I recently met with Larry Lessig and we discussed at some length the issue of licensing for Wikinews. Based on that conversation, I think we should move fairly quickly towards adoption of CC-BY, and in particular we should be looking hard at the proposed Creative Commons wiki licensing model.
There is another possibility which we should probably consider -- one which was not possible for Wikipedia when it started -- which is some form of additional "site licensing" requirement. If we are not GNU FDL compatible anyway, I think there is little cost to doing this.
The idea is this: contributors agree to release everything under CC-BY (Wiki version) but they *also* give the Wikimedia Foundation the right to do anything we like with it. By doing this, we hold open the possibility of a relicensing to something compatible with FDL 2.0 someday (maybe).
Wikipedia couldn't do this when we started because people would not have been happy giving a special license to Bomis or to me. But Wikimedia Foundation now is trusted and for good reason.
We have been public-domain for a while, and Lessig is telling us that this is not tenable in the long run. The problem is that to effectively place something literally into the public domain is significantly more difficult than it should be. Simply saying so is certainly not enough, and what we are doing right now is almost certainly not enough.
- --Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
The idea is this: contributors agree to release everything under CC-BY (Wiki version) but they *also* give the Wikimedia Foundation the right to do anything we like with it. By doing this, we hold open the possibility of a relicensing to something compatible with FDL 2.0 someday (maybe).
If this is pursued, I would hope the reasoning is prominently stated next to the notice of copyright... If I understand correctly, the material would still be licensed CC-BY so Wikimedia could not declare it All Rights Reserved, but it's very unusual at first sight to say that Wikimedia can do "anything we like" with one's work.
Is there any nice essay discussing why it is harder to dedicate something to the PD than to just say its PD? I didnt see any thing on wikipedia [[PD]]
-Robin
P.S 100% in support of the "wikimedia can relicense" clause.
Jimmy Wales wrote:
The idea is this: contributors agree to release everything under CC-BY (Wiki version) but they *also* give the Wikimedia Foundation the right to do anything we like with it. By doing this, we hold open the possibility of a relicensing to something compatible with FDL 2.0 someday (maybe).
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The consensus of users I have spoken with on English Wikinews about the license is to accept CC-by or any other licensing and to move on this issue rapidly. And, universally, the next words are "will this allow us to use fair use graphics?"
I agree with the license, and the clause allowing Wikimedia Foundation to relicense at a later date. It will need to be vetted by the legal team, and appropriate language inserted into the site. Speedy implementation would be nice.
Amgine
I've always thought public domain was unworkable.
There is a problem with CC-BY - in that derivative works may have to include the names of all people who worked on the piece - unless the contributor agreement is worded correctly.
-- David Speakman http://www.DavidSpeakman.com 501 Moorpark Way #83 Mountain View CA 94041 Phone: 408-382-1459
-----Original Message----- From: wikinews-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikinews-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Amgine Sent: Sunday, May 01, 2005 8:35 PM To: Wikinews mailing list Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] CC Licensing
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The consensus of users I have spoken with on English Wikinews about the license is to accept CC-by or any other licensing and to move on this issue rapidly. And, universally, the next words are "will this allow us to use fair use graphics?"
I agree with the license, and the clause allowing Wikimedia Foundation to relicense at a later date. It will need to be vetted by the legal team, and appropriate language inserted into the site. Speedy implementation would be nice.
Amgine -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
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On 5/2/05, David Speakman david@speakman.com wrote:
There is a problem with CC-BY - in that derivative works may have to include the names of all people who worked on the piece - unless the contributor agreement is worded correctly.
This is why the CC-WIKI license is under discussion. Because of exactly the concern you cite, CC-WIKI requires attribution to be to the wiki, rather than all the contributors.
The CC-WIKI license terms are here: http://creativecommons.org/drafts/wiki_0.5
Brandon
David Speakman wrote:
I've always thought public domain was unworkable.
There is a problem with CC-BY - in that derivative works may have to include the names of all people who worked on the piece - unless the contributor agreement is worded correctly.
This is the advantage of the new Creative Commons wiki license -- it allows the attribution requirement to be satisfied by attribution to the wiki rather than all the individual contributors.
The Creative Commons wiki license was created in response to my suggestions and my explanation of what is generally considered acceptable to the community with GNU FDL. It's an attempt to encode what are already wiki best practices.
--Jimbo
Jimmy,
I'm fine with CC-BY as long as we add a migration clause. But please let's NOT migrate to CC-BY without that, as the requirement to attribute to the "Original Author" (the person who created the wiki page?), as I understand it, is really not compatible with wikis.
All best,
Erik
Hi all,
You don't know me but I've been lurking for a while.
I'm very much in favour of the CC-Wiki and I agree that we need better legal protection than just stating something is PD. I just want to note that CC has not been ported to all jurisdictions and so the CC license will only work in those countries. Do we need a cascading statement of what license we use in countries which do not support CC? And do we make sure the CC-Wiki license is ported to the various countries? And what about the non-en Wikis? Does the German Wikipedia use the German CC-Wiki or will all the Wikipedias just be under the US CC licenses? As I currently understand it, the Australian licenses that were just ported in January don't cover CC-Wiki. Lessig is speaking at Melbourne Town Hall on Sunday, so I'm going to ask this from the floor (about cascading licenses) but if you are talking to him directly that might be better...
phoenix
Hi all,
You don't know me but I've been lurking for a while.
I'm very much in favour of the CC-Wiki and I agree that we need better legal protection than just stating something is PD. I just want to note that CC has not been ported to all jurisdictions and so the CC license will only work in those countries. Do we need a cascading statement of what license we use in countries which do not support CC? And do we make sure the CC-Wiki license is ported to the various countries? And what about the non-en Wikis? Does the German Wikipedia use the German CC-Wiki or will all the Wikipedias just be under the US CC licenses? As I currently understand it, the Australian licenses that were just ported in January don't cover CC-Wiki. Lessig is speaking at Melbourne Town Hall on Sunday, so I'm going to ask this from the floor (about cascading licenses) but if you are talking to him directly that might be better...
phoenix
Hi all,
You don't know me but I've been lurking for a while.
I'm very much in favour of the CC-Wiki and I agree that we need better legal protection than just stating something is PD. I just want to note that CC has not been ported to all jurisdictions and so the CC license will only work in those countries. Do we need a cascading statement of what license we use in countries which do not support CC? And do we make sure the CC-Wiki license is ported to the various countries? And what about the non-en Wikis? Does the German Wikipedia use the German CC-Wiki or will all the Wikipedias just be under the US CC licenses? As I currently understand it, the Australian licenses that were just ported in January don't cover CC-Wiki. Lessig is speaking at Melbourne Town Hall on Sunday, so I'm going to ask this from the floor (about cascading licenses) but if you are talking to him directly that might be better...
phoenix
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