I would also appreciate a response on this issue. The GFDL explicitly requires the "publisher" to be credited in the history of modified versions (section 4.I), though not in the title (indeed, it explicitly states that the new publisher should be credited instead). It does not provide a definition for the term "publisher." It is not our current practice to require publisher credit to the WMF, though it is also somewhat unclear when section 2, "Verbatim Copying" and when section 4, "Modifications" would apply; "Verbatim Copying" only places minimal requirements on third parties.
Does the WMF consider itself the publisher?
I think it would be quite important to have a legally authoritative interpretation of the GFDL as it applies to Wikimedia Foundation project content. So far we've been basically "playing it by ear" when it comes to GFDL compliance. As the Wikibooks case demonstrates, this can lead to serious problems when contributors try to do the right thing, but end up doing the opposite of what we want.
I suggest that such an interpretation be undertaken after a community consultation on Meta, so that as many people as possible can add their questions about the GFDL (which does not necessarily mean that all of them will be answered, of course).
Erik _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Jul 4, 2006, at 10:44 AM, Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
Under US Law, Wikimedia is the "publisher" because they create "collections" of works of the Wikipedia site and "publish" them to the world as XML dumps. Whether electronic or in book form, they are publishing. This being said, given the nebulous and undefined state of internet IP law, whether they are a publisher or not, there's no legal precedence to determine liability, so at present they are operating in an area of experimental law on the frontiers of human knowledge.
Jeff
Not exactly and now that you are a "publisher" too, let us discuss the problem. Someone comes on your wiki and enters the information, "John Doe murdered his wife, Jane". You don't notice it and after 6 months or so John Doe files a libel action. You might want to claim that the anonymous ip who entered that information was the publisher, not you. There is a variant where that edit was contained in an XML dump that you did not notice. Meanwhile Wikipedia has deleted it completely, even from the history of the article. This is all pretty theoretical until there is significant distribution of a serious libel, but I throw it out to think about. Now suppose you did notice the information and rather than deleting it you just corrected the grammar and spelling. Are you the publisher now? And who is "you"?
Fred
Fred Bauder wrote:
On Jul 4, 2006, at 10:44 AM, Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
Under US Law, Wikimedia is the "publisher" because they create "collections" of works of the Wikipedia site and "publish" them to the world as XML dumps. Whether electronic or in book form, they are publishing. This being said, given the nebulous and undefined state of internet IP law, whether they are a publisher or not, there's no legal precedence to determine liability, so at present they are operating in an area of experimental law on the frontiers of human knowledge.
Jeff
Not exactly and now that you are a "publisher" too, let us discuss the problem. Someone comes on your wiki and enters the information, "John Doe murdered his wife, Jane". You don't notice it and after 6 months or so John Doe files a libel action. You might want to claim that the anonymous ip who entered that information was the publisher, not you. There is a variant where that edit was contained in an XML dump that you did not notice. Meanwhile Wikipedia has deleted it completely, even from the history of the article. This is all pretty theoretical until there is significant distribution of a serious libel, but I throw it out to think about. Now suppose you did notice the information and rather than deleting it you just corrected the grammar and spelling. Are you the publisher now? And who is "you"?
Fred
I would be responsible for any copyright, trademark, or trade secret violations -- libel too if I were mirroring the content. Section 230 would shield me to some extent, but these laws are changing very soon based on what's going on in Congress.
How would I respond to a libel suit? Most people just want the libel removed, they are not interested in drawn out litigation. They also have to serve proper notice, and I would remove libel immediately if I received such notice. They could just file without serving notice, but as you are aware, the CDA shields you if you have not received notice.
If someone wants to sue me in the end, bring it on. They will have to show malicious intent, and recklessness, which is hard to do if I never received proper notice.
Jeff
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Fred Bauder wrote:
On Jul 4, 2006, at 10:44 AM, Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
Under US Law, Wikimedia is the "publisher" because they create "collections" of works of the Wikipedia site and "publish" them to the world as XML dumps. Whether electronic or in book form, they are publishing. This being said, given the nebulous and undefined state of internet IP law, whether they are a publisher or not, there's no legal precedence to determine liability, so at present they are operating in an area of experimental law on the frontiers of human knowledge.
