A user of the German Wikipedia, Ulrich Fuchs, has threatened to take legal action against any third party who makes commercial use of their material without following a very narrow interpretation of the FDL "five author" requirement, which reads as follows:
"B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement."
Our recommendation for third parties using Wikipedia material so far has been that it is completely sufficient in the spirit of the FDL to point to the original Wikipedia article on which the copy is based, because that page contains the history and therefore the list of *all* authors. Ulrich claims that this is not sufficient because it does not meet the conditions of modification set forth in the FDL.
This is not just theoretical. There is a new commercial German project called "Flexicon" which uses Wikipedia material. Currently they don't give any credit whatsoever, but since Flexicon itself is a wiki, some Wikipedians have added links to the original Wikipedia articles in order to meet the conditions of the FDL. Ulrich now threatens anyone with legal action who copies material to Flexicon from the German Wikipedia which he has worked on without having the unworkable "list of five principal authors" on the target page.
This would place an unacceptable burden on third parties as they would have to carry along the complete history of every page thtey use (since there is no automated way to determine who is a principal author), a history which on the English Wikipedia is now so large that we can't even store it in a single file anymore (over 2 gigabytes). Not to mention that having such a list in articles is cumbersome and annoying.
In my opinion, legal threats like these are dangerous to this project and to the very idea of open content. They also show once again that the FDL is a fundamentally flawed, overly complex license with lots of loopholes for pedants who want to get their way instead of working with the community.
There may be a solution to prevent this problem from escalating. We could amend the edit notice on Wikipedia to require the author to release third parties from the need to maintain a list of five "principal authors" per page, since such a release is explicitly provided for in the FDL..
Regards,
Erik
On Saturday 29 November 2003 15:10, Erik Moeller wrote:
There may be a solution to prevent this problem from escalating. We could amend the edit notice on Wikipedia to require the author to release third parties from the need to maintain a list of five "principal authors" per page, since such a release is explicitly provided for in the FDL..
This is a big problem indeed. However, if the user threatening this is unreasonable (which it appears that s/he/it is), then this will not help the immediate situation, as everyone licensed their contributions under the GFDL which has the five main authors clause in it.
Best, Sascha Noyes
"B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement."
Our recommendation for third parties using Wikipedia material so far has been that it is completely sufficient in the spirit of the FDL to point to the original Wikipedia article on which the copy is based, because that page contains the history and therefore the list of *all* authors. Ulrich claims that this is not sufficient because it does not meet the conditions of modification set forth in the FDL.
Well, I think the plain language of the FDL is that Ulrich is correct. It doesn't say you can point to a list of the authors elsewhere: it says that *you* have to list the authors, and on the title page, no less (not in a list at the end of the document, for example, and *certainly* not with only a link at the end of a document to a list elsewhere). In fact, it's pretty evident that this clause of the GFDL was purposely written to disallow such things: it was written with software manuals in mind, the idea being that any third-party reproductions would be forced to proclaim loudly at the beginning who the original authors were. Saying "this is derived from [blah blah], see that book for the original authors" is clearly not intended to be sufficient.
Now whether Wikipedia would like to use the FDL is another matter. But we currently do, and changing our license seems pretty impossible at this point.
-Mark
delirium-
In fact, it's pretty evident that this clause of the GFDL was purposely written to disallow such things: it was written with software manuals in mind,
Exactly. That's why it is legitimate in terms of interpretation to use concepts from the Internet world that are not applicable in the paper world, such as hyperlinking.
Now whether Wikipedia would like to use the FDL is another matter. But we currently do, and changing our license seems pretty impossible at this point.
As I explained, it would be trivial to amend our "site contract" to provide for a release from this particular requirement of the FDL, which is optional. While this wouldn't fix past edits, it is unlikely that this problem is going to come up often, and when it does, who will remember that the submit message didn't *always* say this? (OK, we'll have to purge this message from the archives ;-)
Regards,
Erik
delirium@rufus.d2g.com wrote:
Well, I think the plain language of the FDL is that Ulrich is correct. It doesn't say you can point to a list of the authors elsewhere: it says that *you* have to list the authors, and on the title page, no less
But, where is the 'title page'? My interpretation is that a link to a page containing the title of the article and the history of contributions *is* the "title page" in the sense of the GNU FDL.
