[Foundation-l] [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF"

[Birgitte SB]

--- On Mon, 8/25/08, Patricia Rodrigues <snooze210904 at yahoo.se> wrote:


> So, I'm afraid that some things have not been really
> clarified... but the main one is: which copyright laws
> must/should Commons follow, in order to be absolutely
> compatible with WMF's values and licensing policies?
> Because the Board resolution from 2007 is not including
> Commons. Are we in a legal vacuum?
> 

Commons is only excluded from being able to make an EDP [1]  The rest of the resolution still applies to Commons.  No one with any authority is going to tell you what copyright law should be followed. The standard answer is: Commons needs to work out their local policy within the bounds of resolution. 

Personally I don't think the resolution offers much in the way of clarity, *especially* in regards to "public domain".  But for better or worse, the board has not been willing to touch the issue since the resolution was passed.  

However if both sides of the debate were not compatible with WMF's values and licensing policies, I am sure the board would be vocal in pointing out the problem.  They spoke up loudly enough when it.WP was using "with permission" images.  So I would interpret Domas saying "I'd really like to trust the community [with preserving WMF values]" (as well as silence from the rest of board) to mean "both sides of the debate seem to be inbounds of WMF policy and values right now".  it.WP certainly wasn't told that their community was trusted to do as they saw fit to preserve WMF values.  They were pretty much told to change their policy.

Birgitte SB

[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy