[Wikipedia-l] File upload Copyright notice

[Mark Christensen]

I think there is some consensus about how copyright is treated in the
wikipedia, which goes back at least half a year.  

Jimbo has said:

> It is my understanding that copyright to everything in Wikipedia
> belongs to the contributors, who are releasing it under the GNU FDL.
> Wikipedia has a copyright on the _compilation_, which means something
> very specific under copyright law, and we release the _compilation_
> under the GNU FDL.

Axel has said: 

> It [the assignment of image copyright] is also not in line with the way we
have
> handled copyrights up to know for text submissions: the user retains
> copyright, but licenses the work under GFDL. I suggest that this be
> changed.

Nearly six month ago in response to a question Jimbo said:

>> What if someone posts their own 
>> article as a Wikipedia topic? I posted one of my articles which I also
gave 
>> to a garden site and posted in my own column at BackWash. I'm the only
one 
>> who has a copyright to the article. Was that ok to do?
>
> It's o.k. to do, but by doing so, you're releasing the article under
> GNU FDL, which means that anyone can redistribute it and edit it to
> say anything they like.  If that's o.k. with you, and presumably it
> is, then it's great!

And even before any of these issues were discussed it was clear on Lee's
homepage that he believed that he maintained the copyright to his
contributions, and could provide versions "unencumbered by the FDL." 

This is exactly my understanding. We are allowed to post articles we own the
copyright to on the wikipedia, and by submitting them we are licensing them
under the GNU/FDL.  

Thus, I think Axel is right to say:

> There is nothing to interpret. I have never signed over copyrights 
> of any Wikipedia article I wrote to anybody, therefore I remain the sole
> copyright owner. I *licensed* my materials under GFDL. Most free
> software projects works that way. For instance, I own the copyright of
> several parts of the Linux kernel.

This is the standard practice in the free software community.  And apart
from some active step assigning copyright to Boomis specifically, I don't
see that there is any other possible legal interpretation. This is true when
a magazine publishes my work (I've refused publication rights after
negotiating pay over this issue) as well as when I assign works to the GNU
FDL.   

That said, I would like to expand a bit on the subject of the costs and
benefits of this policy.  I want to try to make these issues as clear as I
can because I'm concerned that some people may not be able to understand the
consequences of this debate, because they  don't understand costs and
benefits of this policy.  

Boomis, as creator of the compilation of articles in the wikipedia, and by
default owns the copyright on the compilation unless it is specifically
reassigned.  Since, both Boomis and I are releasing our "works" under the
FDL, anyone can use the wikipedia content as long as they abide by the terms
of that license.

That said, from my point of view there are a number of costs and benefits of
maintaining this policy.  

First benefit -- Wikipedia authors can contribute works to the wikipedia
which they also plan to publish in revised form under another license
elsewhere.  This means for instance that a graduate student could put
sections of her dissertation work in the appropriate wikipedia articles,
even if she hoped someday to publish that work in a reference book with a
boilerplate copyright notice. 

Second benefit -- Wikipedia content is not available at the discretion of
Boomis. Since, Wikipedia is not a legal entity and cannot hold copyright and
Boomis Inc. is I assume that that's where the copyright assignment would go
if everybody were required to assign copyright to somebody.  While I trust
Jimbo, I don't know the others involved in Boomis, and there's always the
possibility that through bankruptcy or other unpleasant circumstances Boomis
could be under other management -- management more inclined to see wikipedia
content as property to be licensed restrictively to generate as much profit
as possible. 

Third benefit -- There's a widespread feeling of ownership (which come from
actual ownership) by the wikipedia community.

In addition to these benefits there are some costs.

First cost -- No matter what happens, we won't be able to change the license
on all wikipedia content, as that would require assignment by every
copyright owner of their work to the new license.  And this is logistically
impossible.  For example, we might want to dump the authorship requirement,
but there's just no way to do so unless we get the permission of all
copyright owners.  And at this point based on one likely interpretation of
the FDL we are in violation of the authorship clause, and because of this we
have no list of copyright owners to ask for an exception to the authorship
clause so we'd no longer be in violation...

Second cost -- It's not practical or even possible to allow for exceptions
to the GNU FDL. Because this closes off the possibility of licensing
revenues for Boomis, it necessarily places limits on the possibility of
wikipedia ever becoming a significant revenue stream for Boomis.  This is
important because Boomis will be more willing to pay for hardware,
bandwidth, and Larry, if wikipedia can generate a profit. 

And for those anti-advertising people out there, this makes it far more
likely that Boomis will need to advertise on the wikipedia in order to
recoup the costs associated with the wikipedia.

Third cost -- As Jimbo mentioned, some corporate groups may be skittish
about using content from the wikipedia since the copyright ownership isn't
clear, and therefore they'd have to depend entirely on the FDL, which has
not been tested in a court of law.  (And submit themselves to the
possibility of a lawsuit by an uncredeted author/copyright holder).

In light of these facts, I think it is clear that there are a series of
complex ramifications to the issue of copyright assignment.  We are not the
first to discover these issues, there's clear precedents in the free
software community for us to follow, and so I'd advise looking that the
reasons that some companies which write free software refuse to accept
patches which do not include an assignment of copyright to the company.  As
well as the reasons that most free software projects don't ask for copyright
assignment on patches they receive. 

Briefly, it's my understanding that MySQL, and KDE's Troll Tech developed
GUI toolkit are examples of for profit companies like Boomis, which require
copyright assignment for patches.  And largely their developer communities
have accepted this policy, though, there has, of course been some vocal
resentment expressed by some parts of those developer communities.  As Axel
has pointed out the FSF would be an example of a not-for profit, which asks
for copyright assignment and receives it on a regular basis.  This works
well because they have a high level of trust from the free software
community.

On the other side, the Linux kernel allows developers to retain the
copyright to their code, and because of this policy they have a couple of
problems.  Linus has said that he interprets the GPL to allow for
proprietary drivers to be dynamically linked to the kernel, but others have
disagreed, and the potential that this may someday become the center of an
actual court case has disturbed a number of larger companies which might
otherwise have invested more heavily in development of Linux drivers.  If
Linus had the copyright to the kernel code, his interpretation would stand,
because he'd be the only one with the legal right to sue.

My overall view is that it is in the best interests of wikipedia to allow
contributors to maintain copyright on their work, as this maximizes the
incentive to contribute.  And minimizes the potential roadblocks to
contribution.  And most importantly the assignment of copyright somewhat
undermines the trust and credibility that using the FDL was intended to
foster.   But I recognize that this puts some limits on Boomis, and I really
would like to see a clear path to profitability for the wikipedia...  

That said, any change that is made must not be retroactive!  I have not
assigned copyright to anything I placed in the wikipedia, and will not do
so.  If the policy changes in the future, I'll make a decision about future
contributions on the basis of the new policy.  And this will almost
certainly 

Yours
Mark