--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149(a)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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