On Sunday 07 March 2004 17:17, Erik Moeller wrote:
Maybe, but there's another side. I've just
tried to get permission to use
some example webcomics on Wikipedia in the respective articles. I received
one positive and three negative replies. The main problem was that people
are worried about third parties modifying their work.
And I can understand that concern. If you have an example comic which
features the main characters, someone else can easily rip off these
characters and create their "fork" of the strip, even market it
commercially, as long as it's copylefted.
What does it do for us to have it modifiable though? We're an
encyclopedia, our purpose is not the creation of new artwork but the
improvement of encyclopedia articles. The purpose of the comics is to
illustrate these articles. Modifying them does not further that purpose
(except for resizing, converting etc. which are probably allowed anyway).
I think there's an argument to be made to allow something like "no
derivative works" for *some* images. It doesn't really hurt our purpose as
a "free encyclopedia", IMHO.
Of course I understand the concerns of companies being afraid of "forks". I
also agree with you that, in order to build the best "encyclopedia", we
should be fine with restricting the rights of some images, e.g., using more
fair use, no-derivatives and so on. This surely allows much more content and
a better encyclopedia.
What I don't agree with is the focus or better the change of focus that is
taking place. Our top priority shouldn't be to become the best
"encyclopedia"--we should become the best "free encyclopedia".
Where "free" is meant to be in the spirit of science and scientific work:
everyone builds on the works from others and everyone let others build on
your own work -- "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders
of giants" -- Newton (btw: the quote itself is another nice example for
derivative work [1])
Sure, Disney would lose millions if they would allow us to use Mickey Mouse
under GFDL. And every other company producing comic strips might lose money
too. On the other hand one should not forget that Mickey Mouse is a
derivative work and the only thing that has changed since 1928--when Walt
Disney "stole" Willie (ancestor of Mickey Mouse) from Buster Keaton's
"Steamboat Bill"--is that Walt Disney and Co. now have the power to buy the
law (Mickey Mouse protection act, see [[Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension
Act]]).
These are just three randomly choosen examples: science, quote and Mickey
Mouse and they all have in common that they build on past work. And even this
text is partially based on work from others, in particular on Lawrence Lessig
talk about "Free Culture" [2]. In this talk he made some very important
points:
<quote>
* Creativity and innovation always builds on the past.
* The past always tries to control the creativity that builds upon it.
* Free societies enable the future by limiting this power of the past.
* Ours is less and less a free society.
</quote>
We as a _free_ encyclopedia project should support those who produce free
content and not those which give us their content under some non-free license
only. As I said in the beginning I agree with Erik that it's the best for us
as an encyclopedia (at least mid-term) to use more works even if they are not
free. But for a _free_ encyclopedia this is unacceptable in my humble
opinion.
Coming from science I have seen how important derivative work is and I have
benefited from that principle very much--I love standing on the shoulders of
giants :-)
best regards,
Marco
[1]
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0162b.shtml
[2]
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2002/08/15/lessig.html
--
Marco Krohn
Theoretical Physics
University of Hannover