(This is a posting to multiple lists.)
As you've probably read, the Wikimedia Foundation has agreed in principle to support an update of Wikipedia content from the GFDL to CC-BY-SA, pending a community approval of such a migration. The FSF and Creative Commons are supporting us to make this transition possible.
One open issue is the way both the GFDL and CC-BY-SA deal with embedded media files like images, sounds, and videos. The FSF interprets the GFDL so that e.g. a photograph embedded into an article would require the article to be "copyleft" under the GFDL; Creative Commons does not interpret CC-BY-SA in this fashion (at least according to some public statements).
The actual clauses are very similar, however, and I believe what is really needed is a license that gives authors the choice of "strong copyleft" for embedded media: the work into which the media are embedded (whether either work is text, sound, film, a rich media mix, or whatever) should be licensed under a copyleft license.
Wikimedia could then allow contributors of multimedia to choose this license, and to change files under the GFDL (as opposed to text) to it.
From _my_ point of view, the key requirements are:
* It should apply to any type of embedded media, i.e. not limited just to photos embedded into text; * It should, in principle, be very similar to the CC-BY-SA license, except for its provision on "Collections"; * It should be adaptable to as many legal frameworks as possible; * IMPORTANT - I believe it should allow mixing of similar licenses, e.g. CC-BY-SA into BSD -- the Definition of Free Cultural Works endorsed by Wikimedia could be a guideline as to which licenses can be mixed: http://freedomdefined.org/Definition
I would like to kickstart the discussion to get a first for such a license - it could be called CC-BY-SA+ - written as soon as possible. :-) Perhaps we should have a dedicated mailing list where stakeholders from multiple projects can discuss it?
Best, Erik Möller Member of the Board, Wikimedia Foundation
I would like to kickstart the discussion to get a first for such a license - it could be called CC-BY-SA+ - written as soon as possible. :-) Perhaps we should have a dedicated mailing list where stakeholders from multiple projects can discuss it?
I agree with this 100%! It would quell the people who are worried about the open-season on image media, and it would give the text-contributions people more ease and freedom in releasing text.
--Andrew Whitworth
On Dec 1, 2007 8:22 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
One open issue is the way both the GFDL and CC-BY-SA deal with embedded media files like images, sounds, and videos.
[snip]
The actual clauses are very similar, however, and I believe what is really needed is a license that gives authors the choice of "strong copyleft" for embedded media: the work into which the media are embedded (whether either work is text, sound, film, a rich media mix, or whatever) should be licensed under a copyleft license.
If a visual artist doesn't want copyleft for images they should just use CC-BY (or better, 'PD').
The purpose of copyleft is to help expand the pool of free content with a tit-for-tat mechanism. 'Weak copyleft' simply isn't interesting in terms of its ability to achieve this goal.
When it comes to photographs and other still, and especially raster, illustrations the predominate forms of reuse are verbatim. When there are modifications within the frame of time image they are generally so trivial that they can be easily reproduced by anyone who is interested.
The question of "does anyone here want a weak copyleft license" is just the far more interesting one...
I do not believe there is any point to having a copyleft license for media which isn't strong. Does anyone here disagree?
Certainties the world does not yet YET ANOTHER free content license if it can be avoided. The already existing myriad of CC licensing knobs already create confusion enough as is. :(
On 02/12/2007, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
If a visual artist doesn't want copyleft for images they should just use CC-BY (or better, 'PD').
The purpose of copyleft is to help expand the pool of free content with a tit-for-tat mechanism. 'Weak copyleft' simply isn't interesting in terms of its ability to achieve this goal.
Is "weak copyleft" not comparable to the LGPL? LGPL appears to have a place; why not "weak copyleft"?
The question of "does anyone here want a weak copyleft license" is just the far more interesting one...
I do not believe there is any point to having a copyleft license for media which isn't strong. Does anyone here disagree?
At the risk of being stoned... yeah. I just don't consider an article that uses a photograph of mine as illustration to be a a derivative of my work. I don't want an article, blog or book author to have to license their whole text under CC-BY-SA just because they use my image. HOWEVER, I do want them to be obliged to make explicit the license of my work, that is offer it to others under the same conditions. My work, not theirs. That is how I think "weak copyleft" differs from CC-BY or PD.
So "weak copyleft", if we are talking about the same thing, suits me well.
regards, Brianna
On Dec 2, 2007 8:57 AM, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/12/2007, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
If a visual artist doesn't want copyleft for images they should just use CC-BY (or better, 'PD').
