---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com Date: 19 February 2010 21:19 Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Please HELP save Wikipedia history ! (urgent) To: wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
An editor on META is having the crazy idea of tagging all historical logo propositions made during the Wikipedia logo contest back in 2003 with a template
"This image has no license information attached to it. This means that it has an unknown copyright status. Unless the copyright status is provided and a license is given, the image will be deleted one week after this template was added."
Example:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EloquenceSunflowerBlue-Small.png
Please help save Wikipedia history and weight in to avoid all those images being deleted. We are reaching the limits of non sense.
Ant
_______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
2010/2/19 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com Date: 19 February 2010 21:19 Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Please HELP save Wikipedia history ! (urgent) To: wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
An editor on META is having the crazy idea of tagging all historical logo propositions made during the Wikipedia logo contest back in 2003 with a template
"This image has no license information attached to it. This means that it has an unknown copyright status. Unless the copyright status is provided and a license is given, the image will be deleted one week after this template was added."
Example:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EloquenceSunflowerBlue-Small.png
Please help save Wikipedia history and weight in to avoid all those images being deleted. We are reaching the limits of non sense.
Yes...Copyright paranoia in action... You can always copy those files as long as they exists and simply create your private website with all of them. I wonder who is going to sue you for copyvio in such the case. I guess nobody...
Anyway this is indeed big question if we should delete files based on the "0 tolerance for potential copyvio, no matter if it does make any practical sense or was examine but someone with real copyright knowledge" rule or rather based on "is there any probability that someone will sue us for copyvio". Wikimedia Commons (and many other Wikimedia projects) currently follow the "0 tolerance" approach. The exeption is still Wikipedia-en and several other projects which still allow fair-use.
Tomasz Ganicz wrote:
Yes...Copyright paranoia in action... You can always copy those files as long as they exists and simply create your private website with all of them. I wonder who is going to sue you for copyvio in such the case. I guess nobody...
Anyway this is indeed big question if we should delete files based on the "0 tolerance for potential copyvio, no matter if it does make any practical sense or was examine but someone with real copyright knowledge" rule or rather based on "is there any probability that someone will sue us for copyvio". Wikimedia Commons (and many other Wikimedia projects) currently follow the "0 tolerance" approach. The exeption is still Wikipedia-en and several other projects which still allow fair-use.
Any type of zero-tolerance leads to this kind of silliness. Simple errors of judgement end up being treated like major crimes.
For me the real standard for copyright is respect of others' rights, even more than the probability of prosecution, Unfortunately, "respect" is a very difficult yardstick to apply because for some respect is measured by attention to copyrights while for others respect is measured by the recognition that their otherwise obscure work still has merit in someone else's eyes.
Users' rights were never taken into consideration in the development of copyright laws. They didn't matter as long as users had no technology with which to use those rights. Thus, rights owners could develop widely applicable laws that covered a lot of territory that was of no consequence at that time.
"Probability that someone will sue" is an interesting idea because it recognizes the notion that there is a probability, however infinitissimal, that almost any event will happen. Probability allows for the possibility of any event, like being hit by a meteorite while standing in your own back yard, but it also allows for the overwhelming contrary possibility. People who take a lot of drinks during a flight to calm their fear of flying are not afraid to get into their cars and drive away as soon as they land.
Probabilistic arguments are difficult to establish when the majority still believes in legal certainty in the same way that it believes in God.
Ec
2010/2/20 Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net:
Probabilistic arguments are difficult to establish when the majority still believes in legal certainty in the same way that it believes in God.
I am not quite sure what you wanted to say :-) Anyway - this cited sentence is for me a nice expression of "0 tolerance" copyright paranoia definition. In fact, most attorneys say usually to their clients that there is nothing like legal certainty as long as the court verdict is known and being innocent does not give you 100% probability that you won't be sentenced as guilty. Everyone can be a suspect of committing a crime and it is just a matter of probability that vast majority of people are not taken to jail. This is just because the number of beds in jails is limited :-)
Tomasz Ganicz wrote:
2010/2/20 Ray Saintonge:
Probabilistic arguments are difficult to establish when the majority still believes in legal certainty in the same way that it believes in God.
