Re: One document or many, missing copyright notice

 From: "The Cunctator" <[email protected]>

> > From: Alex R. Monday, December 01, 2003 4:44 PM
> >
> >  From: "Martin Harper" <martin-MAOR6hOrJ+i/zRsMOHpXgkbqmpVPkGQOWmv/[email protected]>
> > <..snip..>

> > > Section 4D requires modifying redistributors to preserve any copyright
> > > notices present, but if there are no copyright notices present, then
my
> > > interpretation would be that section 4D does not apply. I'd be
> > > interested to see how you reach the conclusion that we must have a
> > > copyright notice?
> >
> > This is a very good point and I agree with the logic. It is not
> necessary  to have a copyright notice.
>
> I reached that conclusion by reading the license.
>
> >From the GNU Free Documentation License:
>
> To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of
> the License in the document and put the following copyright and license
> notices just after the title page:
>
>       Copyright (c)  YEAR  YOUR NAME.
>       ....

It says to put this just after the title page, thus I would read this as
being
a reference to the copyright notices (sec. 4.E) and the page History (sec.
4.I).
Otherwise the only other interpretation is that there is no license and that
is absurd. Clearly the modification notice at the bottom of the page
functions
as a copyright notice of the date and time of publication of the latest
version,
and the list of authors.

As I said, the Berne Convention (to which the US is a signatory) does not
require a copyright notice and a minor difference with the license is not
going
to invalidate the license. The authors and the date are clearly given if one
looks
around for them.  Clearly everyone contributes to Wikipedia under the
GFDL and they have agreed to do so and everyone who uses Wikipedia
content has notice such uses are under the GFDL.  I think that any judge is
going
to have a great deal of sympathy for the arguement that Wikipedia is just
trying to create something like a moral right by using the GFDL (this is
really
what it mostly amounts to) in a non-moral rights country (i.e., the US) and
they will interpret this license liberally as it allows for distribution
without
compensation, i.e. it is a gratuitious license. There is a lot of case law
that
has looked at gratuitious property licenses and shown that the same
standards
that apply to licenses for value received should not be applied to such
gifts (really that is what Wikipedia is) with strings attached.

I wouldn't worry about the license notice too much, I prefer to keep things
as simple as possible (after analyzing the death out of them) so any
solution
that keeps it simple but protects the legal rights of all the contributors.

Alex IAAL but this is Not A Legal Opinion (NALO)