The purpose of copyleft is to help expand the pool of free content with a tit-for-tat mechanism. 'Weak copyleft' simply isn't interesting in terms of its ability to achieve this goal.
Is "weak copyleft" not comparable to the LGPL? LGPL appears to have a place; why not "weak copyleft"?
I think the argument is specific to images, which tend not to have as significant of copyrightable changes made to them as software libraries. Sure, maybe a newspaper cleans up an image, lowers the resolution, and converts it to black and white before including the image in the newspaper, but this is not a significant creative change, so the benefit of having those changes released under a free license is negligible.
For software libraries, weak copyleft serves a purpose. For text, weak copyleft serves a purpose. For images, much less so.
On Dec 2, 2007 9:42 AM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Dec 2, 2007 8:57 AM, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
Is "weak copyleft" not comparable to the LGPL? LGPL appears to have a place; why not "weak copyleft"?
I think the argument is specific to images, which tend not to have as significant of copyrightable changes made to them as software libraries. Sure, maybe a newspaper cleans up an image, lowers the resolution, and converts it to black and white before including the image in the newspaper, but this is not a significant creative change, so the benefit of having those changes released under a free license is negligible.
For software libraries, weak copyleft serves a purpose. For text, weak copyleft serves a purpose. For images, much less so.
*Exactly*.
Copyleft makes works somewhat *less free* but in return if it's well applied it keeps the covered and works built from the covered work free, thus expanding the pool of freely available works. It's a trade-off.
When people build new copyrightable works out of images they tend to use them as near-verbatim components. There are many stock photo companies which bring in, collectively, over a billion dollars per year licensing images for this kind of use (for example Getty Images alone has an income of around 800 million/yr, http://edgar.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1047202/000119312507240536/d10q.htm).
Like software, most documents are written for purposes other than sale (personal, private, special purpose limited circulation uses, etc).
This means that when we copyleft our illustrations we're creating a substantial incentive for people to freely license works: If we had a copylefted collection of comparable size, character, and quality to Getty's collection we'd have a billion dollar a year incentive to freely license works... works which wouldn't otherwise be freely licensed because the default is non-free, or because people think "just maybe this will make us $$$$ in the future".
Sure, the groups who make copyrighted works for the sole purpose of selling those works for a profit aren't going to be especially interested in such an offer. Microsoft isn't especially enamored with the GPL. Perhaps people will call me a zealot for not being too sad about a failure to maximally assist groups which are locking up content (probably forever) behind restrictive licenses. :) Besides, there is still a huge amount of PD and non-copyleft freely licensed works for them to take.
Now back to weak copyleft for images. Virtually all of that billion dollar use is for verbatim or nearly-verbatim inclusion of images into larger documents and articles. Usually the modifications made are so trivial that it's easier to perform them yourself, especially since content licenses don't have an easy way to ask for a machine-readable corresponding source.
As a result a 'weak copyleft' wouldn't have the billion dollar/yr incentive to freely license new works. Since it wouldn't have most of the positive effect, I think it's a bad trade-off. We should be encouraging authors to use more liberal licenses (cc-by, and 'PD', for example) if they are not interested in real copyleft, or if copylefting that particular work will not be beneficial.
Question for the lawyers here -- even if we *wanted* to add stronger copyleft to a CC license, say creating CC-BY-SA+, could we?
Isn't the whole problem here that the licenses rely on the various definitions of "derivative works" for different mediums?
That is, the GPL can have strong copyleft because including source from other GPL works into a new work necessarily creates a derivative work, and same with music getting synched to video (or vice versa) with respect to CC-BY-SA -- in all of these cases a derivative work is created and the license stipulates that derivative works must be licensed under the same license.
The reason this has good legal force is because "derivative work" has a strict and specific definition in law that was formed completely independently of the GPL and CC.
As I'm sure everyone who's been following this thread to this point knows, there isn't much precedent for determining whether embedded images in text creates a derivative work. In the US there are some cases that establish that doing so *does* create a derivative work, and some cases that say that doing so *does not* create a derivative work. So that isn't much help.
So would we be creating our own definition of a derivative work so that we could apply stricter copy left?
This is troubling because whatever definition we might come up with, it surely wouldn't have the legal precedent and force that the definition of "derivative work" does in actual US copyright law.
F
PS: I just had the WSJ use one of my BY-SA photos in an article giving me only attribution, so I'm acutely interested in this topic.
