Remember Encyclopedia of Life? They've just gone partially, er, live:
25 reviewed "example" pages showing the level they intend to reach for every species; about 10,000 partial pages, and a million or so "minimal species pages" (basically a substub placeholder). They have funding and backing - it seems pretty likely they'll succeed.
Licensing is a bit of a mismash - some CC-BY, some NC, etc. All labelled, at a quick glance.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7263134.stm - BBC News story.