--- Sj 2.718281828@gmail.com wrote on Wikipedia-l:
Brockhaus "must concede defeat" to Wikipedia .... The net result: Wikipedia ran away with the top prize, a comfortable distance ahead of its stately predecessors. "Brockhaus Premium surpassed the competition from Redmond," the review reported, "but must however concede defeat to Wikipedia".
Wow! That is totally awesome! Did they compare the English versions or German versions of each encyclopedia (all the better if it were the German versions)? Reading... Oh, it does look like they looked at the German version - sweet.
Two words: PRESS RELEASE!
Seriously, once the fund drive is over we should have a press release about this and also mention the fact and result of our 'recent successful fund drive.' We should also quote Jimbo when he said that commercial encyclopedias will be out of business in 5 years if they keep doing as they have been.
Happily, the full breakdown of the experts' ratings were published along with the article, so that each encyclopedia may benefit from the spot check.
A full translation will be available on meta presently : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia vs Brockhaus and Encarta
Working URL: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_vs_Brockhaus_and_Encarta
Is the copyright cleared on that translation (since a translation is a derivative work it is still covered by the original copyright)?
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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On Fri, 1 Oct 2004 23:15:12 -0700 (PDT), Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Wow! That is totally awesome! Did they compare the English versions or German versions of each encyclopedia (all the better if it were the German versions)? Reading... Oh, it does look like they looked at the German version - sweet.
It is terribly exciting... and yes, German to German.
Two words: PRESS RELEASE!
Absolutely! Monday wouldn't be too soon.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/PR/c%27t
Seriously, once the fund drive is over we should have a press release about this and also mention the fact and result of our 'recent successful fund drive.' We should also quote Jimbo when he said that commercial encyclopedias will be out of business in 5 years if they keep doing as they have been.
"crushed out of existence," I love that quote...
Working URL: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_vs_Brockhaus_and_Encarta Is the copyright cleared on that translation (since a translation is a
Ahh, thank you. No, there's no copyright clearance... it may be too long and too detailed a paraphrase to be fair use. We should check with c't to make sure they don't mind.
Working URL: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_vs_Brockhaus_and_Encarta
Right now this is just a summary and note that the article is coming out; if they eventually allow a translation, hopefully one will be put up there.
Daniel Mayer wrote:
Two words: PRESS RELEASE!
Seriously, once the fund drive is over we should have a press release about this and also mention the fact and result of our 'recent successful fund drive.' We should also quote Jimbo when he said that commercial encyclopedias will be out of business in 5 years if they keep doing as they have been.
I've seen that work already started on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_press_releases/Wikipedia_vs_Brockha...
I'm not entirely sure if it's a good idea to send a separate press release. We discussed this yesterday among the german wikipedians, feelings were mixed.
It's one thing to have an independent media giving wikipedia credit as a valuable encyclopedia, but we know that in many areas it's still far from being that. If we pick up the results of this test and boast about them, we will be measured by this in the future. Closed season would be over for us.
Please let's stick to "we are a project building an encyclopedia" and let the media do the job of praising us. They do it quite well, as we can see. Let's mention the c't test discreetly in future press releases (like the one about the fund raising drive), but not send a separate one.
For the german wikipedia, we are planning to mention the test results in our next press release about the publication of the wikipedia cd version.
One last important thing: If something like this happens, please don't start actions without consulting the local people involved. So far we have good contacts to the c't. But things like a full text translation of the article can seriously damage this relationship. And it would fall back to us, not the international crowd.
greetings, elian
On 2 Oct 2004, at 17:41, Elisabeth Bauer wrote:
One last important thing: If something like this happens, please don't start actions without consulting the local people involved. So far we have good contacts to the c't. But things like a full text translation of the article can seriously damage this relationship. And it would fall back to us, not the international crowd.
greetings, elian
<AOL>I STRONGLY second that.</AOL>
Without sounding too much like a prick, reading the previous emails, where someone (IIRC) tried to argue that a translation of an existing text was an original work--
IT IS NOT!!!
U.S., E.U. and international laws are '''quite''' clear on this point. You absolutely CANNOT publish the translation of a copyrighted work w/o the original author's consent! Please DO NOT go there.
I'm seeing _a lot_ of naivety lately, as regards copyright:
1. That's a '''problem''' for the submitter (because they--not the Wikipedia--are legally fully liable for the text they are submitting to the Wikipedia).
2. It's a '''bigger problem''' for the wiki process -- because if a copyright-infringing text gets submitted and then that text sees a lot of development, it will be an absolute MESS to sort things out later. (Positions and interpretations on what to do vary from "delete everything as the successive edits are derivative works of a work that was not licensed in the first place" right through to "keep it if more than <insert arbitrary number here> percent of the sentences are different from the unlicensed original source." Legally the tendency is to argue for deleting everything which potentially scraps many, many people's hard work.)
3. It's a '''shit-has-hit-the-fan situation of absolutely stellar proportions''' if such problems arise with respect to Wikipedia PR. Because with our PR, not only does the Wikipedia likely become liable for the screw-up (instead of the submitter being liable), it also will cause the public to view us as wholesale intellectual bootleggers.
PLEASE, let's ensure that things never get so fubar.
-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]] www.ropersonline.com
--- Jens Ropers ropers@ropersonline.com wrote:
Without sounding too much like a prick, reading the previous emails, where someone (IIRC) tried to argue that a translation of an existing text was an original work--
IT IS NOT!!!
Why not *read* those posts to find out? Who argued that? Certainly not me.
U.S., E.U. and international laws are '''quite''' clear on this point. You absolutely CANNOT publish the translation of a copyrighted work w/o the original author's consent! Please DO NOT go there.
A longish summary translation was created and I asked if the copyright on that were cleared. SJ then deleted the summary stating that such a long paraphrase was probably not fair use. I originally thought that it was a direct translation, which most certainly would be a derivative work. But it was more of loose paraphrase summary from what I gather - so it was not clear whether or not it was OK.
I'm seeing _a lot_ of naivety lately, as regards copyright:
I just saw and responded to a post on the English Wikibooks Staff Lounge (their version of the Village Pump) of a person who wanted to create a Portugese textbook by translating a commercial one in English! God I hope nobody is doing that type of thing.
- That's a '''problem''' for the submitter (because they--not the
Wikipedia--are legally fully liable for the text they are submitting to the Wikipedia).
Yep - we need to make that more clear by having Wikimedia-wide official submission standards enacted. A draft version is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Submission_Standards
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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