On Dec 2, 2007 8:36 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Dec 2, 2007 9:42 AM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Dec 2, 2007 8:57 AM, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com
wrote:
Is "weak copyleft" not comparable to the LGPL? LGPL appears to have a place; why not "weak copyleft"?
I think the argument is specific to images, which tend not to have as significant of copyrightable changes made to them as software libraries. Sure, maybe a newspaper cleans up an image, lowers the resolution, and converts it to black and white before including the image in the newspaper, but this is not a significant creative change, so the benefit of having those changes released under a free license is negligible.
For software libraries, weak copyleft serves a purpose. For text, weak copyleft serves a purpose. For images, much less so.
*Exactly*.
Copyleft makes works somewhat *less free* but in return if it's well applied it keeps the covered and works built from the covered work free, thus expanding the pool of freely available works. It's a trade-off.
When people build new copyrightable works out of images they tend to use them as near-verbatim components. There are many stock photo companies which bring in, collectively, over a billion dollars per year licensing images for this kind of use (for example Getty Images alone has an income of around 800 million/yr,
http://edgar.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1047202/000119312507240536/d10q.htm ).
Like software, most documents are written for purposes other than sale (personal, private, special purpose limited circulation uses, etc).
This means that when we copyleft our illustrations we're creating a substantial incentive for people to freely license works: If we had a copylefted collection of comparable size, character, and quality to Getty's collection we'd have a billion dollar a year incentive to freely license works... works which wouldn't otherwise be freely licensed because the default is non-free, or because people think "just maybe this will make us $$$$ in the future".
Sure, the groups who make copyrighted works for the sole purpose of selling those works for a profit aren't going to be especially interested in such an offer. Microsoft isn't especially enamored with the GPL. Perhaps people will call me a zealot for not being too sad about a failure to maximally assist groups which are locking up content (probably forever) behind restrictive licenses. :) Besides, there is still a huge amount of PD and non-copyleft freely licensed works for them to take.
Now back to weak copyleft for images. Virtually all of that billion dollar use is for verbatim or nearly-verbatim inclusion of images into larger documents and articles. Usually the modifications made are so trivial that it's easier to perform them yourself, especially since content licenses don't have an easy way to ask for a machine-readable corresponding source.
As a result a 'weak copyleft' wouldn't have the billion dollar/yr incentive to freely license new works. Since it wouldn't have most of the positive effect, I think it's a bad trade-off. We should be encouraging authors to use more liberal licenses (cc-by, and 'PD', for example) if they are not interested in real copyleft, or if copylefting that particular work will not be beneficial.
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On Dec 2, 2007 6:24 PM, Fred Benenson fred.benenson@gmail.com wrote:
Question for the lawyers here -- even if we *wanted* to add stronger copyleft to a CC license, say creating CC-BY-SA+, could we?
Isn't the whole problem here that the licenses rely on the various definitions of "derivative works" for different mediums?
That is, the GPL can have strong copyleft because including source from other GPL works into a new work necessarily creates a derivative work, and same with music getting synched to video (or vice versa) with respect to CC-BY-SA -- in all of these cases a derivative work is created and the license stipulates that derivative works must be licensed under the same license.
The reason this has good legal force is because "derivative work" has a strict and specific definition in law that was formed completely independently of the GPL and CC.
As I'm sure everyone who's been following this thread to this point knows, there isn't much precedent for determining whether embedded images in text creates a derivative work. In the US there are some cases that establish that doing so *does* create a derivative work, and some cases that say that doing so *does not* create a derivative work. So that isn't much help.
So would we be creating our own definition of a derivative work so that we could apply stricter copy left?
This is troubling because whatever definition we might come up with, it surely wouldn't have the legal precedent and force that the definition of "derivative work" does in actual US copyright law.
F
PS: I just had the WSJ use one of my BY-SA photos in an article giving me only attribution, so I'm acutely interested in this topic.
I am not a lawyer, but in my opinion, it is certainly possible to tie future licensing to use. Rather than tying it to the technical meaning of a "derivative work", you tie it to the more fundemental right to distribute. In other words, one could say something like: "You may not use or distribute this image unless any accompanying text is licensed under X, Y, or Z".
Obviously a formal license needs a lot more detail to address the variety of embeddable media, the limits of defining acompanying text versus independent collections, and other issues. However, the basic effect of a license is to tell others when and other what conditions material can be used. There would appear to be no fundemental reason that one of those conditions couldn't be applying a free license to linked materials.
