[WikiEN-l] Baidupedia (the downside to free content?)

[Matt R]

> That makes copyleft licences useless.  Wikipedia as a whole has shown 
> great (some would say excessive) dilligence in avoiding copyvios.  It 
> also maintains copious data to trace the origins of anything in an 
> article.  This makes the likelihood of such a suit remote.  It means 
> that there is no realistic protection whatsoever for copyleft material.  
> It means that any downstream user, particularly a commercial one, can 
> take anything from Wikipedia, and republish it under his own copyright 
> without any fear that it will be seriously challenged.  I accept the 
> GFDL position to allow the material to be re-used by commercial 
> interests, but any commercial interest that uses it needs to acknowledge 
> its viral nature.  Who defends that?  Who defends it 20 years from now?

Baidupedia is a public website: that is, if they improve our GFDL-licensed work, then anyone can use those derived works under the GFDL; whether or not they acknowledge it or advertise it doesn't change that fact. Therefore, I don't see copyleft being useless in this instance.

-- Matt
[[User:Matt Crypto]]