I am not quite sure what you wanted to say :-) Anyway - this cited sentence is for me a nice expression of "0 tolerance" copyright paranoia definition. In fact, most attorneys say usually to their clients that there is nothing like legal certainty as long as the court verdict is known and being innocent does not give you 100% probability that you won't be sentenced as guilty. Everyone can be a suspect of committing a crime and it is just a matter of probability that vast majority of people are not taken to jail. This is just because the number of beds in jails is limited :-)
My apologies if my analogy wasn't clear. Many people tend to treat the Bible as the word of God that must be valid in all circumstances, choosing to ignore any ridiculous results that that may produce. Similarly, people unfamiliar with law also tend toward a strict interpretation of statute without regard to any other influences, or without any understanding of the body of judicial interpretation that surrounds those statutes.
If I may quote Oliver Wendell Holmes in /The Common Law/: "The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience ... The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics."
A jail sentence in a case if copyright infringement would be highly unusual, and it is unfortunate that copyright paranoiacs have convinced themselves that even the most trivial of infringements puts them only one step away from the jail door.
The vengeful tough-on-crime lot is not about to be put off by the shortage of beds in a jail. It would please them enormously if the criminals had to sleep on the hard cold concrete floor. That, or they could double up in the bunks, and the resulting sexual violence could be used as evidence of just how depraved these criminals are.
Ec
2010/2/21 Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net:
Tomasz Ganicz wrote:
2010/2/20 Ray Saintonge:
Probabilistic arguments are difficult to establish when the majority still believes in legal certainty in the same way that it believes in God.
I am not quite sure what you wanted to say :-) Anyway - this cited sentence is for me a nice expression of "0 tolerance" copyright paranoia definition. In fact, most attorneys say usually to their clients that there is nothing like legal certainty as long as the court verdict is known and being innocent does not give you 100% probability that you won't be sentenced as guilty. Everyone can be a suspect of committing a crime and it is just a matter of probability that vast majority of people are not taken to jail. This is just because the number of beds in jails is limited :-)
My apologies if my analogy wasn't clear. Many people tend to treat the Bible as the word of God that must be valid in all circumstances, choosing to ignore any ridiculous results that that may produce. Similarly, people unfamiliar with law also tend toward a strict interpretation of statute without regard to any other influences, or without any understanding of the body of judicial interpretation that surrounds those statutes.
Yes.. This is typical adminship POV on Wikimedia Commons nowadays and it spreads to many other Wikimedia projects including meta, as more and more Wikimedia projects decides to transfer all of their files to Commons. Legal decision should be taken out from project's communities "jurisdiction" and given into hands of professional lawyers or at least people who had copyright law practical training. Otherwise things are based on current flows of moods of amorphous communities, which is quite often unpredictable and has very little in common with real legal problems, or it is even sometimes based on false over interpretation of law imposed by copyright paranoia guerillas. On Commons it is so easy to start deletion process and vast majority of cases are not analyzed by anyone who has a real, practical knowledge about copyright law. Just add copyvio template and with around 6-7 hours your picture is deleted.
On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 5:33 AM, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
Legal decision should be taken out from project's communities "jurisdiction" and given into hands of professional lawyers or at least people who had copyright law practical training.
While I don't agree that we need to take this away from the community and hand it to a team of lawyers, I must say that the "practical training" caught my eye.
Would it be possible for the Foundation to get Mike--and other people who actually know what they're talking about--to get a "guide to handling copyright questions" together? It would probably help a lot of people who are unclear on some points, as well as help remove some grey areas (like the scenario that brought us here now). This may be a terrible idea, but I'm just throwing it out there.
-Chad
On 21 February 2010 11:15, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 5:33 AM, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
Legal decision should be taken out from project's communities "jurisdiction" and given into hands of professional lawyers or at least people who had copyright law practical training.