Not exactly and now that you are a "publisher" too, let us discuss the problem. Someone comes on your wiki and enters the information, "John Doe murdered his wife, Jane". You don't notice it and after 6 months or so John Doe files a libel action. You might want to claim that the anonymous ip who entered that information was the publisher, not you. There is a variant where that edit was contained in an XML dump that you did not notice. Meanwhile Wikipedia has deleted it completely, even from the history of the article. This is all pretty theoretical until there is significant distribution of a serious libel, but I throw it out to think about. Now suppose you did notice the information and rather than deleting it you just corrected the grammar and spelling. Are you the publisher now? And who is "you"?
At the root of things, "to publish" is "to make things public". There is nothing in the concept to imply that the person doing so is in the business of producing books, magazines, web pages or anything of the sort. At one time publication could have been by the medium of a town crier.
I don't think that the mere proofreader can be considered a publisher. He does not produce any new information that he makes public.
A key factor in distinguishing between a publisher and an ISP seems to be editorial control, and oonsciously active participation in the editing process. An ISP who is told that there is something illegal about a page can easily remove it as a result of being so told. Being pro-active in this may be more characteristic of a publisher, because it involves making our own legal decisions about whether a writing is in some fashion illegal.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
A key factor in distinguishing between a publisher and an ISP seems to be editorial control, and oonsciously active participation in the editing process. An ISP who is told that there is something illegal about a page can easily remove it as a result of being so told. Being pro-active in this may be more characteristic of a publisher, because it involves making our own legal decisions about whether a writing is in some fashion illegal.
Ec
The problem here is that Jimbo in particular and the WMF in general has been very active in making editorial decisions.... particularly regarding content on Wikibooks, with deletion of substantial sections of Wikibooks content on the "orders from Jimbo". Office actions as well on Wikipedia (a somewhat controvercial subject) suggest that there is some active participation in this editing process. I'm not just talking about WMF board members that are also acting as contributors, but forceful decisions that have overriding authority and preempt objections, even strong objections by the community.
I'm not really sure where the WMF would fall into this category, but I wouldn't simply claim the WMF to be a mere service provider. I'm not necessarily saying that editorial control is wrong here, but it does have legal implications as you have pointed out.
On 7/4/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 7/4/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
It would also be nice to once and for all answer the question as to whether or not Wikimedia claims to be the "publisher" as the term is used in the GFDL.
Under US Law, Wikimedia is the "publisher" because they create "collections" of works of the Wikipedia site and "publish" them to the world as XML dumps. Whether electronic or in book form, they are publishing. This being said, given the nebulous and undefined state of internet IP law, whether they are a publisher or not, there's no legal precedence to determine liability, so at present they are operating in an area of experimental law on the frontiers of human knowledge.
It's not just the fact that the distribution is taking place on the Internet, though. The fact that everyone is an editor and every bit of content is a constant work in progress makes for a reasonable argument that these works are in fact not yet published at all. The more I think about it the more I see this as the most sane interpretation.
Ultimately, it's grey area to the point where it would greatly improve matters if Wikimedia would make an official statement as to how it wants to be treated. Does Wikimedia want to hold a copyright interest in works other than the logos? Does it want to be considered a publisher *for the purposes of the GFDL*? Any of the four combinations of answers are acceptable, but until one is chosen the content is that much less Free. This is especially true when an employee of the foundation implies that playing it safe and assuming the foundation does hold a copyright interest and is a publisher is somehow a violation of trademark law.
Anthony
Anthony wrote:
On 7/4/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 7/4/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
It would also be nice to once and for all answer the question as to whether or not Wikimedia claims to be the "publisher" as the term is used in the GFDL.
