[Foundation-l] Licensing interim update

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Erik Moeller wrote:
> A compromise could acknowledge the principle that attribution should
> never be unreasonably onerous explicitly (a principle which, as Geni
> has pointed out, is arguably already encoded in the CC-BY-SA license's
> "reasonable to the medium or means" provision), commit us to work
> together to provide attribution records of manageable length using
> smart algorithms as well as documenting minimally complex attribution
> implementations, and permit by-URL attribution in circumstances where
> we don't have a better answer yet. I worry, in this scenario, about
> instruction and complexity creep over time, so the fundamental
> principles of simplicity would need to be articulated well. And I want
> to make sure that we don't embark on a compromise which achieves
> nothing: that the vocal minority who feel very strongly about
> attribution-by-name under all circumstances will continue to object,
> that we will increase complexity for re-users, and that we will not
> actually persuade anyone to support the approach who wouldn't
> otherwise do so.
>   

Firstly let me say that I couldn't find one word of your
posting that I disagreed with :-)

My hat is really off to you for putting everything so
pellucidly clearly and eloquently. And just to remove
all doubt, I am being entirely earnest here, this is not
sarcasm. Your posting really did you proud.

I do want to underscore that last sentence though,
just to clarify where I personally stand. My stance
has ever been that what we should not do is break
interoperability for a significant segment of jurisdictions
where our work could reasonably be expected to be
distributed to.

I do not hold that we should satisfy even the legal
requirements of all jurisdictions. I can easily
envision that there might be a really stupid law
somewhere, which made genuinely onerous
demands. I would certainly suggest in that case
that after careful consideration, WMF should
just flip them the bird, and say: grow up, smell
the internet age!

In fact personally I'd hope that Intellectual Property
laws around the world were much more internet age
savvy than they are at the present. But we needs
must live in the world we have got, and not the one
we would wish existed.

And just to very briefly recap what I have said about
my own jurisdiction; my understanding is that here
the laws are not that onerous, though they are a bit
quirkily different from other jurisdictions (surprise!).
We don't have fair dealing or fair use, but we do have
citation rights. And the Moral Rights provision of
inalienable "Paternity" to a work has a few "in the
fashion common to the field and in accordance with
good manners" outs to attribution in addition to
a (far too complex, IMO) set of labyrinthine considerations
as to what really is a "work" that one can have that
paternity right to. There is even an explicit concept
of "shared" paternity for collaborations, which would
in many cases fit wikipedia splendidly; though not
in the case of importing stuff previously published
elsewhere under a compatible license, for instance.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen