[Foundation-l] Copyright issues and how we handle them

[Yann Forget]

Hello,

It seems there was some problem with the Rissian text. I copied that
again from the discussion
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium#Emergency_evacuation

I hope I did it right.

Regards,

Yann

Birgitte SB a écrit :
> The lack of copyright advice forcing us to rely on
> ourselves (namely amateurs) being a problem is old
> news.  But this is situation where I believe amateur
> copyright enforcer has gone too far.
> 
> Contributors never like to hear that they misjudged
> copyright and must remove their work. However we must
> try to handle such issues with tact.  At the extreme
> end of this problem, I believe someone from the
> foundation must intervene with those who claim false
> authority.  Such as an editor who believes he knows
> better than others on copyright issues and implies he
> has the approval of the Jimbo and the ability to see
> that the foundation shuts down a project if the
> contributors do not submit to his opinion. This is an
> extreme case where action is needed.
> 
> Background: The most distressing part of a Russian
> copyright dispute regards rehabilitated prisoners,
> including the men and women who died in Soviet Gulags.
> A new Russian law, which becomes active Jan 1, 2008,
> will apparently restore IP rights on their works for
> 70 years + the date of their most recent postmortem
> rehabilitation.  As many of these authors, such Osip
> Mandelstam have no heirs (the gulag authorities seems
> to have failed to have prisoners create wills before
> seeing to their early deaths) so everything will be
> inherited by the Union of Russian Writers and the
> Russian State which killed him in a concentration camp
> in 1938.  This is obviously distressing to ex-pat
> contributors. They would like further opinions but are
> instead threatened that further delay in deleting
> these works will lead to the project being shut down.
> 
> Alex Spade[1]: This information and other copyright
> info comes from Alex Spade who delivers such
> information as if he has authority on copyright
> interpretations. He leads the contributors at ru.WS to
> believe he is in communication with the WMF about this
> matter and his rulings have WMF approval.  Whether he
> meant to foster such a belief or simply neglected to
> correct it, I cannot say.  From my time spent with
> babelfish and the community discussion page of ru.WS
> [2] I find the following examples to a fair
> representation of his tone.  He did give a breakdown
> of why he believes the copyright issue exists, but was
> not open to discussion or requests for further
> opinions.  Is it truly such an air-tight case? I am
> not sure.  However with restorations that apparently
> go into effect *next* year, but are not valid now, I
> would be looking for other opinions as well. Even if
> his opinion tuns out to be correct, it cannot excuse
> the way he is handling this issue. Translations by
> Dmitrismirnov:

«Уважаемые участники, и в особенности, администраторы русской Викитеки.
Даже без грядущих изменений законодательства об АП в России, вы вообще
соблюдать текущее то законодательство собираетесь? Или вы добиваетесь,
чтобы фонд по чьей-нибуть заявке (ну, например, моей) закрыл проект,
также: как в своё время француский викицитатник? Alex Spade 11:56, 8
сентября 2007 (UTC)»

> Translation: “Respected participants and in particular
> the administrators of the Russian Wikisourse,
> Even without the future changes of the copyright law
> in Russia, are you going to keep the current law? Or
> you strive that the Wiki-fundation would shut project
> by somebody’s claim (for example, by mine), like it
> was with the French Wiki-Quote sometime ago?”
> 
> And later:

Вижу, что всё сложно, и слишком много ограничений, которые разрушают всё
лучшее, что есть в Викитеке. Jimbo должен знать о наших проблемах и
понять наше недовольство. Надеюсь, Вы ему передадите это Dmitrismirnov
12:46, 17 сентября 2007 (UTC)]

> Translation:[Dmitr Simirnov: I see that all this is
> complicated, and there are too many limitations, which
> destroy all best part of the Wikisourse. Jimbo must
> know about our problems and understand our
> dissatisfaction. I hope, you will communicate this to
> him. Dmitrismirnov 12:46, 17

Он об это и так знает, но лицензию GFDL никто менять не будет - видимо
решили жить под не самой удачной лицензией, чем нарваться на
необходимость перелицензирования миллионов страниц и изображений,
созданных миллионами участников. Alex Spade 19:41, 17 сентября 2007 (UTC)

> Translation: [Alex Spade: He knows about this
> definitely. But nobody will change the license GFDL –
> so they probably decided to live with not the most
> successful license, which is better than to change of
> millions of pages and images, created by million
> participants. Alex Spade 19:41, 17
> сентября
> 2007 (UTC)]
> 
> 
> Such heavy-handiness and false authority shown here
> are  damage to the reputation of WMF.  Dmitrismirnov
> [3] is not only a notable composer and therefore has
> real-world appreciation of IP rights, but he also is a
> valued Wikimedian as a literary translator.  He is
> truly creating free works we would not otherwise have
> in the world by releasing his translations under the
> GFDL.  We all create free work in some way, but I have
> a special appreciation for those who participate in
> the more skilled endeavors. And it especially offends
> me to see what I feel to be deception used to close
> this discussion possibly driving away a contributor I
> value.  
> 
> Birgitte SB
> 
> [1]http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Alex_Spade
> [2]http://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%B0:%D0%A4%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BC#.D0.98_.D0.B2.D0.BD.D0.BE.D0.B2.D1.8C_.D0.B0.D0.B2.D1.82.D0.BE.D1.80.D1.81.D0.BA.D0.B8.D0.B5_.D0.BF.D1.80.D0.B0.D0.B2.D0.B0
> [3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Nikolayevich_Smirnov_%28composer%29

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