Re: quote & GFDL (was: Re: are images GFDL'd?)

This is a rather long reply, so if you don't want to read it here's a
summary of my final opinion:

I think we should change to a policy where we allow "fair use" quotes, but
disallow all but PD and GFDL-compatible images.

On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Tomos at Wikipedia wrote:
> But now a 
> downstream user (Mary) did not care which part was GFDL and which was fair 
> use, and treated the quote as if it was GFDL'd. Unlike John's web site, 
> which might well be non-profit and educational or research in nature, Mary 
> is now trying to make money off the lyric. This type of use, even when 
> properly attributed, may or may not fall into fair use.

Yes this is a potential problem as what actually is "fair use" often comes
down to what a court will accept. However I think by imposing some extra
rules on what we accept (for instance allowing quoting only a paragraph
from a book or a single line from a song) we can limit our risk to an
acceptable level.

Moreover we can probably lobby the FSF to include a "fair use" section in
the next release of the GNU FDL which will cover quote usage (I don't
think it would be possible to use it to cover images, as it would be to
easy to use it to make a GNU FDL document non-free). 
 
> ----
> Likewise, GFDL does not guarantee that any modification of a GFDL'd text 
> would not violate anyone's copyright. 

I does kind-of. We are not allowed to impose further restrictions on
downstream users however you do it, that is FSF policy, and that is what
is reflected in GNU FDL. Regardless of if the the restriction are explicit
(i.e. saying you cannot reuse commercially) or implicit (i.e. you can't
reuse because of other legal reasons) I think it will still be
covered. 

The GPL deals with this explicitly,

"If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute
so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and
any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not
distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not
permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive
copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could
satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from
distribution of the Program."

The only reason GFDL doesn't (yet) have such a statement is because they
never thought it would come up.

> Note this is not a restriction, but just informing others of risks. It is up 
> to downstream users to take or avoid legal risks, and wikipedia contributors 
> would not place any restrictions other than GFDL does.

I personally don't think this will work, but I can accept that it
might be valid.

Overall I think we can include quotes as long as we keep them
minimal, as if we face a challenge we will at least have several possible
defences we can use for both protection and for showing that we tried to
act in good faith.

On the other hand I think "fair use" images pose a substantial risk, not
only because some of our "quote arguments" don't work on them, but also
because we're relying on people with negligable understanding of copyright
law to understand complex issues with regards to what is fair use and what
isn't, where with text we can explain more easily (i.e. no more than X
lines or Y% percent of a work) .

Imran
-- 
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran