[Licom-l] External content attribution

[Samuel Klein]

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 9:47 PM, Erik Moeller<erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> (I am CC-ing Ariel Glenn as he will help with the implementation of
> the new licensing terms.)

Hello, Ariel!

> During the licensing discussion, some people correctly pointed out
> that the proposed terms on the edit screen didn't include any mention
> of third party content: what is it, under what circumstances can it be
> imported, what should attribution look like, etc.? We did propose to
> state the following in the copyright policy:
>
> "You may import any text from other sources that is available under
> the CC-BY-SA license, even if it is not available under the GNU Free
> Documentation License. You are under no obligation whatsoever to
> obtain such content also under the GFDL. However, you may not import
> text that is only available under the GFDL. If you import text under
> the CC-BY-SA license, you must abide by the terms of the license;
> specifically, you must, in a reasonable fashion, credit the author(s).
> Where such credit is commonly given through page histories (such as
> wiki-to-wiki copying), it is sufficient to give attribution in the
> edit summary, which is recorded in the page history, when importing
> the content."

Simplified:

"You may import any text from other sources that is available under
the CC-BY-SA license. You may not import text that is only available
under the GFDL. If you import text under the CC-BY-SA license, you
must abide by its terms of attribution and credit the author(s) in a
reasonable fashion.  Where such credit is commonly given through page
histories (such as
in wiki-to-wiki copying), it is sufficient to credit the authors in
the edit summary, which is recorded in the page history, when
importing the content."

< Don't forget to add the "If there is discrepancy between English and
(the local language),
< English version shall prevail".

There is no need to repeat this.  The original license mentions it,
and it is a weakness of the license, not a strength.


> PROPOSAL 1: Amend the terms of the edit screen. Replace the following phrase:
>
> "You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it
> from a public domain or similar free resource."
>
> With:
>
> "If you did not write this yourself, it must be available under terms
> consistent with ((copyright policy)), and you agree to follow any
> relevant licensing requirements."

+1

> PROPOSAL 2: Issue a recommendation for each project community to
> develop guidelines for the attribution and inclusion of external
> content. This recommendation could look roughly like this:
>
> "Whereas the WMF licensing update decision was explicitly designed to
> facilitate import of existing educational content under CC-BY-SA and
> compatible licenses into Wikimedia projects, we hereby recommend that
> each Wikimedia project (e.g. "the English Wikipedia", "the Spanish
> Wikibooks")  develop guidelines for when the inclusion of externally
> published content is appropriate, and how attribution should occur
> inside the project. Care should be taken to respect the wishes of
> copyright holders: if externally published content cannot be
> attributed in a fashion that is agreeable to the copyright holder
> (consistent with the license they published it under) and to the
> project community, it cannot be included."

OK.  It might help to link to specific projects' guidelines here.


> PROPOSAL 3: Amend the terms of the copyright policy to include a sentence:
>
> "Further guidelines on attribution and inclusion of external content
> can be found in ((attribution-guidelines-url))".
>
> That sentence would only be rendered out if the
> ((attribution-guidelines-url)) message exists, i.e., if the community
> has developed the necessary guidelines.

+1.  This is a reason for every project to consolidate a top-level
page dealing with this, which is not a bad thing.

> Thoughts? If this makes sense as a start, I'll begin hacking on the
> final site terms with these changes in mind.

No other comments; makes sense to me.

SJ