While I don't agree that we need to take this away from the community and hand it to a team of lawyers, I must say that the "practical training" caught my eye.
Would it be possible for the Foundation to get Mike--and other people who actually know what they're talking about--to get a "guide to handling copyright questions" together? It would probably help a lot of people who are unclear on some points, as well as help remove some grey areas (like the scenario that brought us here now). This may be a terrible idea, but I'm just throwing it out there.
-Chad
Not really. Mike is a US lawyer. I'm not sure how much it would cost to get enough lawyers to put together say:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Freedom_of_panorama
but I doubt it would be practical.
Commons does have a number of help pages:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Problematic_sources
and en of course has http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Media_copyright_questions
On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 12:15 PM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
While I don't agree that we need to take this away from the community and hand it to a team of lawyers, I must say that the "practical training" caught my eye.
Would it be possible for the Foundation to get Mike--and other people who actually know what they're talking about--to get a "guide to handling copyright questions" together? It would probably help a lot of people who are unclear on some points, as well as help remove some grey areas (like the scenario that brought us here now). This may be a terrible idea, but I'm just throwing it out there.
The problem is that removing grey areas won't help. No grey area would become 100.00% white, and if it's not 100.00% white, then people will delete it. I upload a picture under a free license, stating author and license. A few years down the road someone deletes it, because I have not given any evidence that it is. Of course I have only been a Wikipedian for nine years. We cannot go and trust people like that, can we?
That sounds like a good idea, maybe make it a Wikiversity course? Or run training on IRC?
________________________________ From: Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sun, February 21, 2010 3:15:20 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: [Wikipedia-l] Please HELP save Wikipedia history ! (urgent)
On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 5:33 AM, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
Legal decision should be taken out from project's communities "jurisdiction" and given into hands of professional lawyers or at least people who had copyright law practical training.
While I don't agree that we need to take this away from the community and hand it to a team of lawyers, I must say that the "practical training" caught my eye.
Would it be possible for the Foundation to get Mike--and other people who actually know what they're talking about--to get a "guide to handling copyright questions" together? It would probably help a lot of people who are unclear on some points, as well as help remove some grey areas (like the scenario that brought us here now). This may be a terrible idea, but I'm just throwing it out there.
-Chad
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On 21 February 2010 10:33, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
2010/2/21 Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net:
Tomasz Ganicz wrote:
2010/2/20 Ray Saintonge:
Probabilistic arguments are difficult to establish when the majority still believes in legal certainty in the same way that it believes in God.
I am not quite sure what you wanted to say :-) Anyway - this cited sentence is for me a nice expression of "0 tolerance" copyright paranoia definition. In fact, most attorneys say usually to their clients that there is nothing like legal certainty as long as the court verdict is known and being innocent does not give you 100% probability that you won't be sentenced as guilty. Everyone can be a suspect of committing a crime and it is just a matter of probability that vast majority of people are not taken to jail. This is just because the number of beds in jails is limited :-)
My apologies if my analogy wasn't clear. Many people tend to treat the Bible as the word of God that must be valid in all circumstances, choosing to ignore any ridiculous results that that may produce. Similarly, people unfamiliar with law also tend toward a strict interpretation of statute without regard to any other influences, or without any understanding of the body of judicial interpretation that surrounds those statutes.
Yes.. This is typical adminship POV on Wikimedia Commons nowadays and it spreads to many other Wikimedia projects including meta, as more and more Wikimedia projects decides to transfer all of their files to Commons. Legal decision should be taken out from project's communities "jurisdiction" and given into hands of professional lawyers or at least people who had copyright law practical training. Otherwise things are based on current flows of moods of amorphous communities, which is quite often unpredictable and has very little in common with real legal problems, or it is even sometimes based on false over interpretation of law imposed by copyright paranoia guerillas. On Commons it is so easy to start deletion process and vast majority of cases are not analyzed by anyone who has a real, practical knowledge about copyright law. Just add copyvio template and with around 6-7 hours your picture is deleted.