(not in a list at the end of the document, for example, and *certainly* not with only a link at the end of a document to a list elsewhere).
Why can't the end of the article have a link at the end saying, for example "click here to see the 'title page' for this article"?
Now whether Wikipedia would like to use the FDL is another matter. But we currently do, and changing our license seems pretty impossible at this point.
That much is true. We've discussed before making some kind of licensing change, but it's really a lot of trouble, particularly when *I* think that most of the alleged violations (such as the one you're talking about here) are not actually violations at all.
--Jimbo
From: Jimmy Wales Thursday, December 04, 2003 3:28 PM delirium@rufus.d2g.com wrote:
Now whether Wikipedia would like to use the FDL is another matter.
But
we currently do, and changing our license seems pretty impossible at
this point.
That much is true. We've discussed before making some kind of licensing change, but it's really a lot of trouble, particularly when *I* think that most of the alleged violations (such as the one you're talking about here) are not actually violations at all.
Fortunately there *is* the possibility of an out, that being to convince FSF to amend the GFDL usefully. (e.g. to allow people to use the equiv. creative-commons license)
They're obviously skeptical of doing so, but as statistically the only website to use the GFDL, our opinions and needs have validity.
As the post is about a legal topic I have posted my response on Wikilegal-L: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikilegal-l/2003-November/000084.html
For information about the list: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilegal-l
Alex756
At 09:10 PM 11/29/2003 +0100, Erik Moeller wrote:
This would place an unacceptable burden on third parties as they would have to carry along the complete history of every page thtey use (since there is no automated way to determine who is a principal author),
Not currently, but I can't see why an automatic algorithm can't be created that does an adequate job. Have it compare diffs and determine what percentage of the current article's text was originally typed in by each author, for example, and then pick the users with the five biggest scores. This would need some tricks to account for special cases, though, especially things like rearrangements of existing text that look like massive additions/deletions but which aren't really. Could take a lot of computer resources, so maybe it could be done only when generating "downloadable" archive bundles.
Does anyone know if there's an accepted legal definition of "principal author" anyway? If not, then would counting the number of characters in the current version of the article that an author contributed be a reasonable way of defining it for Wikipedia's purposes?
a history which on the English Wikipedia is now so large that we can't even store it in a single file anymore (over 2 gigabytes). Not to mention that having such a list in articles is cumbersome and annoying.
The licence only requires five names attached to the work; that's a single line of small text, which can be tucked down at the bottom of the page somewhere discreet. It could be a configurable option, even, if people don't like the clutter. The whole entire history would not be required then; if the page already lists the five main authors when it's displayed then you can just copy the entire page wholesale into your derivative work.
Reply found on Wikilegal-L: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikilegal-l/2003-November/000088.html
Subscribe here: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilegal-l
From: "Bryan Derksen" bryan.derksen@shaw.ca To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Cc: wikilegal-l@Wikimedia.org Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2003 11:05 PM Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] FDL used to stifle distribution of articles
Am Samstag, 29. November 2003 21:10 schrieb Erik Moeller:
A user of the German Wikipedia, Ulrich Fuchs, has threatened to take legal action against any third party who makes commercial use of their material without following a very narrow interpretation of the FDL "five author" requirement, which reads as follows:
[snip]
Just to put that "threat" in context: There currently is a website flexicon.doccheck.com (currently down, I don't know why) in Germany using Wikipedia material (either by copying it in the first place by the site maintainers or by uploading by Wikipedians), which does not comply to the licence (e.g. it does not list authors, it does not even mention Wikipedia).
That site actually reserves the right to distribute the material in any form, including for example on paper, smartphones or on PDAs (since the site is down I'm citing that from google cache). That makes a weblink to Wikipedia practically useless. In addion, Flexikon states "so dass Sie keine Inhalte einstellen dürfen, wenn Sie später eigene Rechte geltend machen wollen" (You may not upload content, if you want to claim rights on the text later). That's not true, putting a text under GNU FDL does not mean, *losing* ones rights on the text. What makes me especially angry is DocCheck/Flexikon putting a "(c) 2002 by DocCheck Medical Services GmbH" under each article page, and refering to the GNU FDL just on one general "usage" page. It all looks like a de facto re-closing of open content.
I agree with everyone thinking the GNU FDL is completely unsuitable for Wikipedia. We act against this license a hundred times a day moving content from one article to another, translating from english to german and just stating there "aus en:". But that is *within* Wikipedia. It's a completely different thing if people are starting to make money out of that project.
It's a fact that the license is at it is. We should have choosen a better one in the first place, but now we have the GNU FDL and it's likely that we have to live with her. The only way for having any changes would be a nother version of the license released by the GNU Foundation. (By the way, Erik, you cannot just add a statement on the edit pages (releasing from the five-author quote thing), since the license does not allow you to modify the text then. If you modify, you must put the modification again under the GNU FDL and under nothing else. The five-author-thing also applies to mere copying without modification, since the history "section" is part of the document.)
For making one thing perfectly clear: I have nothing against using Wikipedia material in a commercial context. The license perfectly allows for that, that is what is *intended* and I actually start beleiving that a commercial read-only Wikipedia with edited content is probably a good thing (like Linux also needed Distributors for it's success).
But the license does not allow for hijacking of the material: If one is going to use the material in a commercial context, we should insist on our rights to keep the content free, to have any derived work free again and to have mentioned our effort in developing that content.
The German "Urheberrecht" (similar to copyright in US) is applying here (I think so, since there are just german people involved; *where* something is published is irrelevantin such a context, the question is *who* is publishing). However, the "Urheberrecht" is a personal right, there is no such thing as a "Wikipedia" or "Wikimedia foundation" or "Wikipedians" who can possibly own the "Urheberrecht" on the texts.
So, I have to say "I will do" when I'm meaning "we should do". *We* cannot do anything, it's always just the copyright owner who can do something.
I have escalated this issue because Wikipedians have started to upload content to a commercially oriented site who is not complying to the GNU FDL at all. I do not want to threat any Wikipedian with legal action, but I also do not want to spoil any legal action against a non-complier to the license because some Wikipedians helped him in not-complying and I did not tell them to stop doing so. From a legal point of view I have to state explictly that I do not tolerate any uploading (of contented provided by me) to a commercial site that does not comply to the license, since otherwise I would not have done anything to keep the damage low (which is more or less required by german law -pretty good law, does prevent from things like SCO distributing Linux over years and then filing a lawsuit).
In my opinion, legal threats like these are dangerous to this project and to the very idea of open content.
Again, I'm not against open content. And I *know* that implies commercial usage. But I will fight any attempt to "re-close" the content, and that means, please, that Wikipedians do not actively *support* a non-complier(!) to the license with posting Wikipedia content there.
They also show once again that the FDL is a fundamentally flawed,
Agreed
overly complex license with lots of loopholes for pedants who want to get their way instead of working with the community.
This is absolutely not what I am doing. And I'm pretty sad about Erik being this insulting.
Uli
I think Flexicon is the logical defendent with Wikipedia as a the plaintiff should we chose to not accept repeated violations of our copyright, if contact with them requesting compliance proves unproductive. Ulrich Fuchs is right to point this out but throwing in the "five author" question is not productive as we do want people, including commercial sites, to reuse our material without onerous requirements.
Fred
From: Ulrich Fuchs mail@ulrich-fuchs.de Reply-To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 12:21:20 +0100 To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] FDL used to stifle distribution of articles
Am Samstag, 29. November 2003 21:10 schrieb Erik Moeller:
A user of the German Wikipedia, Ulrich Fuchs, has threatened to take legal action against any third party who makes commercial use of their material without following a very narrow interpretation of the FDL "five author" requirement, which reads as follows:
[snip]
Just to put that "threat" in context: There currently is a website flexicon.doccheck.com (currently down, I don't know why) in Germany using Wikipedia material (either by copying it in the first place by the site maintainers or by uploading by Wikipedians), which does not comply to the licence (e.g. it does not list authors, it does not even mention Wikipedia).
That site actually reserves the right to distribute the material in any form, including for example on paper, smartphones or on PDAs (since the site is down I'm citing that from google cache). That makes a weblink to Wikipedia practically useless. In addion, Flexikon states "so dass Sie keine Inhalte einstellen dürfen, wenn Sie später eigene Rechte geltend machen wollen" (You may not upload content, if you want to claim rights on the text later). That's not true, putting a text under GNU FDL does not mean, *losing* ones rights on the text. What makes me especially angry is DocCheck/Flexikon putting a "(c) 2002 by DocCheck Medical Services GmbH" under each article page, and refering to the GNU FDL just on one general "usage" page. It all looks like a de facto re-closing of open content.
I agree with everyone thinking the GNU FDL is completely unsuitable for Wikipedia. We act against this license a hundred times a day moving content from one article to another, translating from english to german and just stating there "aus en:". But that is *within* Wikipedia. It's a completely different thing if people are starting to make money out of that project.
It's a fact that the license is at it is. We should have choosen a better one in the first place, but now we have the GNU FDL and it's likely that we have to live with her. The only way for having any changes would be a nother version of the license released by the GNU Foundation. (By the way, Erik, you cannot just add a statement on the edit pages (releasing from the five-author quote thing), since the license does not allow you to modify the text then. If you modify, you must put the modification again under the GNU FDL and under nothing else. The five-author-thing also applies to mere copying without modification, since the history "section" is part of the document.)
For making one thing perfectly clear: I have nothing against using Wikipedia material in a commercial context. The license perfectly allows for that, that is what is *intended* and I actually start beleiving that a commercial read-only Wikipedia with edited content is probably a good thing (like Linux also needed Distributors for it's success).
But the license does not allow for hijacking of the material: If one is going to use the material in a commercial context, we should insist on our rights to keep the content free, to have any derived work free again and to have mentioned our effort in developing that content.
The German "Urheberrecht" (similar to copyright in US) is applying here (I think so, since there are just german people involved; *where* something is published is irrelevantin such a context, the question is *who* is publishing). However, the "Urheberrecht" is a personal right, there is no such thing as a "Wikipedia" or "Wikimedia foundation" or "Wikipedians" who can possibly own the "Urheberrecht" on the texts.
So, I have to say "I will do" when I'm meaning "we should do". *We* cannot do anything, it's always just the copyright owner who can do something.
I have escalated this issue because Wikipedians have started to upload content to a commercially oriented site who is not complying to the GNU FDL at all. I do not want to threat any Wikipedian with legal action, but I also do not want to spoil any legal action against a non-complier to the license because some Wikipedians helped him in not-complying and I did not tell them to stop doing so. From a legal point of view I have to state explictly that I do not tolerate any uploading (of contented provided by me) to a commercial site that does not comply to the license, since otherwise I would not have done anything to keep the damage low (which is more or less required by german law -pretty good law, does prevent from things like SCO distributing Linux over years and then filing a lawsuit).
In my opinion, legal threats like these are dangerous to this project and to the very idea of open content.
Again, I'm not against open content. And I *know* that implies commercial usage. But I will fight any attempt to "re-close" the content, and that means, please, that Wikipedians do not actively *support* a non-complier(!) to the license with posting Wikipedia content there.
They also show once again that the FDL is a fundamentally flawed,
Agreed
overly complex license with lots of loopholes for pedants who want to get their way instead of working with the community.
This is absolutely not what I am doing. And I'm pretty sad about Erik being this insulting.
Uli _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Fred Bauder wrote:
I think Flexicon is the logical defendent with Wikipedia as a the plaintiff should we chose to not accept repeated violations of our copyright, if contact with them requesting compliance proves unproductive. Ulrich Fuchs is right to point this out but throwing in the "five author" question is not productive as we do want people, including commercial sites, to reuse our material without onerous requirements.
I'm not sure how Wikipedia could be the plaintiff, as it doesn't hold copyright to the material. The material I've submitted to Wikipedia, for example, is copyrighted by me. I have licensed it under the GFDL, so Wikipedia, as well as anyone else willing to abide by the terms of the GFDL, is free to use my text. But they have no more rights to it than any other random person or entity does.
-Mark
"...the text contained in Wikipedia is licensed to the public under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL)"
This statement gives us standing as licensor, the defendent is a licensee under the GFDL.
Fred
From: Delirium delirium@rufus.d2g.com Reply-To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2003 13:29:54 -0800 To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] The Defendent
Fred Bauder wrote:
I think Flexicon is the logical defendent with Wikipedia as a the plaintiff should we chose to not accept repeated violations of our copyright, if contact with them requesting compliance proves unproductive. Ulrich Fuchs is right to point this out but throwing in the "five author" question is not productive as we do want people, including commercial sites, to reuse our material without onerous requirements.
I'm not sure how Wikipedia could be the plaintiff, as it doesn't hold copyright to the material. The material I've submitted to Wikipedia, for example, is copyrighted by me. I have licensed it under the GFDL, so Wikipedia, as well as anyone else willing to abide by the terms of the GFDL, is free to use my text. But they have no more rights to it than any other random person or entity does.
-Mark
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Fred Bauder wrote:
"...the text contained in Wikipedia is licensed to the public under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL)"
This statement gives us standing as licensor, the defendent is a licensee under the GFDL.
That statement is correct, but Wikipedia is not doing the licensing. The text contained within Wikipedia has been individually licensed by its authors under the GFDL. Wikipedia collects all these GFDL texts on one website, but others are free to do so as well.
Note also that some text on Wikipedia isn't even created by Wikipedians--it's an import of pre-existing GFDL works from elsewhere. We can use it, just as anyone else can, as long as we follow the license.
-Mark
My reply to this obvious legal issue question posted on the legal list: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikilegal-l/2003-December/000109.html to join that list: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilegal-l
----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Bauder" fredbaud@ctelco.net To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 5:37 PM Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] The Defendent
"...the text contained in Wikipedia is licensed to the public under the
GNU
Free Documentation License (GFDL)"
This statement gives us standing as licensor, the defendent is a licensee under the GFDL.
Fred
From: Delirium delirium@rufus.d2g.com Reply-To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2003 13:29:54 -0800 To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] The Defendent
Fred Bauder wrote:
I think Flexicon is the logical defendent with Wikipedia as a the
plaintiff
should we chose to not accept repeated violations of our copyright, if contact with them requesting compliance proves unproductive. Ulrich
Fuchs is
right to point this out but throwing in the "five author" question is
not
productive as we do want people, including commercial sites, to reuse
our
material without onerous requirements.
I'm not sure how Wikipedia could be the plaintiff, as it doesn't hold copyright to the material. The material I've submitted to Wikipedia, for example, is copyrighted by me. I have licensed it under the GFDL, so Wikipedia, as well as anyone else willing to abide by the terms of the GFDL, is free to use my text. But they have no more rights to it than any other random person or entity does.
-Mark
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Delirium wrote:
Fred Bauder wrote:
I think Flexicon is the logical defendent with Wikipedia as a the plaintiff should we chose to not accept repeated violations of our copyright, if contact with them requesting compliance proves unproductive. Ulrich Fuchs is right to point this out but throwing in the "five author" question is not productive as we do want people, including commercial sites, to reuse our material without onerous requirements.
