[Foundation-l] deviation from the GFDL in smaller projects

Nikola Smolenski smolensk at eunet.yu
Fri Sep 19 10:22:53 UTC 2008


Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
> One worrying thing that i noticed is that in some of these projects
> there is no strict adherence to GFDL-only text. Since my first day in
> Wikipedia i understood how important the GFDL is. I understood that
> articles cannot be copied verbatim even from sources whose copyright
> terms allow copying for non-commercial usage, because the "free" in
> "The Free Encyclopedia" does not refer only to price.

Well, there is even more of that than you describe.

There are projects that are either unable or unvilling to enforce proper 
licencing of images. (Read: many/most images are without any copyright 
templates.)

There are projects that, due to misunderstanding or carelessness, use 
material (text and images) that are PD in life+50 jurisdictions and not 
in the US.

There are projects that, despite dedicating significant attention to 
copyright issues, have significant amount of material copied from print 
sources, and thus practically undetectable.

This may come as a surprise to Westerners, but most people out there are 
not really aware of copyright. Intelligent, educated adults may have no 
knowledge or understanding of it, and rise a protest when you tell them 
they can't copy text from somewhere.



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