-Robert A. Rohde
On Dec 2, 2007 9:24 PM, Fred Benenson fred.benenson@gmail.com wrote:
Question for the lawyers here -- even if we *wanted* to add stronger copyleft to a CC license, say creating CC-BY-SA+, could we?
Isn't the whole problem here that the licenses rely on the various definitions of "derivative works" for different mediums?
That is, the GPL can have strong copyleft because including source from other GPL works into a new work necessarily creates a derivative work, and
[snip]
I write copyrighted work X. You create and distribute a new work, Y, which includes X. Because your work *includes* my work you are subject to the copyright-related restrictions and obligations related to the distribution of my work. Without a license (or fair use...), your distribution is a copyright infringement. I may offer you a license which contains many types of requirements which must be met in order for the license to be valid. End of story.
It is sometimes interesting to ask if work Y is still encumbered by X's copyright obligations even if X is not directly included (for example, what if Y was a translation of text X into another language). In these cases you might actually have a complicated issue on your hands, although not generally for a translation. The case law on these matters is idiosyncratic and very dependent on the type of work in question. But this is not generally the question of interest when we discuss copyleft licenses for photographic works or audio recordings.
Issues like this common confusion about the role of 'derivative' works with respect to copyleft are part of the reason why GPLv3 uses novel language (with internal definitions) to describe many concepts ('propagate', 'convey', etc).
<quote who="Fred Benenson" date="Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 09:24:15PM -0500">
The reason this has good legal force is because "derivative work" has a strict and specific definition in law that was formed completely independently of the GPL and CC.
It's not *that* strict and specific. There's a whole bunch of fuzzy space and copying images as I've pointed out to you before and as you allude to in your email.
So would we be creating our own definition of a derivative work so that we could apply stricter copy left?
This is troubling because whatever definition we might come up with, it surely wouldn't have the legal precedent and force that the definition of "derivative work" does in actual US copyright law.
Why do you think that such a strong copyleft need to use modification as a hook? Verbatim redistribution is also an exclusive right of a copyright holder and terms can be (and are) attached to that in CC and in other licenses.
As non-lawyers, we should figure out what is that we want to do and what we think would be best for our community first without getting caught up in legal minutiae we don't understand. Once we've done that, our lawyers can then tell us what the best ways to proceed are what the trade-offs will entail.
Regards, Mako
The lawyers among us, more than anything, want the clearest explanation of the different use cases to cover the scenarios the community will deal with on a daily basis. The nitty-gritty of the legalese will be debated endlessly by lawyers, no matter what the scenarios - that comes with the territory.
The consensus view (to the extent possible) should simply and elegantly describe how these bits are expected to come together in an intuitive, simple-to-understand way. CC made great progress with its licenses in the first place with simple memes which explain how to accomplish the lion's share of licensing activities. The same should be true at this stage.
When WMF/CC initially talked through these issues almost a year ago, it became clear a consensus view could not be achieved in a short timeframe. Consensus-building takes lots of good-faith communication. I applaud those providing examples of scenarios which will have real impacts on a large scale. Please keep building the list of situations. The lawyers can parse it out. But the community needs to build a shared understanding of what the outcomes will be.
Brad
As non-lawyers, we should figure out what is that we want to do and what we think would be best for our community first without getting caught up in legal minutiae we don't understand. Once we've done that, our lawyers can then tell us what the best ways to proceed are what the trade-offs will entail.
Regards, Mako
-- Benjamin Mako Hill mako@atdot.cc http://mako.cc/
Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. --GNU Manifesto
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On Dec 4, 2007 3:34 AM, Benj. Mako Hill mako@atdot.cc wrote:
<quote who="Fred Benenson" date="Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 09:24:15PM -0500"> > The reason this has good legal force is because "derivative work" has a > strict and specific definition in law that was formed completely > independently of the GPL and CC.
It's not *that* strict and specific. There's a whole bunch of fuzzy space and copying images as I've pointed out to you before and as you allude to in your email.
It's not very strict and specific at all. The exclusive right to prepare a derivative work rarely comes into play, because the right to copy and/or to distribute the original work almost always is invoked in addition. CC-BY-SA (and the GFDL, for that matter), arguably (*) separates the rights and treats them independently. The case law on what constitutes a derivative work is actually contradictory. Galoob v. Nintendo (Game Genie does not create a derivative work), Lee v. A.R.T. Company (7th circuit, mounting artwork on a ceramic tile does not create a derivative work), Mirage Editions v. Albuquerque A.R.T. (9th circuit, mounting artwork on a ceramic tile does create a derivative work), and Muoz v. Albuquerque A.R.T. (9th circuit, mounting artwork on a ceramic tile does create a derivative work) are three that come to mind. The 7th and 9th circuit can't even agree on what is essentially an identical case.