I'm not sure how Wikipedia could be the plaintiff, as it doesn't hold copyright to the material. The material I've submitted to Wikipedia, for example, is copyrighted by me. I have licensed it under the GFDL, so Wikipedia, as well as anyone else willing to abide by the terms of the GFDL, is free to use my text. But they have no more rights to it than any other random person or entity does.
So if Wikipedia can't be plaintiff, and you as an individual author are not willing to be plaintiff, then GFDL is no more than a paper tiger since violators may copy things with impunity.
Ec
G'day Ray, Delirium, and Fred
At 02:03 AM 2/12/03 -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Delirium wrote:
Fred Bauder wrote:
I think Flexicon is the logical defendent with Wikipedia as a the plaintiff should we chose to not accept repeated violations of our copyright, if contact with them requesting compliance proves unproductive. Ulrich Fuchs is right to point this out but throwing in the "five author" question is not productive as we do want people, including commercial sites, to reuse our material without onerous requirements.
I'm not sure how Wikipedia could be the plaintiff, as it doesn't hold copyright to the material. The material I've submitted to Wikipedia, for example, is copyrighted by me. I have licensed it under the GFDL, so Wikipedia, as well as anyone else willing to abide by the terms of the GFDL, is free to use my text. But they have no more rights to it than any other random person or entity does.
So if Wikipedia can't be plaintiff, and you as an individual author are not willing to be plaintiff, then GFDL is no more than a paper tiger since violators may copy things with impunity.
That's not the purpose of the GFDL and copyleft in general. Its purpose is *not* to *stop* people using the content outside the GFDL, in any way. It leaves the way open for the copyright owners to control this themselves if they wish, but no more.
What the GFDL *does* seek to do is to guarantee that everyone *can* use the material, provided their usage stays within the GFDL. So, if one of these violators was to attempt to attempt to prevent Wikipedia or any other user from using this material within the GFDL, hopefully this attempt would be laughed out of court. Those are the teeth the GFDL seeks to have.
So are the cases cited violations of the GFDL at all? Probably not, IANAL. They seem to be violations of copyright, not copyleft. That is, these sites aren't using the material under the GFDL, true, but they don't claim to be. If they claim to be using is "courtesy of Wikipedia" but are outside the GFDL, probably we could make them take that notice off, as Wikipedia hasn't given any such permission and probably doesn't have any right to give it anyway. But we can't make them stop using the material, or to put on a GFDL notice or any other notice, as Wikimedia doesn't own the copyright.
Even if they are copyright violations I suspect it would be very hard for anyone to prosecute such violations with regard to anything done on a Wiki. There's both the practical problem of getting the plaintifs together and the theoretical one of what permission is implicit whenever you participate in a Wiki. Mind you, US law is 'way ahead of Australian law in class actions and the like, and so there may even be a way around the practical problems.
Is that any clearer? IANAL as I said.
Andrew A
**** andrewa @ alder . ws http://www.zeta.org.au/~andrewa Phone 9441 4476 Mobile 04 2525 4476 ****
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Ulrich-
Just to put that "threat" in context: There currently is a website flexicon.doccheck.com (currently down, I don't know why) in Germany using Wikipedia material (either by copying it in the first place by the site maintainers or by uploading by Wikipedians), which does not comply to the licence (e.g. it does not list authors, it does not even mention Wikipedia).
I already noted that. Of course their behavior is wrong, everyone acknowledges that. But we have a specific recommendation for cases like these, namely that they should backlink to us. From a pragmatic perspective, that's more than good enough. I don't see that you or anyone else would gain anything by being listed as a "principal author", especially as Wikipedia articles are often the work of hundreds of people who make very small but important contributions. A link to the history is much more useful, as it shows all authors and also gives users the ability to generate diffs. So I see your insistence on this requirement mostly as a case of "Let's see if I can find anything in the FDL that will stop them from using my articles".
