Milos Rancic wrote:
But, during the couple of previous days I've got
one more contribution
to our Monument. This kind of contributions make me to think that
Wikipedia in English (not just en.wp for sure) is becoming -- slowly
but surely -- the main problem in spreading free knowledge.
...
It is suggested: "Any material that he is
not authorized to give us permission to use must be clearly noted."
Even, again, a moron would be able to understand what has been created
by professor at his site and what is not. For example, if he used some
photo and he is describing that photo as an art and mentions the
author of the photo -- logically, this photo is not his. If he quoted
some author and describes that quote -- logically, this quote is not
his. And so on. The other problem which such bureaucracy is opening is
the fact that that suggestion means without any doubt that I would
need a week or more of work to mark everything on professor's five
sites.
* So, my only response to such moronic bureaucracy is: Fuck you! Of
course, it is not about particular Wikimedia volunteers, it is about
the whole system which transforms good persons into bureaucratic
morons.
And why it is so? Because we have hundreds or thousands of cases
before courts because not so pedantically defined sentences? Because
it is reasonable to suppose that a professor who already gave to us
permissions to get materials from his site four years ago will sue us
because not so well worded agreement for giving materials under
CC-BY-SA? Fuck you, again!
I mentioned just two examples, but there are at least a couple of more
similar from my experience.
As this kind of bureaucracy is so deeply inside of Wikimedia and
especially at Wikipedia and especially at Wikipedia in English -- the
only solution which I am able to see is to create a number of
auxiliary sites which would take care about permissions instead of
Wikimedia. However, this is a very clear path of making Wikipedia and
Wikimedia less relevant. After five years of such tendencies some
standards will be created. After another five Wikipedia won't be
necessary anymore.
I would like to say that the option is to work against such
bureaucracy. However, I am not so optimistic in relation to the large
projects which are already deeply bureaucratic. Even a number of
smaller projects suffer from bureaucracy because of strong influence
of the large projects.
You paint an excellent picture of a gravedigger who has been
so
enthusiastic about his work that he has dug so deep that he is unable to
climb out of his own work.
I suppose that every project is in a different stage of littering with
fly-paper.
In the example at least the professor was still alive for you to be able
to ask permission, but remembering that as the law now stands in many
jurisdictions this scene is likely to be repeated for 70 years after he
dies, during which time you will be seeking permissions from heirs who
have no clue about what you are asking, all for the sake of protecting
economic rights that they never knew they had and money that they never
knew they were getting.
It should be enough for the person granting the free licence to
subscribe to a statement of principle about free content that transcends
GFDL or CC or whatever the flavour of the day may be next year, next
decade or next century.
There always will be cases where a reasonable and fair analysis will
lead us to the conclusion that those contents are probably free, but
where that final step in establishing a clear licence is nearly
impossible for a wide variety of reasons. Due diligence does not
require absolute certainty about a work's copyright status. It accepts
that there is some level where one's efforts are good enough. It accepts
that at some point the individual must accept responsibility to protect
his own rights without the nanny state doing it for him. With so many
significant rights in serious need of protection it makes no sense that
so much effort to protect the speculative rights of the long dead. And
the wiki projects should not be surrogates for the nanny state.
At some point we need to be able to say to our users: "We have a high
degree of confidence that this [specific] material is free, but these
difficulties exist: ... Use it at your own risk."
Ec