(*) The GFDL, at least, has an automatic termination clause which could be argued to revoke permission to copy and/or distribute the original work if you mix with a proprietary work in a way not permitted by the license.
Brianna Laugher wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
The question of "does anyone here want a weak copyleft license" is just the far more interesting one...
I do not believe there is any point to having a copyleft license for media which isn't strong. Does anyone here disagree?
At the risk of being stoned... yeah. I just don't consider an article that uses a photograph of mine as illustration to be a derivative of my work. I don't want an article, blog or book author to have to license their whole text under CC-BY-SA just because they use my image. HOWEVER, I do want them to be obliged to make explicit the license of my work, that is offer it to others under the same conditions.
I strongly agree with this. It is simply impossible for many content producers—for example, newspaper or textbook publishers—to release their entire works under a viral copyleft license, but including a CC-BY-SA photo with a mention of the license is perfectly acceptable. I believe that an all-or nothing approach here will elicit a unanimous "nothing!" from these commercial content producers: requiring all reusers to release their stuff under CC-BY-SA will be unacceptable, and so they won't use *any* copyleft content. We'd just be shooting ourselves in the foot.
Regards,
On Dec 2, 2007 2:30 PM, Benjamin Esham bdesham@gmail.com wrote:
Brianna Laugher wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
The question of "does anyone here want a weak copyleft license" is
just
the far more interesting one...
I do not believe there is any point to having a copyleft license for media which isn't strong. Does anyone here disagree?
At the risk of being stoned... yeah. I just don't consider an article that uses a photograph of mine as illustration to be a derivative of my work. I don't want an article, blog or book author to have to license their whole text under CC-BY-SA just because they use my image. HOWEVER,
I
do want them to be obliged to make explicit the license of my work, that is offer it to others under the same conditions.
I strongly agree with this. It is simply impossible for many content producers—for example, newspaper or textbook publishers—to release their entire works under a viral copyleft license, but including a CC-BY-SA photo with a mention of the license is perfectly acceptable. I believe that an all-or nothing approach here will elicit a unanimous "nothing!" from these commercial content producers: requiring all reusers to release their stuff under CC-BY-SA will be unacceptable, and so they won't use *any* copyleft content. We'd just be shooting ourselves in the foot.
At the risk of stating the obvious, if commercial publishers are
unwilling/unable to make their works free then they shouldn't be including any CC-BY-SA content. If content creators don't want that outcome, they should be using CC-BY rather than CC-BY-SA.
Having said that, I generally agree that it is functionally impossible to reach an agreement on this matter, and it seems likely that the only way to make progress is to create a CC-BY-SA-Strong to satisfy those of us who believe that copyleft really should be viral.
-Robert A. Rohde
On Dec 1, 2007 8:22 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
- IMPORTANT - I believe it should allow mixing of similar licenses,
e.g. CC-BY-SA into BSD -- the Definition of Free Cultural Works endorsed by Wikimedia could be a guideline as to which licenses can be mixed: http://freedomdefined.org/Definition
Can't you already mix a copyleft license (like GFDL) with a free non-copyleft license (like BSD), so long as the combined work is released under the copyleft license? If so, this would only be useful for mixing with other copyleft licenses, which is arguably not all that important (especially once the wiki-world migrates away from the GFDL), and can be accomplished by dual/multi-licensing (if the author(s) desire(s)) anyway.
Anthony wrote:
On Dec 1, 2007 8:22 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
- IMPORTANT - I believe it should allow mixing of similar licenses,
e.g. CC-BY-SA into BSD -- the Definition of Free Cultural Works endorsed by Wikimedia could be a guideline as to which licenses can be mixed: http://freedomdefined.org/Definition
Can't you already mix a copyleft license (like GFDL) with a free non-copyleft license (like BSD), so long as the combined work is released under the copyleft license? If so, this would only be useful for mixing with other copyleft licenses, which is arguably not all that important (especially once the wiki-world migrates away from the GFDL), and can be accomplished by dual/multi-licensing (if the author(s) desire(s)) anyway.
What I've consistently disliked about any kind of dual licensing is what to do when the licences disagree. That is not always readily apparent, and in the vast majority of cases won't matter. By the time someone's work has gone through several generations of re-use he may find that liberties have been taken with it that were never part of his original grant of licence.
