[Foundation-l] Baidupedia copyvio collections

[Ray Saintonge]

Ting Chen wrote:
>> Datum: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:54:41 -0400
>> Von: Dan Rosenthal <swatjester at gmail.com
> 1) What Baidupedia is doing is wrong.
>   
> Ack
>> 2) Because of the Great Firewall, taking down Baidupedia is a net  negative for us.
>>     
> That I don't agree. Fact is, we don't have the power to take it down, and we don't care if it is down or not. If Baidu is down or not doesn't have an influence on us. Baidu is not a mirror of Wikipedia. We have had contact with other agencies in China to build up a mirror (the foundation was informed about these contacts), but because of the issue of the GFW the contacts all run dead. We don't consider Baidu as a collaboration, we also don't consider them as a potential collaborator.
>   
The issue is one of free licensing.  Under GFDL they have every right to 
use our material.  If they play by the rules we have the right to use 
theirs.  They are not bound to follow NPOV on their site, because it's 
their site.  Whether it's editorially sound to use their material is 
quite a different question from having a legal right to use that 
material.  Our efforts to set up a mirror in China have nothing to do 
with Baidupedia.
>> 3) We want to find a way to bring Baidupedia into compliance with the GFDL.
>>     
> That would be fine. But that would not happen. Baidu uses a very muddy copyright policy porpusely, this was confirmed from inofficial channel.
>   

Bringing them into compliance may require that they move away from such 
a muddy copyright policy.  It doesn't help to be pessimistic about our 
prospects; that makes it difficult to look for possible solutions.
>> 4) We also potentially want to use some of Baidupedia's content for ourselves too.
>>     
> No, never. Because every content on Baidu is potentially copyviod, contents from Baidu on Wikipedia is a kill-argument. Whenever I see that the content originate from Baidu it is for me a kill creteria.
>   

That's a big leap between potentially copyvio and factually copyvio.  
This argument looks highly prejudicial since it leaves no room to 
consider the material on its own merits.  If their article has 
significantly drawn on Wikipedia there may be implicit GFDL even if they 
don't say so.  Also, drawing on their information and putting it in our 
own words would not be a copyvio because ideas are not copyrightable.
>> 5) Because Baidupedia is a collaborative site instead of a static  
>> site, it faces different operational and legal implications than other  
>> cases.
>>     
> Maybe in the future once a day. But now they don't see any neccesity to change their policy. To device a way to let them see the neccesity is maybe a method we should search for.

I think that that last point is exactly where we should be heading.  
They may not now see any necessity to change policy; we just need to 
find a convincing argument for change.

Ec