Under US Law, Wikimedia is the "publisher" because they create "collections" of works of the Wikipedia site and "publish" them to the world as XML dumps. Whether electronic or in book form, they are publishing. This being said, given the nebulous and undefined state of internet IP law, whether they are a publisher or not, there's no legal precedence to determine liability, so at present they are operating in an area of experimental law on the frontiers of human knowledge.
It's not just the fact that the distribution is taking place on the Internet, though. The fact that everyone is an editor and every bit of content is a constant work in progress makes for a reasonable argument that these works are in fact not yet published at all. The more I think about it the more I see this as the most sane interpretation.
If it has been made public it has been published. The real question here is _who_ did the publishing.
Ultimately, it's grey area to the point where it would greatly improve matters if Wikimedia would make an official statement as to how it wants to be treated. Does Wikimedia want to hold a copyright interest in works other than the logos? Does it want to be considered a publisher *for the purposes of the GFDL*? Any of the four combinations of answers are acceptable, but until one is chosen the content is that much less Free. This is especially true when an employee of the foundation implies that playing it safe and assuming the foundation does hold a copyright interest and is a publisher is somehow a violation of trademark law.
Whatever position is taken by Wikimedia on this _must_ come from the Foundation Board, and be backed up by a resolution. Simply "playing safe" is not a position but an avoidance of position. It creates an atmosphere of uncertainty. What seems safe to me may not seem safe to you, and vice versa. Whatever the specific issue, we can then argue about whether we are acting safely, and accomplish absolutely nothing.
If Wikimedia wants to hold a copyright interest inthis material it needs to be ready to defend those copyrights in a serious way. Having an employee make ad-hoc, arbitrary and speculative pronouncements on the law without a clear policy from the Board to back it up probably puts the entire project into greater peril than the obvious silliness of the more ignorant copyright violators.
Ec
On 7/11/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 7/4/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 7/4/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
"Having an employee make ad-hoc, arbitrary and speculative pronouncements on the law without a clear policy from the Board to back it up probably puts the entire project into greater peril than the obvious silliness of the more ignorant copyright violators."
For the record, Ray, Jeff, Eric and Anthony are not employees of the Foundation.
I am, and I hope you do not have a problem with the idea of a paid general counsel having as one of his primary responsibilities the generation of 'speculative pronouncements on the law.' That is rather the point. My client, my ethical obligation, and the recipient of my professional legal advice is the Board. It's my bar card on the line. It is not my job to wax eloquent on the law for the sake of making people on a listserv have more to rant about.
Thanks for including the word "probably" in the statement above, btw. I'd hate to think you were taking a position without leaving yourself rhetorical wiggle room. That would probably' be silly as well.
Brad Patrick wrote:
On 7/11/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 7/4/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 7/4/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
"Having an employee make ad-hoc, arbitrary and speculative pronouncements on the law without a clear policy from the Board to back it up probably puts the entire project into greater peril than the obvious silliness of the more ignorant copyright violators."
For the record, Ray, Jeff, Eric and Anthony are not employees of the Foundation.
I am, and I hope you do not have a problem with the idea of a paid general counsel having as one of his primary responsibilities the generation of 'speculative pronouncements on the law.' That is rather the point. My client, my ethical obligation, and the recipient of my professional legal advice is the Board. It's my bar card on the line. It is not my job to wax eloquent on the law for the sake of making people on a listserv have more to rant about.
Thanks for including the word "probably" in the statement above, btw. I'd hate to think you were taking a position without leaving yourself rhetorical wiggle room. That would probably' be silly as well.
For the record I am NOT an employee of the Foundation, just a schmuck working on Native American translations and helping bring Wikipedia to Native Peoples.
My background is well known and I've been on the receiving end of litigations directed at me by some very wealthy and powerful groups for years. My father was an attorney and I grew up surrounded by lawyers. Here's the bottom line.
You win when you are NOT involved in litigating AT ALL and when people can work things out. Going in front of Judge is the worst of all possible scenarios in a conflict - its like going to Las Vegas and playing high rollers at the craps tables. You have no idea what will be the outcome since judge is a fallible human being trying to listen to both sides and making sense of all of it and balancing the rights of both parties, and I've been there -- many times, and not as an advocate but as a party where my interests were on line and depenent on the outcome. There's no magic formula or elightened policy the Board or anyone can come up with in a vacuum that will be a magical panacea and protect them.
