This is off-topic (I presume) but the idea of the WMF increasing its dependence on large corporate donors is beginning to trouble me. I want the WMF to answer to our readers and volunteers not Bezos, Brin and Zuckerberg.
I say I presume this is off-topic because I presume the WMF isn’t, even subconsciously, soft-peddling our share-alike right and right to effective attribution from these re-users in exchange for dollars from these re-users.
On Wed, 18 Apr 2018 at 5:58 pm, James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
Agree with Gerard. We WANT Youtube, Facebook, and others to use our content. That is one reason why we have released it under an open license and I believe one reason why we have been so successful. We of course also want them to provide appropriate attribution. I think this would be better achieved by reaching out and discussing it with these groups directly rather than initially by legal means. In my experience most reputable organizations are happy to attribute when asked.
With respect to intermediation and them providing financial or direct technical support Google, Apple, and Microsoft are listed here as major beneficiaries as is the Brin Wojcicki Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors Would the WMF be happy with greater support? Yes I imagine so.
James
Please note that this is written in a personal capacity and does not represent an official position of anyone but myself.
On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 7:41 AM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
Hoi, Maybe you know, but Katherine Mayer gave a talk at the CC conference The subject was big companies using our content (it is not just writing) and making a profit giving nothing / not much in return. The issue she raised is that it may interfere with our collaboration model. People will associate our content with the company that profits in this way and not contribute their knowledge their expertise with us.
So no word from the WMF, far from it. When you want the WMF to sue..
There
is wonder if the effect it will have is really what we want. For me it is first and foremost that people are properly informed and I prefer a
YouTube
a Facebook to use our data over them not to do so over license issues. Remember the days when Wikipedia was young; it was a wide held belief. Thanks, GerardM
On 16 April 2018 at 01:53, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Is someone from WMF monitoring wikimedia-l and notifying relevant
employees
when an issue arises under their remit? This issue - big companies
using
our writing without attribution and like-licensing - has been hanging
with
no word from the WMF for six months.
Anthony Cole
On Thu, Apr 5, 2018 at 6:22 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
I see this from Brian Heater at Tech Crunch on 25 March:
"In a conversation earlier this week, Wikimedia’s Chief Revenue
Office,
Lisa Gruwell told TechCrunch that this sort of usage doesn’t
constitute
any
sort of formal relationship. Most companies more or less hook into an
API
to utilize that breadth of knowledge. It’s handy for sure, and *it’s
all
well within Wikimedia’s fair use rules*, but as with Maher’s letter,
the
CRO expressed some concerns about seemingly one-sided relationships
...
*Smart
assistants are certainly playing by the applicable rules when it
comes
to
leveraging that information base.*"[1]
That article I link to has both Katherine (WMF ED) and Lisa (Chief
Revenue
Officer) asking the companies who use our work for free to "give
back." I
want them to give back too, but I don't absolve them of their
obligation
to
meaningfully attribute my work and share it with the same rights
attached.
If it is the opinion of the WMF that these smart assistants are not breaching my rights, I'd like to see the legal advice that opinion is
based
on.
1.https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/24/are-corporations-that- use-wikipedia-giving-back/
Anthony Cole
On Thu, Apr 5, 2018 at 5:47 PM, WereSpielChequers < werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
Yes of course the WMF can contact those who are detected reusing our content without fully complying with licenses and encourage them to comply.
If a case were to go to court it would need to have one or more contributors who were willing to cooperate with WMF legal in the
case.
But
I doubt there would be a shortage of contributors who were keen to
do
so.
As for why the WMF should do so, here are three reasons:
Each of our wikis is a crowd sourced project. Crowd sourcing
requires
a
crowd, if a crowd settles down and stabilises it becomes a
community.
The
community is broadly stable, but we need a steady flow of new
wikimedians,
and our only really effective way of recruiting new Wikimedians is
for
them to see the edit button on our sites. An increasing shift to our
content
being used without attribution is an existential threat to the
project
and
hence to the WMF.
Our communities are made up of volunteers with diverse motivations.
For
some of us the BY-SA part of the licensing is important, personally
I
feel
good when i see one of my photos used by someone else but attributed
to
me. If the de facto policy of the WMF was to treat volunteer
contributions
as
effectively CC0 this would be demotivating for some members of our community. I'm also active on another site where every member
regularly
gets stats on their readership, something I very much doubt would
happen
if it wasn't an effective mechanism to encourage continued
participation.
Every organisation needs money, the WMF gets most of its money by
asking
for it on wikipedia and other sites. Again, encouraging attribution
back
to Wikipedia etc tackles the existential threat of other sites treating wikipedia et al as CC0.
WSC
On 5 April 2018 at 08:04, wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi,
On 04/04/2018 08:36 PM, Anthony Cole wrote: > I'm curious also. I release my articles under "attribution,
share
alike"
> and rely on WMF to preserve those rights.
Why are you relying on the WMF? Wikipedia contributors (like
yourself)
are the ones who own copyright to the articles - the WMF doesn't.
Unless
you've granted/transferred copyright to the WMF (or some other
license
enforcement agreement), I don't think they can pursue legal action
for
you or other Wikipedians. (IANAL, etc.)
-- Legoktm
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