[Foundation-l] GFDL Q&A update and question

Robert Rohde rarohde at gmail.com
Thu Jan 8 23:26:39 UTC 2009


On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 5:15 PM, Brian <Brian.Mingus at colorado.edu> wrote:
> The specific reason I would claim that the telephone directory case does not
> apply is that the dumps are in a machine readable format that is intended to
> be read by one, and only one, machine: MediaWiki. There must be another
> domain of applicable case law.

The main article dumps are in a human readable XML format.  Myself and
others use them in various ways without parsing them through
Mediawiki.

The principle point though is whether the selection or arrangement of
the dumps contain the minimal spark of creativity necessary for an
independent copyright (the core issue of Feist).  Personally, I would
argue they do not.  The selection is comprehensive (all data of a give
class), and the arrangement is quite obvious.  (Perhaps not as obvious
as a phone book, but still a fairly standard presentation consistent
with the way comparable databases are communicated.)

I suppose one could try to argue the point, but I would definitely
take the side that the arrangement and selection of information in the
dumps is not a creative act.

-Robert Rohde

> On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 4:08 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> 2009/1/8 Brian <Brian.Mingus at colorado.edu>:
>> > http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20081008/
>> >
>> > These subcollections obviously pass the threshold for creativity. A court
>> > case on telephone directories, which is simply a two or three column
>> output,
>> > has very little applicability to the complex formats published by the
>> WMF.
>> >
>> > I also recognize this to be a legal grey area, and my opinion unfounded.
>> >
>> > But I believe this would have significant consequences, no?
>>
>> That's not obvious to me at all. I think anyone putting together a
>> collection of dumps of Wikipedia would do so in essentially the same
>> way.
>>
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