Wikipedia's current policies concerning WP:RS are outstanding and address almost 100% of any issues people can raise. When these polcies are followed, people have little to no recourse. The problem is one of enforcement of their policies, not the system they have created. Brad has done a job that is beyond exemplary in keeping the Foundation level and working out conflicts with Folks and Wales has a heart of gold that shows through like a beacon in the fog when you can communicate effectively with him.
I for one am immensely impressed with Wales, Brad, Danny and what they have built and I will support them to the hilt (which does not come easily for me). I understand the community issues and the incredible balacing act these guys have to do to make this whole thing work, and to be honest I am nothing but totally impressed with the progress they've made given the types of folks who visit their site and post troll bait and the antics of a lot of the folks that they work with and try to steer into a good direction.
My article was one example and Wales totally blew me away with his mature and thoughful handling of these people who were trolling. I can say for certainty the Foundation has things well in hand and as someone who has been involved in exactly the issues you raise in a plethura of Federal an State Court cases, they are good men, a judge would view them as good men, and their current policies, when adhered to, would protect them almost 100% in these cases.
And if they want to protect their rights, as far as I can tell, they are protecting the rights of the community and all of you to be successful. Wales seems to operate on a higher set of laws (or perhaps a more precise understanding of the one universal law), and his direction is sound (though eccentric) and incredibly productive. When the issue of the website came up, he stated he applauded this persons courage for promoting the pervasiveness of Wikipedia's content and said "I hope it goes back up", indicating he had already done his own internal balancing of the pros and cons -- they are his Foundations trademarks and his call on how he wants to use them.
Enough said.
All my love to all of you,
Don't worry, be happy.
Jeff
On 7/12/06, Brad Patrick bradp.wmf@gmail.com wrote:
I am, and I hope you do not have a problem with the idea of a paid general counsel having as one of his primary responsibilities the generation of 'speculative pronouncements on the law.' That is rather the point. My client, my ethical obligation, and the recipient of my professional legal advice is the Board. It's my bar card on the line. It is not my job to wax eloquent on the law for the sake of making people on a listserv have more to rant about.
In my initial mail in this thread, I suggested a very specific course of action, not an open-ended discussion on this mailing list. Is there any plan to come up with an interpretation of the GFDL that the Wikimedia Foundation will stand behind, and which will become project-level policy? If so, will the community be involved in the process of developing that interpretation, for instance, by collecting questions about how to interpret specific sections?
Thanks, Erik
On 7/11/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Anthony wrote:
It's not just the fact that the distribution is taking place on the Internet, though. The fact that everyone is an editor and every bit of content is a constant work in progress makes for a reasonable argument that these works are in fact not yet published at all. The more I think about it the more I see this as the most sane interpretation.
If it has been made public it has been published. The real question here is _who_ did the publishing.
{{citationneeded}}
Ray Saintonge wrote:
If Wikimedia wants to hold a copyright interest inthis material it needs to be ready to defend those copyrights in a serious way. Having an employee make ad-hoc, arbitrary and speculative pronouncements on the law without a clear policy from the Board to back it up probably puts the entire project into greater peril than the obvious silliness of the more ignorant copyright violators.
Ec
The precedence that I would like to use for why the WMF should hold copyright on Wikimedia project content is the same reason why the Free Software Foundation holds copyright for the GNU projects: If there is a copyright violation, they can be a legal party to enforcing the copyright and defending the GPL.
The same thing (I would hope) could apply to the WMF if there is a GFDL violation. As it stands right now, by disclaiming copyright, all the WMF can do to enforce a flagarant copyright violation of Wikipedia content is sit on the sidelines and act as a cheerleader. Brad would be legally excluded from even being able to offer advise. If you are an individual contributor and want to defend the copyright of content that you wrote, you would have to hire your own counsel, as would each seperate contributor who would want to join in the legal defense.
