If anything, the Kazakh thing just proves that the wiki model works. No
shame in that. It's probably why the Chinese are blocking Wikipedia and not
embracing it. You can't hide your propaganda, even from your own people.
As far as the compilation of Christmas songs goes, the list of songs is not
copyrightable, because the sort order of a list is not creative (unless
it's something that becomes poetry when you read the titles as a list).
On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 12:47 PM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Pete,
Thanks. Comments interspersed below.
On Sat, Dec 26, 2015 at 5:46 PM, Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
I'd say the better question, is "what legal or moral right would we call
upon to *insist* on having the same for Wikidata?" If we had a clear
answer
to that one, it would really move forward; but I
don't think we do, or if
we do, it's not yet clear to me.
The same as in the case of Wikipedia.
Is Wikidata different because it aspires to listing machine-readable facts
only, rather than written expositions? Not to my mind, because facts are
frequently debatable, and their presentation and sourcing involves choice
and expertise.
Moreover, speaking somewhat less seriously for a moment, Wikidata doesn't
actually just contain non-copyrightable facts. As we've seen, it contains
some of the same hoaxes and errors Wikipedia contains, which are by
definition creative. It's an entertaining fact that dictionary publishers
would in the past (perhaps they still do it now) include a small number of
hoax entries -- made-up words -- in their dictionaries, so they would be
able to demonstrate that another dictionary publisher had simply copied
their work. The Wikidata project is (involuntarily of course) doing the
same.
No, and I should have been clearer -- I do see
the general advantage in a
site providing information about the source of information (of course).
What I don't see is the advantage of requiring them to do so in a certain
way.
Personally, I wouldn't insist on it being done in a certain way. I only
feel, very strongly, that having no information at all about the source of
information is very much undesirable, for the reasons previously mentioned
(data provenance, providing a bridge to potential users, etc.).
I don't think Google or Bing aspires to
having the highest standard of
credibility. If they are useful, their business interests have been
served,
and I would hope that no student or academic
would be able to cite the
Google Knowledge Graph in a formal paper, any more than they could cite
Wikipedia. (caveat emptor)
The problem with free information is that it displaces non-free
information, much like a cheaper product displaces a more expensive one.
We've seen this with Wikipedia replacing professionally published
encyclopedias.
Free information tends to become pervasive. This pervasiveness creates a
steady drip effect – if a certain item of information becomes ubiquitous,
so you see it in Google, in Bing, and elsewhere, you don't question it any
more after a while. And once information becomes unquestioned, it enters
more credible sources, because the authors of those are human, too. People
cannot be on their guard 24/7, questioning everything they see. This is how
citogenesis happens.
I'm currently thinking about the Kazakh Wikipedia again, as the topic has
(rightly) reappeared on Jimmy Wales' talk page.[1] It provides a good
example. I believe the reason the Kazakh dictatorship embraced Creative
Commons, releasing its Kazakh National Encyclopedia under a free licence so
its articles could be imported *en masse* into the Kazakh Wikipedia (by
editors incentivised by the chance to win laptops etc.), was because that
encyclopedia reflected the regime's political views and censorship
criteria. If you make your information ubiquitous, ensuring it appears
under different brand names, with its real provenance obscured, eventually
it will not be questioned any more.
The WMF allowed itself to be used there, enthusiastically so. To me it's
one of the most shameful episodes in its history.
I believe in the agency of multiple people and
entities in curating
knowledge. Individuals, and individual information projects, should have
the ability to make their own judgment about how much, and what kind, of
citation is required for their purposes. I don't believe that information
curation can be perfected by anticipating all needs in policy and legal
documents.
If our users have a moral or legal right that needs to be defended, we
should do so. But I don't see one in this case (perhaps a clear
hypothetical example could help?)
Some users certainly feel very strongly that they have moral rights they
would like to see upheld. See the discussion at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikidata#Is_CC_the_right_license_for_d…
for examples.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/Database_Rights#The_legal_definit…
<snip quotes>
So according to that page, created by Wikimedia legal staff, databases
may
be
protected even by US copyright law as "compilations". In the EU (is
Wikidata currently based in the EU, given that it's a Wikimedia
Deutschland
project?) the protections are still more
stringent. As I understand it,
the
community as a whole holds the copyright, but
you'd have to check with
Foundation legal staff or some other lawyer to be sure.
Helpful link, thank you. My eye is drawn to the word "may." If databases
MAY be protected, what conditions need to pertain in order for that to
happen? I'd be very interested in hearing from a legal expert about that.
I believe this largely depends on the amount taken. Taking an individual
fact is not problematic; systematic mass imports are. But like you, I would
be interested in hearing from legal experts.
My best guess is that a "database" like
an edited compilation of papers
about biology, or a compilation of Christmas songs, would be protected by
copyright -- the people or organizations who curated the collection would
hold the copyright to the collection, while the individual
authors/artists
would hold the copyright to the individual papers
or songs. But the phone
book would not carry copyright, because there was no editorial or
creative
judgment in assembling the list.
Yes.
Now, is there editorial or creative judgment involved in creating a
Wikipedia infobox? I would say there is. You select and reject potential
sources, decide which entries to fill or leave blank, etc.
"The Wikimedia community as a whole" is
certainly not a legal entity, and
I'm skeptical that it's an entity at all. How can something that is not a
legal entity hold a copyright?
Whose rights do you wish to protect?
Those of contributors severally and jointly. The compilation of data always
involves people. Their having done this work should be visible and
traceable.
We agree that if Google, Bing etc. attribute to "Wikipedia", this is
sufficient to uphold Wikipedia contributors' rights in this regard. I'd
like to see the same with Wikidata.
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&oldid=…
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