Ec
Hoi, It is up to the copyright holder or to a particular project to decide what licenses can be used for particular material. When multiple, incompatible licenses are on offer to choose from, you may choose from what is on offer. Giving the choice for a license is "political". Choices are on offer because people want it, not because it is reasonable.
The best proof of why licenses are not necessarily reasonable can be found in the current situation where knowledgeable people assigned a license by contributing to a project and still insist on differences for *their *contributions that are contrary to the original license stipulations on this, a later date. Thanks, Gerard
On Dec 2, 2007 8:35 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On Dec 1, 2007 8:22 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
- IMPORTANT - I believe it should allow mixing of similar licenses,
e.g. CC-BY-SA into BSD -- the Definition of Free Cultural Works endorsed by Wikimedia could be a guideline as to which licenses can be mixed: http://freedomdefined.org/Definition
Can't you already mix a copyleft license (like GFDL) with a free non-copyleft license (like BSD), so long as the combined work is released under the copyleft license? If so, this would only be useful for mixing with other copyleft licenses, which is arguably not all that important (especially once the wiki-world migrates away from the GFDL), and can be accomplished by dual/multi-licensing (if the author(s) desire(s)) anyway.
What I've consistently disliked about any kind of dual licensing is what to do when the licences disagree. That is not always readily apparent, and in the vast majority of cases won't matter. By the time someone's work has gone through several generations of re-use he may find that liberties have been taken with it that were never part of his original grant of licence.
Ec
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Erik Moeller wrote:
(This is a posting to multiple lists.)
NB one of the lists, cc-licenses, is moderated. I'll approve anything related to the development of a CC license, and be fairly lenient about what "related" means in this discussion, but really off-topic posts will not be approved.
We want to make it possible for all interested parties to participate in development of CC licenses, and super high volume is not conducive to that end. :)
See http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2007-October/006193.html
From _my_ point of view, the key requirements are:
- It should apply to any type of embedded media, i.e. not limited just
to photos embedded into text;
- It should, in principle, be very similar to the CC-BY-SA license,
except for its provision on "Collections";
- It should be adaptable to as many legal frameworks as possible;
- IMPORTANT - I believe it should allow mixing of similar licenses,
e.g. CC-BY-SA into BSD -- the Definition of Free Cultural Works endorsed by Wikimedia could be a guideline as to which licenses can be mixed: http://freedomdefined.org/Definition
I like all of your points, including the last one, but it is a little unclear. I think what you mean is that for "embedded" uses, the containing document should have to be under a free license, not necessarily a compatible copyleft license. This would address use of copyleft images on Wikinews (CC BY), for example.
I would like to kickstart the discussion to get a first for such a license - it could be called CC-BY-SA+ - written as soon as possible. :-)
I don't know why yet another class of license would be needed -- presumably it could be the next version of CC BY-SA.
Perhaps we should have a dedicated mailing list where stakeholders from multiple projects can discuss it?
You're welcome to use cc-licenses. If another list is used I'll encourage CC's jurisdiction project leads to join in there.
Mike
On Sat, 1 Dec 2007, Mike Linksvayer wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
From _my_ point of view, the key requirements are:
- It should apply to any type of embedded media, i.e. not limited just
to photos embedded into text;
- It should, in principle, be very similar to the CC-BY-SA license,
except for its provision on "Collections";
- It should be adaptable to as many legal frameworks as possible;
- IMPORTANT - I believe it should allow mixing of similar licenses,
e.g. CC-BY-SA into BSD -- the Definition of Free Cultural Works endorsed by Wikimedia could be a guideline as to which licenses can be mixed: http://freedomdefined.org/Definition
I like all of your points, including the last one, but it is a little unclear. I think what you mean is that for "embedded" uses, the containing document should have to be under a free license, not necessarily a compatible copyleft license. This would address use of copyleft images on Wikinews (CC BY), for example.
I would like to kickstart the discussion to get a first for such a license - it could be called CC-BY-SA+ - written as soon as possible. :-)
Erik, great points and suggestions.
I don't know why yet another class of license would be needed -- presumably it could be the next version of CC BY-SA.
Mike, this would be fantastic. One of my concerns with the current CC BY-SA is that any time I feel like using such a license, I really want sharealike to mean "derivatives must grant at least the freedoms/ rights granted by BY-SA, and pass on this clause"... to allow for the derivs to be BY / PD / &c.
SJ
Perhaps we should have a dedicated mailing list where stakeholders from multiple projects can discuss it?
You're welcome to use cc-licenses. If another list is used I'll encourage CC's jurisdiction project leads to join in there.
Mike
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<quote who="Mike Linksvayer" date="Sat, Dec 01, 2007 at 06:41:43PM -0800">
I would like to kickstart the discussion to get a first for such a license - it could be called CC-BY-SA+ - written as soon as possible. :-)
I don't know why yet another class of license would be needed -- presumably it could be the next version of CC BY-SA.
Indeed!
I've been frustrated by arguments that I've heard in the last year in favor of non-commercial use as sort of stand-in for copyleft for embeddable images. A stronger and more copyleft-focused method would be a wonderful improvement over that situation. If it's possible. :)
Regard, Mako
On Dec 1, 2007 9:41 PM, Mike Linksvayer ml@creativecommons.org wrote:
- IMPORTANT - I believe it should allow mixing of similar licenses,
e.g. CC-BY-SA into BSD -- the Definition of Free Cultural Works endorsed by Wikimedia could be a guideline as to which licenses can be mixed: http://freedomdefined.org/Definition
I like all of your points, including the last one, but it is a little unclear. I think what you mean is that for "embedded" uses, the containing document should have to be under a free license, not necessarily a compatible copyleft license. This would address use of copyleft images on Wikinews (CC BY), for example.
I agree entirely with this point. (For example, no one objects when CC-BY-SA and GFDL photos and text are intermixed -- the right spirit is there even where the technicalities may not line up -- but people do object when they see ostensibly copyleft material being used in a more restrictive work.)
CC-BY-SA allowing embedded use in any work licensed under a license meeting the free content definition provided that the original requirements are kept on the copylefted work would be a good way to do it. (For example, using CC-BY-SA media within a CC-BY article -- fine, but any derivative of the article containing the embedded media also must remain under a free content license.)
-Kat
On Dec 2, 2007 2:22 AM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
(This is a posting to multiple lists.)
As you've probably read, the Wikimedia Foundation has agreed in principle to support an update of Wikipedia content from the GFDL to CC-BY-SA, pending a community approval of such a migration. The FSF and Creative Commons are supporting us to make this transition possible.
I am sorry, I do not read the resolution (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:License_update) the way you seem to interpret it.
To me the points are: - It is hereby resolved that:
* The Foundation requests that the GNU Free Documentation License be modified in the fashion proposed by the FSF to allow migration by mass collaborative projects to the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license;
=> The whole resolution is in any case submitted to the changes brought to the GFDL.
* Upon the announcement of that relicensing, the Foundation will initiate a process of community discussion and voting before making a final decision on relicensing.
=> If that relicensing (actually, I find the term relicensing is very misleading here, because it seems to say that relicensing will happen and THEN the dicussion will come.) or rather, in my interpretation, if those "changes are applied" or this "migration is made possible", THEN there will be community discussion and the Foundation will ultimately vote on whether the projects will adopt CC-BY-SA in the future.
In short I see four steps: - WMF is saying "sure we'll look at it if you make the licenses compatible" - WMF requests that GFDL be changed to allow mass migration to CC-BY-SA - When these changes occur, community discussion and vote will follow - Finally the WMF will say yes or no (I suppose of course by taking into consideration the community discussion and vote(s) )
Your shortcut "WMF will agree pending community approval" does not seem to reflect those steps.
Did I understand this wrong?
Delphine
On Dec 2, 2007 7:11 AM, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
To me the points are:
It is hereby resolved that:
- The Foundation requests that the GNU Free Documentation License
be modified in the fashion proposed by the FSF to allow migration by mass collaborative projects to the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license;
=> The whole resolution is in any case submitted to the changes brought to the GFDL.
* Upon the announcement of that relicensing, the Foundation willinitiate a process of community discussion and voting before making a final decision on relicensing.
=> If that relicensing (actually, I find the term relicensing is very misleading here, because it seems to say that relicensing will happen and THEN the dicussion will come.) or rather, in my interpretation, if those "changes are applied" or this "migration is made possible", THEN there will be community discussion and the Foundation will ultimately vote on whether the projects will adopt CC-BY-SA in the future.
I was also confused by this wording. If the GFDL is modified, how does the WMF even have a choice whether or not to accept the modifications?
On 02/12/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
I was also confused by this wording. If the GFDL is modified, how does the WMF even have a choice whether or not to accept the modifications?
For existing text we don't. However we could modify our copyright notice to say "version 1.2 but not later" and rate of new edits would see that using wikipedia under an updated version of the license would resulted in using rather outdated articles.
On Dec 2, 2007 8:12 AM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/12/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
I was also confused by this wording. If the GFDL is modified, how does the WMF even have a choice whether or not to accept the modifications?
For existing text we don't. However we could modify our copyright notice to say "version 1.2 but not later" and rate of new edits would see that using wikipedia under an updated version of the license would resulted in using rather outdated articles.
True. Sounds like a recipe for a fork, though.
On Dec 2, 2007 8:40 AM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Dec 2, 2007 8:12 AM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/12/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
I was also confused by this wording. If the GFDL is modified, how does the WMF even have a choice whether or not to accept the modifications?
For existing text we don't. However we could modify our copyright notice to say "version 1.2 but not later" and rate of new edits would see that using wikipedia under an updated version of the license would resulted in using rather outdated articles.
True. Sounds like a recipe for a fork, though.
Hmm, on second thought, either way is a recipe for a fork, with the pro-CC-BY-SA using that license, and the pro-GFDL camp using 1.2 but not later.
Hoi, By insisting on version 1.2 but not later you create a fork as well. As much as some people may insist on version 1.2 but not later, others myself included will have quite opposite sentiments. Thanks, GerardM
On Dec 2, 2007 2:12 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/12/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
I was also confused by this wording. If the GFDL is modified, how does the WMF even have a choice whether or not to accept the modifications?
For existing text we don't. However we could modify our copyright notice to say "version 1.2 but not later" and rate of new edits would see that using wikipedia under an updated version of the license would resulted in using rather outdated articles.
-- geni
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<quote who="Delphine Ménard" date="Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 01:11:09PM +0100">
In short I see four steps:
- WMF is saying "sure we'll look at it if you make the licenses compatible"
- WMF requests that GFDL be changed to allow mass migration to CC-BY-SA
- When these changes occur, community discussion and vote will follow
- Finally the WMF will say yes or no (I suppose of course by taking
into consideration the community discussion and vote(s) )
Your shortcut "WMF will agree pending community approval" does not seem to reflect those steps.
Right. My understanding is that the resolution past by WMF is, itself, the request to the FSF to release a new draft of the license that allows WMF to migrate to the BY-SA immediately and that any conversation about whether the WMF will take advantage of that option to switch over will happen after. Others will be able to use WMF content under BY-SA regardless of any future decision WMF makes.
I've already forwarded the resolution in question to the FSF board and ED. I understand that the FSF board approved this migration months ago (before I was a member). Unless the FSF hears otherwise, things on the FSF side could happen quite quickly.
If the FSF is supposed to wait for some official request while the WMF organizes a conversation, that would be good for me to know so I can relay that to others in the FSF.
Regards, Mako
On Dec 2, 2007, at 1:07 PM, Benj. Mako Hill wrote:
If the FSF is supposed to wait for some official request while the WMF organizes a conversation, that would be good for me to know so I can relay that to others in the FSF.
Mako, I don't think anyone wants it to be understood that FSF should wait until after WMF organizes a conversation. Presumably, the conversation will follow from and center on a decision from FSF regarding the request from the Foundation.
--Mike
On 02/12/2007, Benj. Mako Hill mako@atdot.cc wrote:
Right. My understanding is that the resolution past by WMF is, itself, the request to the FSF to release a new draft of the license that allows WMF to migrate to the BY-SA immediately and that any conversation about whether the WMF will take advantage of that option to switch over will happen after. Others will be able to use WMF content under BY-SA regardless of any future decision WMF makes.
By the way - Larry Sanger has just emailed citizendium-l to say that this means the CZ licence will not be GFDL (which they were only considering for Wikipedia compatibility) - that it'll be CC-by-sa or CC-by-nc-sa. Licence decision and explanation to come soon.
[preserving truly remarkable cc: list]
- d.
On 12/2/07, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
=> The whole resolution is in any case submitted to the changes brought to the GFDL.
These changes have already been agreed upon by the FSF Board. :-) Progress is already moving on the FSF end to finalize & publish the relevant changes.
- WMF is saying "sure we'll look at it if you make the licenses compatible"
Actually, more like: "We're very happy that you're moving forward in the direction we've been discussing with you; in general, there is Board-level agreement that we need to resolve the issue of license interoperability and license complexity, and this specific path -- as opposed to some others that have been considered -- is the one we'd like to ask our community to review."
I do believe it's principally only the step of community approval that could be a real hurdle in relicensing Wikimedia projects to use CC-BY-SA.
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