Frankly, I think this is an ugly situation, although it is "safe" for the WMF and from a legal liability perspective, I do understand why the decision to not claim copyright was done. The liability instead rests on the individual contributors. Each time you add some content to Wikimedia projects, particularly if you use the same account for each contribution and are prominent in the "community", you put yourself into harm's way legally speaking. You can be held responsible for the content that you added, or even failed to edit out when you made a minor change to a page. In other words, this approach to playing it safe really is just transfering liability from the WMF to individual users.
That really should be motivation to being a major contributor to Wikimedia projects, isn't it?
On 7/12/06, Robert Scott Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
If Wikimedia wants to hold a copyright interest inthis material it needs to be ready to defend those copyrights in a serious way. Having an employee make ad-hoc, arbitrary and speculative pronouncements on the law without a clear policy from the Board to back it up probably puts the entire project into greater peril than the obvious silliness of the more ignorant copyright violators.
Ec
The precedence that I would like to use for why the WMF should hold copyright on Wikimedia project content is the same reason why the Free Software Foundation holds copyright for the GNU projects: If there is a copyright violation, they can be a legal party to enforcing the copyright and defending the GPL.
The same thing (I would hope) could apply to the WMF if there is a GFDL violation. As it stands right now, by disclaiming copyright, all the WMF can do to enforce a flagarant copyright violation of Wikipedia content is sit on the sidelines and act as a cheerleader. Brad would be legally excluded from even being able to offer advise. If you are an individual contributor and want to defend the copyright of content that you wrote, you would have to hire your own counsel, as would each seperate contributor who would want to join in the legal defense.
Frankly, I think this is an ugly situation, although it is "safe" for the WMF and from a legal liability perspective, I do understand why the decision to not claim copyright was done.
AFAIK, Wikimedia has *not* (yet?) disclaimed any copyright interest they may hold in this content. They don't claim copyright on the contributions made by individuals, and they haven't gotten into the messy business of copyright assignment, but there is a quite legitimate argument that they hold copyright on anything added by employees in the scope of their employment (such as Jimbo and/or Danny), and possibly that they hold some sort of compilation copyright. I think it's quite likely that if Wikimedia doesn't explicitly disclaim copyright on these works that they do hold at least some copyright interest in them.
Anthony wrote:
Frankly, I think this is an ugly situation, although it is "safe" for the WMF and from a legal liability perspective, I do understand why the decision to not claim copyright was done.
AFAIK, Wikimedia has *not* (yet?) disclaimed any copyright interest they may hold in this content. They don't claim copyright on the contributions made by individuals, and they haven't gotten into the messy business of copyright assignment, but there is a quite legitimate argument that they hold copyright on anything added by employees in the scope of their employment (such as Jimbo and/or Danny), and possibly that they hold some sort of compilation copyright. I think it's quite likely that if Wikimedia doesn't explicitly disclaim copyright on these works that they do hold at least some copyright interest in them.
I would dare say that the amount of content that has been contributed by Danny as a result of his official duties is so trivially small that it can be ignored completely, especially on the major projects like Wikipedia. I'm not saying that such contributions are meaningless, but it won't really have any impact on any copyright issues for Wikimedia project content.
As far as the WMF disclaiming copyright interest, I guess as an "official" policy statement that has been issued by the WMF, you are correct. However, there have been plenty of statements on this list and elsewhere disclaiming such interest that I think it would be very difficult now to assert copyright interest as well. When I added the WMF author credit (compilation credit?) to the Wikijunior books, I was trying to give the WMF the benefit of the doubt and at least help preserve any copyright interest in content like that. Indeed the only reason and justification for pulling the Wikijunior Big Cats book was specifically because the WMF was mentioned as the author when such attribution was being denied.
