Re: disclaimer section and interlingal compatibility

From: "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149-/[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 4:47 AM
Subject: [Wikilegal-l] disclaimer section and interlingal compatibility


> Nobody answered this very important post, so I'll give it a try.

Sorry I missed it, thanks for pointing out mav :)

> Tomos wrote:
> >At Japanese wikipedia, some of us have been discussing about
> >introducing disclaimer section, but deterring the introduction
> >because of some legal questions (as follows). Any advice or
> >opinion would be appreciated.
>
> Well IANAL but that has never stopped me from commenting on these things
> before. :)
>
> >1. Should we take it as the disclaimers as defined/ described in
> >GFDL? For example, should we take it something that we have
> >to preserve when we modify the GFDL'd work? (see 4-O of GFDL
> >ver.1.2)
>
> IMO, we should consider that section of the GFDL fullfilled if the third
party
> user of our content provides a link back to the original Wikipedia article
> (which in turn will have prominent disclaimer links). I never really liked
> that part of the GNU FDL because it is another way to introduce what is in
> effect invariant sections into our good work here.
>
> IMO, invariant sections are evil and should never be allowed in any
Wikimedia
> project.

I don't think disclaimers are meant to be invariant sections, they are just
an
way to tell anyone that they should not rely upon the content for any
specific
reason. I notice that some other open licensing schemes have the warranty
in the license.

> >2. What is the implications of the disclaimer to inter-lingual
> >or inter-project transfer of contents? Has there been any
> >discussion?
>
> Good question. But since all compilation copyrights go back to the
Wikimedia
> Foundation (who is also the publisher), we may be able to use that as a
way
> out. But this brings-up the point that the GNU FDL is in fact not ideal
for a
> large set of wiki projects like Wikimedia that exchange text and
translations
> (which are in fact derivative works!) back and forth rather freely. IMO,
it
> would be absurd for us to follow the letter of the GNU FDL. So I guess we
> must follow its spirit by interpreting it liberally.

I agree in the result but feel that as long as there is a reference that the
original material came from another part of the world of Wikimedia that
can be followed. My suggestion has been to put something like (copied from
[[foo]]
in the summary edit box within one project or (translation of [[en:foo]]) if
it is copied
from another project. That gives anyone notice that they have to go to the
other
project and look to see if the what the disclaimers are, the issue of
attribution
between wiki pages, etc.

> >If "the whole wikipedia" or "all the wikimedia projects" are NOT the
> >one and single work as defined in GFDL, but instead independent
> >articles, images, and other files are the works, the following might
> >not be in compliance of  GFDL.
> >
> >*copyng a page from Wikipedia to Wiktionary/Wikisource without
> >preserving the disclaimer section when the page has a disclaimer which is
> different from Wiktionary/Wikisource's.
> >*copying an image from one language Wikipedia to another without
> >preserving the disclaimer section.
> >*chaniging the content of disclaimer section.
>
> I think these are all legal for the reasons I gave above. But IANAL, so
what
> do I really know. Alex, you reading? ;)

Basically the disclaimer is saying that you should not rely on Wikipedia
and you use it at your own risk. I don't think that the disclaimer is an
invariant
section, what it is necessary is that the import of the warranty disclaimer
is
preserved. I think this is achieved by linking to the original article so
that you
can see the original warranty disclaimer.  If a downstream user doesn't copy
the
disclaimer that does not mean it does not still apply to Wikipedia, it will
just
not apply to them. "You can't grant more rights than you receive" is the
basic
principle behind all property law and it applies here too. That is why a
warranty
disclaimer is not really viral.  If someone reuses content they cannot make
Wikipedia responsible if the work has been released "as is" because this
is a contract term and there must be privity between the parties giving and
receiving. Once the document is recopied, the new publisher cannot make
a prior author who has published the work more responsible than they were.

Actually I think these warranty disclaimers were put in more to deal with
the "documentation" aspect of the GFDL (remember is is originally a
documentation license.  Most documentation for software actually includes
the warranty disclaimer for the software. Really you do not usually see
a warranty disclaimer in many books covering the contents of the books.
Once again this is because "knowledge" does not belong to anyone.

The question might then be, well why do we use disclaimers?
On the internet a disclaimer is a good idea because of the interactive
nature of the internet. One may come on a site and think that it is
answering
one's question if one puts the question in the go/search box. Believe it
or not there are people who might think that box is a way to communicate
with Wikipedia. That is one interpretation, anyway, ;)

> >3. Would you say that we should develop disclaimer that is exactly
> >the same as en. which seems to be already in place? Or we should
> >develop disclaimer as we see fit and try to coordinate/combine with
> >other language-wikipedias' later in some ways?
>
> My personal opinion is that you use the English one as a general guide,
but
> mostly develop a disclaimer that you think works best and that does not
say
> anything wrong or illegal. Ask this list if you are unsure about
particular
> points.

I agree with mav here too, the basic principle is that the disclaimer is
stating that
you can not rely upon Wikipedia, that anyone can contribute to a page,
change
it put in false content, etc., and that someone should not rely upon
Wikipedia
for that content because there may be things in Wikipedia that are
dangerous,
general but need specific professional opinions before being adopted for
specific use, etc.,   This may be explained differently in different
linguistic
contexts. The text does not have to be "invariant". just comprehensive in
a basic way. There are no "magic words" here (though sometimes there are
magic words to invoke certain legal entitlements).

Alex R. (en:user:alex756)