Not so. For example this lot still exist although pretty much everything in the category is a copyvio.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Murals_in_Derry
Not even UK Freedom of panorama is that broad. It's actualy quite a bit of work to kill of all but the most obvious copyvios.
Tomasz Ganicz wrote:
Legal decision should be taken out from project's communities "jurisdiction" and given into hands of professional lawyers or at least people who had copyright law practical training. Otherwise things are based on current flows of moods of amorphous communities, which is quite often unpredictable and has very little in common with real legal problems, or it is even sometimes based on false over interpretation of law imposed by copyright paranoia guerillas.
In practical terms when many thousands of images are having their legal status questioned a proper and detailed response on each one from the lawyer(s) is unrealistic. Practical training would make sense, but would it be at all possible to teach these people common sense? I'm sure that many of these paranoiacs still click yes to shrink-wrap contracts about which they don't have a clue about. The fact that a program won't work without it is convincing enough for them.
It's important to remember that the role of lawyers is to advise, including an assessment of the possible risks related to different options. Once that is done it's up to the person receiving the advice to decide how much risk is acceptable. What seems to have developed with the Wiki projects is a system where no-one is in a position to accept personal responsibility for anything he does. No-one is in a position to say, "I accept legal responsibility for the images that I upload, and I accept the risks and consequence of any legal action that may result therefrom."
Ec
On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 4:47 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com Date: 19 February 2010 21:19 Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Please HELP save Wikipedia history ! (urgent) To: wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
An editor on META is having the crazy idea of tagging all historical logo propositions made during the Wikipedia logo contest back in 2003 with a template
"This image has no license information attached to it. This means that it has an unknown copyright status. Unless the copyright status is provided and a license is given, the image will be deleted one week after this template was added."
Example:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EloquenceSunflowerBlue-Small.png
Please help save Wikipedia history and weight in to avoid all those images being deleted. We are reaching the limits of non sense.
Ant
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I know the actual logos are trademarked, but the proposals aren't. If these are creations by Wikimedians, then hopefully they are under a free license. They should be uploaded to Commons and organized, if so!
-Chad
On 20 February 2010 00:23, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
I know the actual logos are trademarked, but the proposals aren't. If these are creations by Wikimedians, then hopefully they are under a free license. They should be uploaded to Commons and organized, if so!
-Chad
For the most part no. They were deliberately ot released so the the copyright could be transferred to the foundation. Some have since been released when they found other uses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Example.jpg for example) but most have not been.
Yes. This is idiotic. The logo contest followed the same rules as all other submissions to Wikipedia -- they were submitted under the GFDL.
On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 8:52 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 20 February 2010 00:23, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
I know the actual logos are trademarked, but the proposals aren't. If these are creations by Wikimedians, then hopefully they are under a free license. They should be uploaded to Commons and organized, if so!
-Chad
For the most part no. They were deliberately ot released so the the copyright could be transferred to the foundation. Some have since been released when they found other uses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Example.jpg for example) but most have not been.
-- geni
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On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 3:54 PM, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Yes. This is idiotic. The logo contest followed the same rules as all other submissions to Wikipedia -- they were submitted under the GFDL.
Yes, but not everyone knows that and any tom, dick or harry that randomly finds them doesn't know that, that is why they should be clearly labelled with their source(/s), licenses(/s) and any other appropriate information on their [the images] description pages. Someone could even make a template saying that they are part of a series from whatever contest that they are from.
-Peachey
K. Peachey wrote:
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 3:54 PM, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Yes. This is idiotic. The logo contest followed the same rules as all other submissions to Wikipedia -- they were submitted under the GFDL.
Yes, but not everyone knows that and any tom, dick or harry that randomly finds them doesn't know that, that is why they should be clearly labelled with their source(/s), licenses(/s) and any other appropriate information on their [the images] description pages. Someone could even make a template saying that they are part of a series from whatever contest that they are from.
You're shifting the burden onto the wrong people. If the images followed the general rule that prevailed when they were uploaded the presumption is that they followed that rule unless there was an exception specified *at the time*. If rules have changed since then it's up to those who complain to add the proper notices instead of acting like vandals. Admins who don't know that don't deserve to be admins.
Ec
On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 7:51 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
K. Peachey wrote:
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 3:54 PM, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Yes. This is idiotic. The logo contest followed the same rules as all other submissions to Wikipedia -- they were submitted under the GFDL.
Yes, but not everyone knows that and any tom, dick or harry that randomly finds them doesn't know that, that is why they should be clearly labelled with their source(/s), licenses(/s) and any other appropriate information on their [the images] description pages. Someone could even make a template saying that they are part of a series from whatever contest that they are from.
You're shifting the burden onto the wrong people. If the images followed the general rule that prevailed when they were uploaded the presumption is that they followed that rule unless there was an exception specified *at the time*. If rules have changed since then it's up to those who complain to add the proper notices instead of acting like vandals. Admins who don't know that don't deserve to be admins.
Ec
And where did i say I was ever a Admin? (Personally I don't have the sysop bit on any WMF wiki afaik)
-Peachey
K. Peachey wrote:
On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 7:51 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
You're shifting the burden onto the wrong people. If the images followed the general rule that prevailed when they were uploaded the presumption is that they followed that rule unless there was an exception specified *at the time*. If rules have changed since then it's up to those who complain to add the proper notices instead of acting like vandals. Admins who don't know that don't deserve to be admins.
And where did i say I was ever a Admin? (Personally I don't have the sysop bit on any WMF wiki afaik)
It would be ungracious of me to express relief on that account. :-)
My reference to admins was a generic one. A non-admin making such a proposal would still need to have his proposal reviewed before any admin actions were taken.
Ec
On 20 February 2010 05:54, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Yes. This is idiotic. The logo contest followed the same rules as all other submissions to Wikipedia -- they were submitted under the GFDL.
Evidence?
2010/2/20 geni geniice@gmail.com:
On 20 February 2010 05:54, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Yes. This is idiotic. The logo contest followed the same rules as all other submissions to Wikipedia -- they were submitted under the GFDL.
Evidence?
Evidence of what? At the beginning on all Wikipedias as well as meta there were no license templates at all. It was just assumed that all original content is under GNU FDL - both text and pictures. The idea of license templates for media files was created to provide possibility to use pictures on other free licenses and those which are public domain. Following the copyright paranoia in such the manner you could ask if there is any evidence that articles in Wikipedia are legally under GNU FDL / CC-BY-SA. Do we have any evidence that users agreed for the license conditions? How many of them read the http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use ? And how many of those who read Terms of Use followed the links to the licenses legal code or at least general explanation of their practical consequences ? In case of text content it is simply assumed with no evidence at all that editors agreed. Moreover even if the uploader to Commons chooses the license in upload form do we check if he/she knows and understand its conditions? So, it is all assumed with no evidence at all. Strange?
On 20 February 2010 19:14, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
2010/2/20 geni geniice@gmail.com:
On 20 February 2010 05:54, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Yes. This is idiotic. The logo contest followed the same rules as all other submissions to Wikipedia -- they were submitted under the GFDL.
Evidence?
Evidence of what? At the beginning on all Wikipedias as well as meta there were no license templates at all. It was just assumed that all original content is under GNU FDL - both text and pictures. The idea of license templates for media files was created to provide possibility to use pictures on other free licenses and those which are public domain. Following the copyright paranoia in such the manner you could ask if there is any evidence that articles in Wikipedia are legally under GNU FDL / CC-BY-SA. Do we have any evidence that users agreed for the license conditions? How many of them read the http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use ? And how many of those who read Terms of Use followed the links to the licenses legal code or at least general explanation of their practical consequences ? In case of text content it is simply assumed with no evidence at all that editors agreed. Moreover even if the uploader to Commons chooses the license in upload form do we check if he/she knows and understand its conditions? So, it is all assumed with no evidence at all. Strange?
The logo contest was specificaly non standard with copyrights not being released so that the logo copyright could be held exclusively by the foundation. The various wikimedia logos (except the mediawiki one) are not under a free license.
2010/2/20 geni geniice@gmail.com:
On 20 February 2010 19:14, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
2010/2/20 geni geniice@gmail.com:
On 20 February 2010 05:54, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Yes. This is idiotic. The logo contest followed the same rules as all other submissions to Wikipedia -- they were submitted under the GFDL.
Evidence?
Evidence of what? At the beginning on all Wikipedias as well as meta there were no license templates at all. It was just assumed that all original content is under GNU FDL - both text and pictures. The idea of license templates for media files was created to provide possibility to use pictures on other free licenses and those which are public domain. Following the copyright paranoia in such the manner you could ask if there is any evidence that articles in Wikipedia are legally under GNU FDL / CC-BY-SA. Do we have any evidence that users agreed for the license conditions? How many of them read the http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use ? And how many of those who read Terms of Use followed the links to the licenses legal code or at least general explanation of their practical consequences ? In case of text content it is simply assumed with no evidence at all that editors agreed. Moreover even if the uploader to Commons chooses the license in upload form do we check if he/she knows and understand its conditions? So, it is all assumed with no evidence at all. Strange?
The logo contest was specificaly non standard with copyrights not being released so that the logo copyright could be held exclusively by the foundation. The various wikimedia logos (except the mediawiki one) are not under a free license.
Evidence? :-) Is there any formal document of Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees which says, that logo candidates are a special case for copyright issues or it is just your assumption? If not, one can say that at that time it was assumed on meta that everything uploaded is under GNU FDL. Therefore we have one assumption vs. the other assumption. The other story is if Foundation could legally revoke assumed GNU FDL license of winning logo to register it as a trademark and ask the author to transfer copyright exclusively to Foundation. This is a kind of legal "Gordian Knot" :-) as one can assume that in such a case Wikimedia logo is still under GNU FDL or it is all illegal :-) GNU FDL cannot be canceled, it is for ever, isn't it :-)
On 20 February 2010 22:49, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
Evidence? :-) Is there any formal document of Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees which says, that logo candidates are a special case for copyright issues or it is just your assumption?
Why would it be a board document? Surely it would just have been said on the pages about the contest.
2010/2/20 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
On 20 February 2010 22:49, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
Evidence? :-) Is there any formal document of Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees which says, that logo candidates are a special case for copyright issues or it is just your assumption?
Why would it be a board document? Surely it would just have been said on the pages about the contest.
Yes.. I could buy the idea. Unfortunatelly it had not been said on the contest page :-) The contest page does not say anything about legal copyright issues. See:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/International_logo_contest
So, let's follow copyright paranoia for a while. What is the finall copyright paranoia conclusion? Do we agree with the idea, that at that time everything uploaded was under GNU FDL or not?
On 20 February 2010 23:01, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
2010/2/20 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
On 20 February 2010 22:49, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
Evidence? :-) Is there any formal document of Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees which says, that logo candidates are a special case for copyright issues or it is just your assumption?
Why would it be a board document? Surely it would just have been said on the pages about the contest.
Yes.. I could buy the idea. Unfortunatelly it had not been said on the contest page :-) The contest page does not say anything about legal copyright issues. See:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/International_logo_contest
So, let's follow copyright paranoia for a while. What is the finall copyright paranoia conclusion? Do we agree with the idea, that at that time everything uploaded was under GNU FDL or not?
looking at the oldest version of the upload page it probably wasn't:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Uploadtext&oldid=2...
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 6:01 PM, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
2010/2/20 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
On 20 February 2010 22:49, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
Evidence? :-) Is there any formal document of Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees which says, that logo candidates are a special case for copyright issues or it is just your assumption?
Why would it be a board document? Surely it would just have been said on the pages about the contest.
Yes.. I could buy the idea. Unfortunatelly it had not been said on the contest page :-) The contest page does not say anything about legal copyright issues. See:
I can't remember if that rule got adopted after the "International logo contest", or before it. I do remember the rule, because I thought it was incredibly hypocritical.
As you point out, it doesn't say anything about it on the contest page. Contrast this with http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiktionary/logo/archive-vote-1 which says "All logo submissions must *not* be licensed under GFDL but the copyright must be assigned to the Wikimedia Foundation".
Do we agree with the idea, that at that time everything uploaded was under GNU FDL or not?
Definitely not. You were supposed to release uploads under the GFDL, *if you were the copyright owner*, but not everything that was uploaded was under GFDL.
By the way, here's a thread from 2007, which unfortunately never came to a conclusion as to the answer to the question:
Anthony wrote:
Tomasz Ganicz wrote:
Do we agree with the idea, that at that time everything uploaded was under GNU FDL or not
Definitely not. You were supposed to release uploads under the GFDL, *if you were the copyright owner*, but not everything that was uploaded was under GFDL.
Clearly the rule was based on assuming good faith, and that the person doing the uploading had the right to do so. It seems that many projects have long since abandoned the assumption of good faith.
Ec
2010/2/21 Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net:
Anthony wrote:
Tomasz Ganicz wrote:
Do we agree with the idea, that at that time everything uploaded was under GNU FDL or not
Definitely not. You were supposed to release uploads under the GFDL, *if you were the copyright owner*, but not everything that was uploaded was under GFDL.
But in case of those uploads the copyright owners (authors of the logos) uploaded them personally. The funny part of that story is that it means that current Wikimedia logo seems to be under GFDL :-) GFDL does not interdict copyright transfer, as well as do not interdict applying for trademark registration. Moreover if the orignal copyright owner transferred the copyright to Foundation - Foundation do no need to follow GFDL when using the logo - but it cannot forbid to use the logo by others if they follow GFDL and do not break the trademark law. (Trademark registration and copyrights are two different things).
On 21 February 2010 10:30, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
2010/2/21 Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net:
Anthony wrote:
Tomasz Ganicz wrote:
Do we agree with the idea, that at that time everything uploaded was under GNU FDL or not
Definitely not. You were supposed to release uploads under the GFDL, *if you were the copyright owner*, but not everything that was uploaded was under GFDL.
But in case of those uploads the copyright owners (authors of the logos) uploaded them personally. The funny part of that story is that it means that current Wikimedia logo seems to be under GFDL :-)
Nope. Nothing in the upload form on meta at that point mentioned the GFDL. So not GFDL. The GFDL-presumed templated that people seem to be using was killed off on en back in early 2009.
On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 5:30 AM, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
2010/2/21 Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net:
Anthony wrote:
Tomasz Ganicz wrote:
Do we agree with the idea, that at that time everything uploaded was under GNU FDL or not
Definitely not. You were supposed to release uploads under the GFDL,
*if
you were the copyright owner*, but not everything that was uploaded was under GFDL.
But in case of those uploads the copyright owners (authors of the logos) uploaded them personally. The funny part of that story is that it means that current Wikimedia logo seems to be under GFDL :-)
Can someone email Brad Patrick to see what he remembers about this? I can't seem to find his email address.
My recollection is that one of the logos (but I'm not sure if it was the Wikimedia logo) was (supposedly) retroactively taken out of either the GFDL or the public domain (I forget which), and copyright was assigned to the Wikimedia Foundation. Considering that the first edit I can find of mine was in December 2003, I'm guessing it was indeed the Wikimedia logo, and that it wasn't until the *next* logo contest that talk of copyright assignment was made before the contest began.
Again, I think Brad Patrick would remember more about this, because I believe he was the one who insisted that the Wikimedia logo must not be released under a free license.
On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 5:30 AM, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
Moreover if the orignal copyright owner transferred the copyright to Foundation - Foundation do no need to follow GFDL when using the logo - but it cannot forbid to use the logo by others if they follow GFDL and do not break the trademark law.
