[Foundation-l] Copies of Wikipedia's articles found on Knol

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
It is simple, when you assign a license to do practically everything,  that
you have not given your copyright away. You only gave Google a license to
use this material in the way defined. Now the trick question is, are you in
a position to do this. Given that Wikipedia articles are collaborative
works, you do not have the right to change the license to the whole of the
article because you are not the owner of the article and consequently not
the copyright holder.
Thanks,
       GerardM

On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 7:49 PM, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:

> The Google terms of service item 8 does seem to present a problem. here it
> is:
>
> *8.*      *License to Google.*
> By submitting, posting or displaying content as an Author, Co-Author,
> Collaborator, Commenter, Reviewer, or User on or through the Service,  you
> grant to Google a non‑exclusive, perpetual, worldwide and royalty-free
> right
> and license to (i) use, copy, distribute, transmit, modify, create
> derivative works based on, publicly perform (including but not limited to
> by
> digital audio transmission), and publicly display the content through
> Google
> services; (ii) allow other users to access and use the content through
> Google services; and (iii) permit Google to display advertisements on the
> Google sites containing the content.  In addition, you grant to Google a
> nonexclusive, perpetual, worldwide and royalty-free license to use your
> name, likeness, image, voice, and biographical information (and, where
> applicable, your trademarks, service marks, trade names, logos, and other
> business identifiers) in connection with the content and Google's use of
> the
> content through the Google services.
>
> But it also appears to conflict with this item of the same TOS:
>
> 5.1.  *No Google Ownership of User Content.*  Google claims no ownership or
> control over any content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or
> through
> the Service. You or a third party licensor, as appropriate, retain all
> patent, trademark and copyright to any content you submit, post or display
> on or through the Service and you are responsible for protecting those
> rights, as appropriate.
>
> So which is it? If its the second, then the portion of the content posted
> by
> users is licensed under whichever license they choose. Is item 8 intended
> to
> allow Google to publish the content through Knol or some other as yet
> undetermined service?
>
> The "stealing" language is a bit strong, by the way. If anything, reposting
> articles with attribution but with a license that grants Google
> unacceptable
> rights is simply allowing Google to steal Wikipedia content - or giving it
> an opening to do so, which I doubt it would take.
>
> Nathan
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