[Foundation-l] WMF/EFF and Copyright extension

[Brian McNeil]

Resolution...

Whereas: The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to promote freely
accessible and openly licensed materials and allow their reuse in any way
the public sees fit, the proposal to extent the terms of copyright within
the European Union for performers are a grave concern.

A primary goal of the Foundation is to see material such as audio recordings
which have fallen into the public domain used to complement the associated
Wikipedia articles in addition to other use on related projects. To that
end, the Foundation opposes any extension of copyright terms for any group.

The board of the Wikimedia Foundation has therefore passed this resolution
in opposition to the proposals tabled by commissioner McCreevy and would
call for a cessation of all moves to make copyright more restrictive.

----

How's that look?


Brian McNeil


-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Wily D
Sent: 19 February 2008 15:24
To: effeietsanders at gmail.com; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] WMF/EFF and Copyright extension

Promoting Free Culture in a political but nonpartisan way seems to
fall within the foundation's mandate.

"The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage
people around the world to collect and develop educational content
under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it
effectively and globally.

In collaboration with a network of chapters, the Foundation provides
the essential infrastructure and an organizational framework for the
support and development of multilingual wiki projects and other
endeavors which serve this mission. The Foundation will make and keep
useful information from its projects available on the Internet free of
charge, in perpetuity."
(from http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission_statement)

Promoting keeping education content in the public domain falls within
our mission.

WilyD
On Feb 19, 2008 8:58 AM, effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com> wrote:
> halt all discussions? Hmmm, doesn't sound very wiki to halt
> discussions :) I'd rather say decision making process or something in
> that line.
>
> But something tells me that this is not the main question here that
> will cost time, but also whether the WMF should make a poliotical
> statement at all? Quickly browsing, I can't find any precedent on
> this...
>
> Although i think myself that the WMF should be able to make political
> statements of this kind, I can imagine that others disagree.
>
> BR, Eia
>
> 2008/2/19, Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org>:
>
> > Philippe Beaudette wrote:
> >
> > > Modified:
> >
> > And again...It's performer's rights, musicians/composers are already
life+
> >
> > Whereas: The Wikimedia Foundation wishes to encourage freedom of
content, a
> > goal endangered by the recent efforts of the European Union to extend
> > copyright for musical performers from 50 to 95 years and,
> > Whereas, The Wikimedia Foundation operates the largest collection of
free
> > and copy-left content in the world, and,
> > Whereas, The Wikimedia Foundation has always encouraged the distribution
and
> >
> > creation of free content, and,
> > Whereas, the thousands of contributors to Wikimedia's contributions are
a
> > vocal and committed body,
> >
> > then, therefore, be it resolved that:
> >
> > The Wikimedia Foundation publicly denounces the actions taken by the
> > European Union to extend the terms of copyright, and calls for the Union
to
> > immediately halt all discussions that endanger the expiration of or
lengthen
> >
> > the period of copyright standards.
> >
> >
> > Brian McNeil
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
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