[Wikipedia-l] Copyrights

[Mark Christensen]

I assume this is the post you intended for me to refute.  I can't.  I agree
you THOUGHT the contents where assigned to Bomis.  This makes no difference.
The legal position I hold is that unless I have specifically, in writing,
assigned copyright to somebody they do not hold copyright.  When I've
published in literary magazines, I generally refuse to sign any paper which
assigns copyright to the publisher, and will only sign limited use licenses.


The FSF requires a paper document on file assigning copyright to them to be
on file at their offices to accept a patch.  It may be that now there's a
way to attach a digital signature (which legally can be as simple as
checking a box in a web page form) to some text assigning copyright to bomis
rather than requiring a signed sheet of paper.  But regardless, wikipedia
has not done this in the past, and apart from specific verbiage assigning
copyright to bomis it will be maintained by the author of the work in
question.  (The FSF objects to click through licenses, so their stance on
paper signatures may be the result of this.)

If you have a specific REASON to believe that something in the language of
the FDL, or in the wording of the submission text on an edit page actually
does function to inform me specifically that I no longer maintain copyright
to my work, then I'd be glad to refute that too.  

Perhaps what you are trying to say it that you believed that Bomis released
the contents of the wikipedia under the FDL, and could only do so if the
contributors had already assigned copyright to Bomis.  This however is as
far as I can tell false, the text of the submission says that contributors,
by submitting their text, are licensing it under the FDL. There is nothing
about copyright assignment there.

What Axel, Jimbo, and I are saying is that wikipedia gets to use a
contributors work only because that contributor licensed it to wikipedia
(and everybody else) under the FDL.  The contributor owns that piece of
work, and can sell it under a different license, but he or she cannot stop
others from using it as long as they comply with the terms of the original
license (the FDL).  This means that I could put the draft of a book on
presocratic philosophers on the wikipedia, and then turn around and sell
that book to Oxford press, granting them special rights not offered under
the FDL.  

What Bomis OWNS is the copyright on the collection, just as a magazine can
own the copyright on the collection of works in the magazine while the
contributors retain ownership of the individual works in the collection.  In
this case the magazine has a license to use the contributors works under
specific circumstances, but the contributors could not get together and
create a copy of the magazine for resale -- even if they collectively own
all of the pieces in the magazine.   

Overall, I think you've made to main points:

1) There has been no agreement about the issue of copyright assignment, and
Axel's interpretation is just one among many.

2) It is possible to interpret the text of the FDL and the submission notice
on the edit page as assigning copyright to Bomis.

I believe I've shown that at least, myself, Lee, Axel, and Jimbo have
believed that Axel's interpretation was correct, and that there is evidence
on the mailing list going back to the middle of last year that this was the
primary position voiced during that time.  I looked at my archive of
messages which only goes back to Aug 2002, and found no significant
alternative expressed.  

I also believe that Axel has asked a valid question.  If you believe that
somehow we have actively assigned copyright of our work to Bomis, can you
provide evidence of that, or explain FROM THE TEXT of the submission notice
or the FDL, how you have arrived at this conclusion?  I believe that you
cannot, and that your belief that this was the case is not legally binding
on me, as from the moment I first arrived at wikipedia I have assumed that
this was not the case.  Apart from specific text assigning copyright, I
retain it.  That is the law.  And this makes wikipedia like Linux, and most
other open source projects, in that the individual contributors maintain
copyright on their work.  

I hope this explains it well enough, I think we aren't connecting
conceptually on the issue, and I'd be more than happy to try to explain my
understanding of the facts in a different way, or to defend anything you
believe to be controversial in the above statement.

Yours
Mark

  
-----Original Message-----
From: Larry Sanger [mailto:lsanger at nupedia.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 8:09 PM
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Copyrights


On Tue, 5 Feb 2002, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> It is my understanding that copyright to everything in Wikipedia
> belongs to the contributors, who are releasing it under the GNU FDL.

I thought *Bomis* released *the contents of Wikipedia* under the GNU FDL,
in any case; so then each individual contributor first must release their
contributions to Bomis under the same license?  This seems to be what
several of you have been getting at.

I am not convinced.  I'll have to write more later, when I have time.

Larry

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