[Foundation-l] 2006-2011: Mexican, Argentinian, Brazilian governments distance themselves from freedomdefined 1.0

[Ray Saintonge]

On 03/05/11 8:04 PM, Newyorkbrad wrote:
> I'll ask the same thing here that I asked in the other thread and no one
> responded to, which is, can someone please provide some concrete examples of
> how this issue affects Wikipedia, rather than discuss the disagreement in
> purely abstract and theoretical terms?  Frankly, I have very little idea
> what the post below means, which is something I'd like to change as it
> sounds somewhat important.

Of these three I would find the Mexican situation to be of greatest 
concern. Mexico already has extraordinarily long copyright terms.  It's 
in the ND feature that the potential moral rights problems lie.  When is 
a derivative sufficiently different to be defamatory.  What is the 
thinking behind adding the ND parameter. Is it some vain attempt to 
ensure accuracy, or is there a more insidious reasoning.

NC clauses have always brought out a tone of self-righteousness from 
Wikipedia.  In reality we have no control over how content is used 
downstream.  Giving assurances that material is fully free does not stop 
a downstream user from taking the material and publishing it with his 
own copyright statement undeterred by the complaints of a paper tiger.  
NC licences don't bother me.  The most honest thing we can say to is 
that there unresolved  issues in a particular case, and it is up to 
users to accept a share of the responsibilities for what they use.

For Brazil I would be inclined to take a wait-and-see attitude. Changes 
are pending there, and I would prefer to be optimistic.

Ray

> On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 7:29 AM, Teofilo<teofilowiki at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> Mexico switched from PD to CC-BY-NC-ND in 2006 (1)
>> Argentina from CC-BY-SA to CC-BY-NC some time in 2009-2011 (2)
>> Brazil removed CC-BY-SA altogether from the culture ministry website
>> in early 2011, in a context where the ministry is planning to reform
>> the copyright law (3)
>>
>> Are our definition and our practices around free culture attractive
>> enough for democratically elected governments ?
>>
>> My view is that they aren't. They are unnecessarily dry, unhuman,
>> personality-rights-moral-rights aggressive,
>> uploader-unfriendly-downloader-friendly.
>>
>> (1) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-Mexico-NIP
>> (2)
>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Licensing/Archive_32#Template:CC-AR-Presidency
>> (3)
>> http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2011/02/08/inside-views-brazils-copyright-reform-schizophrenia/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20ip-watch%20%28Intellectual%20Property%20Watch%29
>