[Foundation-l] Building The Great Monument of Bureaucracy

[Ray Saintonge]

Milos Rancic wrote:
> But, during the couple of previous days I've got one more contribution
> to our Monument. This kind of contributions make me to think that
> Wikipedia in English (not just en.wp for sure) is becoming -- slowly
> but surely -- the main problem in spreading free knowledge. 
>   
...
> It is suggested: "Any material that he is
> not authorized to give us permission to use must be clearly noted."
> Even, again, a moron would be able to understand what has been created
> by professor at his site and what is not. For example, if he used some
> photo and he is describing that photo as an art and mentions the
> author of the photo -- logically, this photo is not his. If he quoted
> some author and describes that quote -- logically, this quote is not
> his. And so on. The other problem which such bureaucracy is opening is
> the fact that that suggestion means without any doubt that I would
> need a week or more of work to mark everything on professor's five
> sites.
>
> * So, my only response to such moronic bureaucracy is: Fuck you! Of
> course, it is not about particular Wikimedia volunteers, it is about
> the whole system which transforms good persons into bureaucratic
> morons.
>
> And why it is so? Because we have hundreds or thousands of cases
> before courts because not so pedantically defined sentences? Because
> it is reasonable to suppose that a professor who already gave to us
> permissions to get materials from his site four years ago will sue us
> because not so well worded agreement for giving materials under
> CC-BY-SA? Fuck you, again!
>
> I mentioned just two examples, but there are at least a couple of more
> similar from my experience.
>
> As this kind of bureaucracy is so deeply inside of Wikimedia and
> especially at Wikipedia and especially at Wikipedia in English -- the
> only solution which I am able to see is to create a number of
> auxiliary sites which would take care about permissions instead of
> Wikimedia. However, this is a very clear path of making Wikipedia and
> Wikimedia less relevant. After five years of such tendencies some
> standards will be created. After another five Wikipedia won't be
> necessary anymore.
>
> I would like to say that the option is to work against such
> bureaucracy. However, I am not so optimistic in relation to the large
> projects which are already deeply bureaucratic. Even a number of
> smaller projects suffer from bureaucracy because of strong influence
> of the large projects.
You paint an excellent picture of a gravedigger who has been so 
enthusiastic about his work that he has dug so deep that he is unable to 
climb out of his own work.

I suppose that every project is in a different stage of littering with 
fly-paper.

In the example at least the professor was still alive for you to be able 
to ask permission, but remembering that as the law now stands in many 
jurisdictions this scene is likely to be repeated for 70 years after he 
dies, during which time you will be seeking permissions from heirs who 
have no clue about what you are asking, all for the sake of protecting 
economic rights that they never knew they had and money that they never 
knew they were getting.

It should be enough for the person granting the free licence to 
subscribe to a statement of principle about free content that transcends 
GFDL or CC or whatever the flavour of the day may be next year, next 
decade or next century.

There always will be cases where a reasonable and fair analysis will 
lead us to the conclusion that those contents are probably free, but 
where that final step in establishing a clear licence is nearly 
impossible for a wide variety of reasons.  Due diligence does not 
require absolute certainty about a work's copyright status. It accepts 
that there is some level where one's efforts are good enough. It accepts 
that at some point the individual must accept responsibility to protect 
his own rights without the nanny state doing it for him.  With so many 
significant rights in serious need of protection it makes no sense that 
so much effort to protect the speculative rights of the long dead. And 
the wiki projects should not be surrogates for the nanny state.

At some point we need to be able to say to our users: "We have a high 
degree of confidence that this [specific] material is free, but these 
difficulties exist: ... Use it at your own risk."

Ec