[Foundation-l] ASCAP comes out against "copyleft"

[Jeffrey Peters]

Dear Michael,

I find it problematic that you suggest that yourself or the Foundation would
speak out against this, when the law in question is about terminating the
access to those who have been caught pirating material in violation of set
copyright multiple times.

This is problematic because Wikipedia has a huge plagiarism and copyvio
problem that is caused by the same people that would come under conflict
above.

This clearly would not affect those who freely license their own material,
which is what Wikipedia and the WMF is about. I've donated thousands of
hours and hundreds of megs of my own material and my own effort. I find it a
slap in the face that you would then make such statements.

Sincerely,
Jeffrey Peters
aka Ottava Rima

On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 7:11 PM, Michael Snow <wikipedia at verizon.net> wrote:

> James Alexander wrote:
> > On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 6:04 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>
> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/ascap-assails-free-culture-digital-rights-groups/
> >>
> >> They're actually gathering money to fight free content.
> >>
> >> We may need to do something about this.
> >>
> >>
> >> - d.
> >>
> > I can at least understand them having issue with EFF and the like but the
> > article is right: going against Creative Commons is laughable. How DARE
> you
> > decide to release your own content into the public sphere, how DARE YOU!
> /me
> > sighs
> >
> Creative Commons is actually a much bigger threat to their revenue
> stream than EFF is, which probably explains the animosity. ASCAP
> administers licenses for the music its members create, collects fees
> when it is performed, and distributes royalties to members accordingly.
> The fees also pay for the costs of administering the system. If the
> material is available through alternative licensing channels, it
> undermines the ability of ASCAP to make money off of it. It's the same
> reason that Getty Images won't allow photos they acquire through their
> Flickr deal to remain available under the site's Creative Commons
> license options.
>
> The letter looks like garden-variety political fundraising where the
> money will mostly go toward campaign contributions for select
> politicians (no doubt with an eye on particular congressional
> committees). I'm not sure it will be used to hire any actual lobbyists
> or mount a specific legislative campaign, although we should certainly
> keep an eye out for further developments in that regard. If that does
> materialize, I'd be happy to speak out on it in a personal capacity,
> whether or not the foundation is in a position to do so.
>
> --Michael Snow
>
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