Tomasz Ganicz wrote: 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

Tomasz Ganicz wrote: 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

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 5:33 AM, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek(a)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. -Chad

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 12:15 PM, Chad <innocentkiller(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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? -- André Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com

On 21 February 2010 10:33, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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. -- geni

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(a)gmail.com> wrote:

K. Peachey 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. Ec

K. Peachey wrote: 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

2010/2/20 geni <geniice(a)gmail.com>om>: 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? -- Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html

2010/2/20 geni <geniice(a)gmail.com>om>: 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 :-) -- Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html

2010/2/20 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>om>: 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? -- Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html

On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 6:01 PM, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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". 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.

Anthony wrote: 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

On 21 February 2010 10:30, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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. -- geni

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 5:30 AM, Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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.

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: