[Wikipedia-l] An FDL test case: McFly

[Erik Moeller]

Alex-
> I think what he is trying to say is that Wikipedia is one encyclopedia,
> and the GFDL does not require a history for each section of the publication
> but for the whole publication.

When I view a Wikipedia article, I can view the article directly -- I do  
not have to pass through a title page, as I would when viewing an FDL- 
licensed book. I could search for "Donald Rumsfeld" on Google and  
immediately end up on the Wikipedia article about him.

Or on the McFly article, in which case I would be told nothing about the  
fact that the article is licensed under the GNU FDL, or about its history,  
its authors etc.

This is clearly in violation of both the letter and the spirit of our  
license.

>> And regarding the FDL:
>>
>> Copyright (c) 2004 Anthony DiPierro. [Standard FDL short version follows.]
>> Warning: this license extends solely to those parts of this document which
>> are copyright by Anthony DiPierro, who makes no claims as to the license
>> status of other document parts. Use at your own risk!

> This is his warranty disclaimer that he is adding.

Warranty disclaimer? He effectively says that only what he writes is under  
the FDL. That means that he does not fulfill the requirement of the FDL  
that derivative works must be put under the same license.

>> To summarize
>> 1) Neither the McFly main page nor individual pages link back to Wikipedia
>> or to its page histories

> He does have a history section that links back:
> http://www.slashdotsucks.com:8080/wik/History

This shows clearly that he doesn't follow the FDL. Each page has an  
individual history section. The data on the page above comes from his ass  
(Marxists.org? WTF?).

>> 2) The main page does *not* state that the content which is not written by
>> Anthony is licensed under the FDL.

> Just as Wikipedia has rather unequivocally stated (until I changed it
> recently)
> "Please note that all contributions to McFly are considered to be released
> under the GNU Free Documentation License. If you don't want your writing
> to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then don't submit it
> here.
> You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a
> public domain or similar free resource.
> DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION! "

I fail to see the relationship here. Anthony fails to follow the  
requirements of the FDL. The above text is a licensing agreement for  
putting the text under the FDL in the first place.

> The question is who are the owners of these individual articles? Some argue
> that the joint copyright is owned by all contributors to a particular
> article,

Seems reasonable. I don't make any copyright claims to Wikipedia's sports- 
related articles, for example. We can ask our contributors to transfer  
authority to the Wikimedia Foundation, of course, and that's exactly what  
we should do.

> Maybe this shows that using the GFDL is not necessarily the best licensing
> scheme to use.

The FDL sucks, everyone knows it.

> 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?

Morally there's no question for me that Anthony is doing this for one  
single purpose: to create trouble, to poison the community well. I can  
easily imagine him spending hours scouring the FDL for loopholes which he  
could use to piss people off.

For this reason alone I believe that Anthony should be immediately and  
indefinitely banned from all Wikimedia venues. Some will argue that he  
should be given a chance to make things right first. Maybe he should, but  
I doubt that it will make any difference.

> BTW, even if people start complaining about violation their attribution
> rights on articles, he could just list five contributors for each article
> and
> then say he is complying no? It would take as many take down notices as
> there are articles

In this case it would be more efficient to just group some major Wikipedia  
contributors as complainants and file suit, perhaps even class action.

Regards,

Erik