--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
I for one would not contribute to Wikipedia if it were in the public domain.
Yes, and I'm sure you are not alone there. Attracting contributors is the major strength of copyleft licenses in my view, and that's why they are useful. I don't even argue that Wikipedia should switch to public domain, and of course that would be entirely impossible to do now.
What I don't like is if copyleft licenses are sold as increasing freedoms and intellectual property rights, when there are lots of people, even ones opposed to traditional copyright concepts, who are concretely restricted in their choices because of them. Ultimately, these licenses are strategic instruments, tradeoffs, and should be understood as such.
What I am arguing for, I guess, is that Wikipedia contributors who don't need the additional motivation of copyleft anymore, and who have already lost the notions of authorship and ownership enshrined in GFDL, release their contributions into the public domain early (eventually they will fall into the public domain anyway). That doesn't diminish the strategic value of GFDL in any way, but can help potential users of the materials quite substantially.
Axel
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