[Foundation-l] Re: Wikisource Copyright

[David Newton]

Hi,

Le Wednesday 16 November 2005 23:48, David Newton a Ã(c)crit :


>It is clear that most of the documents in Wikisource are under public domain,
>because their copyright has expired. A few new documents are under free
>licences (GFDLÂor CC) or public domain when the author decided to release
>them in that way.

So it sounds to me that documents do not have to be under the GFDL or
a GFDL-compatible licence, just a licence that allows their
reproduction on the website. Is that what you are saying?

>>I think fair use doesn't apply to any document in Wikisource because these are
>>published in their entirety.

>> >When considering the copyrightability of UN resolutions, or all UN
>> >documents for that matter, what law do you apply?  Is there a UN
>> >Copyright Act?  In the absence of such a law can any UN document be
>> >copyright?

[cut]

>> As for fair use, I have posted in the Scriptorium and the response has
>> disappointed me to say the least. The responses that I have received
>> have been contrary to the policy of Wikisource as set out at
>> [[Wikisource: Copyright]] and they indicate to me that the people
>> concerned do not have a deep understanding of copyright law, or if
>> they do they choose to ignore those bits of copyright law that they do
>> not like. The argument for fair use applying to entire documents in
>> incredibly weak, and no account seems to be take of that fact.

>Agreed.

Given the above what do we do about it? If, as you seem to be saying,
that licences allowing reproduction on the website other than the GFDL
can be used, then we need to get a copyright notice at the bottom of
each copyrighted work on the site setting out the terms under which
they can be reproduced.

>I copy the answer from JB Soufron below:

>"Actually, the texts on the website of the UN are copyrighted by the UN as
>mentionned on [the copyright notice]. It is forbidden to reproduce these
>texts except in the limit mentioned in their [terms of use]. To put it
>simply, this basic license allow people to reproduce the texts but not to
>modify them, which seems normal since these are legal texts and that
>distributing modified versions could induce people in error. I think that
>wikisource could make a good use of these texts if they come with a proper
>disclaimer. --Soufron 11:22, 20 November 2005 (UTC)"

>Personally, I don't see anything useful in copying UNÂresolutions on
>Wikisource. The UN web site is certainly as much as available Wikisource, so
>I don't understand why we should copy anything from it, since we can't modify
>anything in these texts anyway.

Actually Jean-Baptiste is incorrect about those terms of use. They
allow people to download the material on the website for their own
personal, non-commercial use. The UN terms and conditions do not allow
redistribution or compliation of the material on their website.

http://www.un.org/terms.htm

That rules out the resolutions being put on Wikisource, which is
exactly why I posted this thread in the first place, particularly the
questions about fair use. The results of the discussion seem to be
that I am correct in my interpretation of fair use at Wikisource and
that the UN resolutions on the site need to go as they are copyright
violations.

I think we also need to reinforce the terms and conditions on the site
to make it clear that fair use is completely banned for the text
itself. At the moment users are wilfully misinterpreting ambigous
terms and conditions. The problem with sites like Wikipedia and
Wikisource is that many of the users of them do not understand
copyright law. Where there is a grey area like fair use then we have
people using wishful thinking to stretch the concept way beyond its
limits. Particularly with the whole texts reproduced at Wikisource we
are exposed to potential legal liability with greater risk than at
Wikipedia.

>Regards,
>Yann

David Newton