It's a fact that the license is at it is. We should have choosen a better one in the first place, but now we have the GNU FDL and it's likely that we have to live with her. The only way for having any changes would be a nother version of the license released by the GNU Foundation. (By the way, Erik, you cannot just add a statement on the edit pages (releasing from the five-author quote thing), since the license does not allow you to modify the text then.
Actually, section 4.B specifically says "unless they release you from this requirement", and allows modification. Just like the FDL allows creators to "opt-out" of cover texts and invariant sections, it allows them to opt out of the author list requirement.
But the license does not allow for hijacking of the material: If one is going to use the material in a commercial context, we should insist on our rights to keep the content free, to have any derived work free again and to have mentioned our effort in developing that content.
All this is meaningfully done by linking to the page history. If it is still meaningful enough in a medium that does not allow hyperlinks may be a matter of some debate.
overly complex license with lots of loopholes for pedants who want to get their way instead of working with the community.
This is absolutely not what I am doing. And I'm pretty sad about Erik being this insulting.
Then stop insisting on a requirement that nobody else agrees is necessary. The Net fundamentally depends on openness and mutual cooperation: You have to add the FDL notice, but it's sufficient if you link to the history. The moment you insist on unreasonable requirements, you become no better than the lawyers, politicians and corporations who have eroded the freedom of the Net in the past years.
Regards,
Erik
On Sun, 30 Nov 2003, Ulrich Fuchs wrote:
Am Samstag, 29. November 2003 21:10 schrieb Erik Moeller:
A user of the German Wikipedia, Ulrich Fuchs, has threatened to take legal action against any third party who makes commercial use of their material without following a very narrow interpretation of the FDL "five author" requirement, which reads as follows:
[snip]
Just to put that "threat" in context: There currently is a website flexicon.doccheck.com (currently down, I don't know why) in Germany using Wikipedia material (either by copying it in the first place by the site maintainers or by uploading by Wikipedians), which does not comply to the licence (e.g. it does not list authors, it does not even mention Wikipedia).
[snip]
Reading what your problems with the site are, my impression is, "So then why is it not THAT that you are going after?" That is, why don't you threaten to sue over going against the spirit of the GNU/FDL by having their copyright notice prominent, but the GNU/FDL notice hidden if at all?
Andre Engels
Ulrich Fuchs wrote:
That site actually reserves the right to distribute the material in any form, including for example on paper, smartphones or on PDAs (since the site is down I'm citing that from google cache). That makes a weblink to Wikipedia practically useless. In addion, Flexikon states "so dass Sie keine Inhalte einstellen dürfen, wenn Sie später eigene Rechte geltend machen wollen" (You may not upload content, if you want to claim rights on the text later). That's not true, putting a text under GNU FDL does not mean, *losing* ones rights on the text. What makes me especially angry is DocCheck/Flexikon putting a "(c) 2002 by DocCheck Medical Services GmbH" under each article page, and refering to the GNU FDL just on one general "usage" page. It all looks like a de facto re-closing of open content.
I would agree with you, given the totality of these facts. But in the past, we have had very good success with just writing a kind letter asking people to do the right thing.
I agree with everyone thinking the GNU FDL is completely unsuitable for Wikipedia. We act against this license a hundred times a day moving content from one article to another, translating from english to german and just stating there "aus en:".
I'm not convinced that any of that amounts to even a technical violation of the license, properly interpreted.
It's a fact that the license is at it is. We should have choosen a better one in the first place, but now we have the GNU FDL and it's likely that we have to live with her. The only way for having any changes would be a nother version of the license released by the GNU Foundation.
I believe this to be a possibility. Richard Stallman has indicated to me that he would look favorably on a "lesser FDL", similar to the "LGPL" or "Lesser GPL", if it is free and serves people's needs better. It's really just a matter of us doing the hard work to design that license and campaign for it to be adopted.
But the license does not allow for hijacking of the material: If one is going to use the material in a commercial context, we should insist on our rights to keep the content free, to have any derived work free again and to have mentioned our effort in developing that content.
Yes, I agree with you.
Have you heard back from the offending site? What's their story?
--Jimbo
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