[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Re: Fair use

[Ray Saintonge]

This response is transferred from Wikitech where DM's posting appeared.

Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:

>On Sun, 1 Jun 2003, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>>Isn't this already too late? You can only dual license copyleft material if all
>>>copyright holders agree to it. The people who have posted stuff so far on
>>>Wikipedia have posted it under GFDL exclusively.
>>>
>>I'm sure that most of them have never given any serious attention to the
>>licence details.
>>
>
>I can't believe I'm hearing this. I don't know what to say.
>
>I remember reading about how we're going to one day plug all history back into
>all articles, from the earlier software phases, because if we didn't we would
>be violating the license terms set by our contributers (GFDL).
>
>And now we're just going to brush it all aside? I'm outraged.
>
My statement was a simple statement of fact, not a brushing aside. 
 People just don't have the time or the expertise to wade through 
endless texts of legalese.  They just say yes, and hope for the best. 
 Under our law a contract by a child is not enforceable unless it's for 
necessities, so if a child agrees to a software license as a matter of 
contract it's unenforceable anyway.  Provisions in a license to transfer 
jurisdiction to a United States court are of dubious validity, and may 
be contrary to a person's constitutional rights in his own country.  If 
the opportunity comes up that requires transferring software to a Cuban, 
I will gladly ignore United States law because whatever transactions I 
may have with a Cuban is absolutely no business of the United States. 
 Can you honestly say that you have read and fully understood all of 
these licences?  If yes, I'd love to be in a position to have you write 
an exam on them.

>>>If we want to combine different licenses, we have to track down all
>>>contributers for each relevant article, and get their permisson. Otherwise,
>>>we're breaking GFDL.
>>>
>>Wouldn't that be just a little unrealistic?  A more common sense
>>solution would be better.
>>
>
>Yes, this is unrealistic. This is why I said that it is probably too late to
>begin dual licensing Wikipedia content (except in the case of new articles).
>
>The more common sense solution (in that it is a realistic endeavour) is of
>course to remove all quotes. Frankly, there aren't that many there to begin
>with.
>
Removing all quotes is just as silly as seeking for everyone to provide 
positive written consent.  Negative consent might be easier.  In other 
words, you eMail all users at their last known address to outline the 
proposed changes that will go into effect in (say) six months.  You 
invite them to respond within that time; failure to respond will imply 
consent.  In any consent system we still aren't saying what we will do 
with the work of those who say no.  How can we remove their 
contributions without harming the contributions of others who have been 
involved in the same article.

Not all quotes are a subject of fair use.  Some really are in the public 
domain, because they are that old.  Who is going to take the time to 
identify all the quotes for removal?

Ec