The GFDL is one of the reasons why the messy business of copyright assignment has not been dealt with before. It is interesting that on none of the Wikimedia projects is there a copyright statement anywhere, and only on the [[Wikibooks:Copyright]] page can you even find the copyright symbol and any assertion of copyright, even on behalf of the contributors. Wikipedia lacks even this simply copyright claim, as do other Wikimedia projects.
Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 7/4/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
It would also be nice to once and for all answer the question as to whether or not Wikimedia claims to be the "publisher" as the term is used in the GFDL.
Under US Law, Wikimedia is the "publisher" because they create "collections" of works of the Wikipedia site and "publish" them to the world as XML dumps.
Viewed by itself this is not a meaningful statement. Different parts of US law (even only with reference to federal law) can define "publisher" in entirely different and often contradictory ways. Any definition that can be used for copyright purposes could be quite different from that which is applicable to libel.
Whether electronic or in book form, they are publishing. This being said, given the nebulous and undefined state of internet IP law, whether they are a publisher or not, there's no legal precedence to determine liability, so at present they are operating in an area of experimental law on the frontiers of human knowledge.
Of course.
Ec
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 7/4/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
It would also be nice to once and for all answer the question as to whether or not Wikimedia claims to be the "publisher" as the term is used in the GFDL.
This is the first time this has come to my attention, and I would also appreciate a response on this issue. The GFDL explicitly requires the "publisher" to be credited in the history of modified versions (section 4.I), though not in the title (indeed, it explicitly states that the new publisher should be credited instead). It does not provide a definition for the term "publisher." It is not our current practice to require publisher credit to the WMF, though it is also somewhat unclear when section 2, "Verbatim Copying" and when section 4, "Modifications" would apply; "Verbatim Copying" only places minimal requirements on third parties.
Does the WMF consider itself the publisher?
I think it would be quite important to have a legally authoritative interpretation of the GFDL as it applies to Wikimedia Foundation project content. So far we've been basically "playing it by ear" when it comes to GFDL compliance.
Whether WMF considers itself a publisher is a matter of policy. A "legally authoritative interpretation" is a different matter, and no lawyer's interpretation in an opinion letter will be authoritative. Legal authority can only come from real court decisions.
Ec
On 7/11/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 7/4/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
It would also be nice to once and for all answer the question as to whether or not Wikimedia claims to be the "publisher" as the term is used in the GFDL.
This is the first time this has come to my attention, and I would also appreciate a response on this issue. The GFDL explicitly requires the "publisher" to be credited in the history of modified versions (section 4.I), though not in the title (indeed, it explicitly states that the new publisher should be credited instead). It does not provide a definition for the term "publisher." It is not our current practice to require publisher credit to the WMF, though it is also somewhat unclear when section 2, "Verbatim Copying" and when section 4, "Modifications" would apply; "Verbatim Copying" only places minimal requirements on third parties.
Does the WMF consider itself the publisher?
I think it would be quite important to have a legally authoritative interpretation of the GFDL as it applies to Wikimedia Foundation project content. So far we've been basically "playing it by ear" when it comes to GFDL compliance.
Whether WMF considers itself a publisher is a matter of policy. A "legally authoritative interpretation" is a different matter, and no lawyer's interpretation in an opinion letter will be authoritative. Legal authority can only come from real court decisions.
Surely a statement from the chief executive of the WMF (who also happens to be a lawyer), stating that they do not consider themselves to be a publisher, would make it unlikely that a court would find someone in violation of the GFDL due to the fact that they failed to name the WMF as the publisher.
Alternatively, a statement from the chief executive of the WMF, stating that they do consider themselves to be a publisher, would make it unlikely that a court would find someone in violation of trademark law due to the fact that they *did* name the WMF as the publisher.
Finally, even ignoring the legal issues, it'd be really nice to know what the WMF *wants* people to do.
Whether or not Wikimedia is a publisher for the purposes of the CDA is one thing - for that question you're right that a court ruling is the only way to know. But whether or not Wikimedia is a publisher *for the purpose of the GFDL* is another matter altogether, since presumably Wikimedia would be the only one with standing to sue over neglecting to name it as the publisher of a GFDL work.
Anthony
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org