[Wikipedia-l] An FDL test case: McFly

[Alex R.]

From: "Sascha Noyes" <sascha at pantropy.net>
> On Thursday 12 February 2004 01:57 am, Alex R. wrote:
> > Maybe this shows that using the GFDL is not necessarily the best
licensing
> > scheme to use. But what are the actual damages, everyone wants the
content
> > of Wikipedia copied, he is copying it, it is just that his
interpretation
> > of what
> > the GFDL says is not the same as the interpretation of what is being
done
> > on Wikipedia. Who is to say that Wikipedia is right and he is wrong?
>
> If someone were to visit http://www.slashdotsucks.com:8080/wik/Philosophy
they
> would not see any GFDL notice, and would therefore assume that the text
was
> copyrighted by the owner of the site, and not available under any "free"
> license such as the GFDL. In this sense it is a violation of the spirit of
> the GFDL by making it as hard as possible for uninformed visitors to know
the
> copyright and license status of the texts.

If you open the page of a book is there a copyright notice on that page?
No you go to the title page. If he thinks it is an encyclopedia then he will
go to the main page and see the link on the main page. Some people on
Wikipedia think that the use of all those copyright and disclaimer links on
every page is overkill. Most major sites have one copyright link, and that
suffices for the whole site. Isn't that a reasonable interpretation of how
book publishing is adapted to the web? It is not just one article, it is a
collection of articles and the copyright notice is only one link away as it
can always be found on the main page.

Just being a devil's advocate, not necessarily agreeing with what he is
doing,
but there are always three sides to every dispute, the two disputants and
the truth.

Alex