[Foundation-l] RfC: A Free Content and Expression Definition

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 5/1/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>the English Wikipedia allows anything legally
> allowed in regards to US fair use.  Such material is
> much less free than the any non-derivatives existing
> on enWS.

Just a nit: you're incorrect about English Wikipedia.

On English wikipedia what we allow is more complex. There are two broad classes:
1) Things we 'allow' because no one who cares has noticed yet.
(Including things which are outright illegal for us to distribute)
2) Things we intend to allow.

Class (1) is most likely larger than class (2) right now, but it's not
interesting to discuss so I won't mention it any more. It is important
to mention because if you don't know it you'll think that you can
determine what is permitted by looking at what is there.... You can't.

In the case the things we permit, Obviously GFDLed (and other
similarly licensed) content is permitted.  The way I explain it,
Wikipedia is intended to be the "Free (content) encyclopedia". Here we
mean free content in much the same sense that Erik describes,
including unlimited redistribution for any purpose and derivative
works. You can break the goal of the project this into two primary
parts: "Produce an encyclopedia" "which is free content."

It is the widespread belief on the English Wikipedia that in order to
really fulfil our goal of producing a free encyclopedia which is
useful and competitive in all subject areas we '''must''' be able to
excerpt from copyrighted works. Examples would include things like
using part of a famous painting to illustrate text describing how he
draws flowers.  We can do this because the the US has fairuse which is
specifically intended for this application, and many other English
speaking countries have fair dealings type precedents which affirm
that a copyright holder's monopoly on distribution does not extend far
enough to stop academic discourse.

We recognize that the inclusion of this content is a violation of the
other half the goal of the project. As a result it is only permitted
to include fair use in English wikipedia where doing so compromises
our ability to be a quality encyclopedia.

Thus, being legal in the US is a necessary but not sufficient criteria
for inclusion of non-freely licensed works in English wikipedia.