Re: GFDL / CC by-sa compatibility

Hallo everyone,

my name is T. Nakamura, Japanese jurist with Japanese bachelor title
(LL.B.) and German master title (M.iur.comp.), now specializing European
Union Law in Germany as a candidate of iuris doctor (Dr.iur.).

I've been active since 3 months on the Japanese Wikipedia, but as a 
newcomer of this mailing list, I'm very happy to greet you all!!

I believe the preceding Tomos' question, especially 3rd and 4th point,
is related to the discussion about the GFDL and copyrights, ongoing on
the Japanese Wikipedia.

Tomos has already pointed out three possible interpretations of the
concept of "works" (at first in the sense of GFDL, but simultaneously:
also in the sense of intelectual property law generally). Now, I'd like
to complement the 4th possibility: every contribution (i.e. editting
that is worth evaluating as a "work") is to be considered as an "work"
in this sense.

The 2nd sentense of the 1st paragraph of preamble of GNU Free
Documentation License says: "[...] this License preserves for the author
and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being
considered responsible for modifications made by others".

If not a contribution, but an article were to be considered as a "work",
all the co-authors of this article must have agreed to the re-licencing
of the article, even if only a parts of his/her contribution is related.
Is this result coherent with the spirit of GFDL that shall
"preserve[...] for the author and publisher a way to get credit for
their work"? Are the co-authors that precede him/her really not
"considered responsible for modifications made by others"?

As of the part of his/her contribution, I believe that it is the natural
consequence that a "work" on Wikipedia should not be a "article", but a
"contribution".

You know, my opinion presupposes that the other 2 alternatives, i.e. the
whole Wikipedia and individual language unit of Wikipedia, are not
justifiable. For the Article 2 (5) of Berne Convention for the
Protection of Literary and Artistic Works says: "Collections of literary
or artistic works such as encyclopaedias and anthologies which, by
reason of the selection and arrangement of their contents, constitute
intellectual creations shall be protected as such, without prejudice to
the copyright in each of the works forming part of such collections."

http://www.wipo.int/clea/docs/en/wo/wo001en.htm

That is, it is the global understanding that the encyclopaedias are to
be considered as "[c]ollections of literary or artistic works", not as
"a work".

I wish you all a happy new year!!

Sincerely,
T. Nakamura

Tomos at Wikipedia schrieb:

> I have to confess that I am not following this discussion closely. I 
> apologize pre-emptively. :-(
> 
> But I just wanted to remind you of four things in case it helps to reach 
> a better conclusion.
> 
> 1. US creative commons licenses explicitly say that it is based on US 
> law. There are non-US CC licenses under development - Finland, Brazil 
> probably have finished already. Japanese CC licenses are in the 
> polishing stage, and similar efforts are happening elsewhere. I am 
> wondering what the impliactions of thi is, especially if you are not 
> discussing dual-licensing English wikipedia contents only with GFDL and 
> US CC-by-sa ver.1, but the whole wikipedia contents.
> 
> 2. US Creative Commons licenses does not seem to include a term insuring 
> forward compatibility. That is, if a content is used under CC-by-sa 
> ver.1, then there seems to be no guarantee that the same content could 
> be used under CC-by-sa ver.1.1 or any later version. As you know, there 
> is such a line in GFDL, and it seems that it is a major source of hope 
> for those who think GFDL is not suited or too restrictive for Wikipedia.
> 
> If dual licensing will be introduced, I hope there is a room for future 
> changes as CC licenses change.
> 
> 3. I think there is still unclarity (at least to me) what is the unit of 
> "work" or "document" as defined in GFDL. Is it the whole wikipedia 
> written in more than 50 languages? Or is it jsut one artcile? Or 
> individual language-wikipedia? I think there is a merit to take the 
> first and second position (both if possible), but not sure about others.
> 
> 4. Some articles have incomplete history, I suppose. Some contents are 
> merged from somewhere else, some contents are split from another page, 
> etc. So getting permissions from all previous contributors could involve 
> a bit of detective work. I guess it is still doable with patience in 
> many cases, though.
> 
> 
> Well, what I am doing might be what Japanese call "preaching Buddha," - 
> trying to teach an expert what he already knows. Pardon me in that case.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Tomos
> 
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