That assumes the user of the logo can show some evidence that the logo was in fact released under the GFDL. I think you'd have a really hard time proving that (even just by a preponderance of evidence), unless you could get the original author of the logo to go along with you, anyway.
(Trademark registration and copyrights are two different things).
And the GFDL is another thing. The GFDL says that you're allowed to do certain things provided that you meet certain conditions. If you GFDL something and then you try to sue someone for trademark infringement, they'll just point to the GFDL and say "you gave me permission to do this".
Of course, in this case that argument wouldn't apply, since the person who (possibly) released the image into the GFDL was not the trademark holder.
If these potential logos are not on a free license, as you suggest (and i have no reason to assume you are wrong), then they should certainly not be moved to commons. Meta seems like a correct place. If the rules of meta can be changed so that these copyrighted images can stay hosted there? Perhaps a template with the contest info might be useful. One way or the other, it would be a good thing if the copyright status could be determined: does the foundation have all rights? Do the creators still have all rights reserved?
teun spaans
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 8:19 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 20 February 2010 19:14, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
2010/2/20 geni geniice@gmail.com:
On 20 February 2010 05:54, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Yes. This is idiotic. The logo contest followed the same rules as all
other
submissions to Wikipedia -- they were submitted under the GFDL.
Evidence?
Evidence of what? At the beginning on all Wikipedias as well as meta there were no license templates at all. It was just assumed that all original content is under GNU FDL - both text and pictures. The idea of license templates for media files was created to provide possibility to use pictures on other free licenses and those which are public domain. Following the copyright paranoia in such the manner you could ask if there is any evidence that articles in Wikipedia are legally under GNU FDL / CC-BY-SA. Do we have any evidence that users agreed for the license conditions? How many of them read the http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use ? And how many of those who read Terms of Use followed the links to the licenses legal code or at least general explanation of their practical consequences ? In case of text content it is simply assumed with no evidence at all that editors agreed. Moreover even if the uploader to Commons chooses the license in upload form do we check if he/she knows and understand its conditions? So, it is all assumed with no evidence at all. Strange?
The logo contest was specificaly non standard with copyrights not being released so that the logo copyright could be held exclusively by the foundation. The various wikimedia logos (except the mediawiki one) are not under a free license.
-- geni
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I'll engage myself on all of them (GFDL presumed)
I am tagging the 370. Already did 200 today. Will finish the last 170 by hand tomorrow. That's a fascinating job.
Ant
On 2/20/10 6:54 AM, The Cunctator wrote:
Yes. This is idiotic. The logo contest followed the same rules as all other submissions to Wikipedia -- they were submitted under the GFDL.
On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 8:52 PM, genigeniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 20 February 2010 00:23, Chadinnocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
I know the actual logos are trademarked, but the proposals aren't. If these are creations by Wikimedians, then hopefully they are under a free license. They should be uploaded to Commons and organized, if so!
-Chad
For the most part no. They were deliberately ot released so the the copyright could be transferred to the foundation. Some have since been released when they found other uses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Example.jpg for example) but most have not been.
-- geni
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Till some moment, all updates were assumed under GFDL ... or it was said "you agree to release your upload under GFDL with your pushing this button" or something alike. No tagged old images could be legacy from that era. For more details, see related mediawiki files' past revisions.
Cheers,
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 9:23 AM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 4:47 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com Date: 19 February 2010 21:19 Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Please HELP save Wikipedia history ! (urgent) To: wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
An editor on META is having the crazy idea of tagging all historical logo propositions made during the Wikipedia logo contest back in 2003 with a template
"This image has no license information attached to it. This means that it has an unknown copyright status. Unless the copyright status is provided and a license is given, the image will be deleted one week after this template was added."
Example:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EloquenceSunflowerBlue-Small.png
Please help save Wikipedia history and weight in to avoid all those images being deleted. We are reaching the limits of non sense.
Ant
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I know the actual logos are trademarked, but the proposals aren't. If these are creations by Wikimedians, then hopefully they are under a free license. They should be uploaded to Commons and organized, if so!
-Chad
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