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

Wed Oct 17 21:02:59 UTC 2007

First things first - NOBODY speaks for the Foundation on legal issues except
its counsel, Mike Godwin.  Mike is constrained in his ability to offer
opinions except to his client, WMF.  Mike is not the person who answers
copyright questions presented by the community; however, he is in a position
to address issues which can lead to potential legal problems for the
Foundation itself.  This situation may or may not have a legal answer
satisfactory to you or anyone else, and it may or may not lead WMF to
conclude something or nothing must be done.

As a community matter, however, your point is alarming - people are seeking
to speak on behalf of WMF when they (clearly) are not empowered to do so,
and seek to carve out their position based on proximity to the aura of
Jimbo.  That *does* need to be addressed.

Thanks, Birgitte!

-Brad

On 10/17/07, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
>
> 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
> > &#1089;&#1077;&#1085;&#1090;&#1103;&#1073;&#1088;&#1103;
> > 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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