Fw: [Wikipedia-l] An FDL test case: McFly

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alex R." <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 1:57 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] An FDL test case: McFly


> From: "Erik Moeller" <[email protected]>
>
> <..snip..>
>
> > User:Anthony DiPierro appears to be hell-bent to put the FDL to the
test.
> > He has created a complete fork of the English Wikipedia called "McFly":
> > http://www.slashdotsucks.com:8080/wik/
>
> I have had some discussions with ADP regarding copyrights. He has his
> own opinions regarding the interpretation of the GFDL.
>
> > None of the individual articles make any mention of Wikipedia nor of the
> > FDL. Only the main page does, but not exactly in desirable form either.
It
> > does not link to Wikipedia, instead it contains the text:
>
> I think what he is trying to say is that Wikipedia is one encyclopedia,
> and the GFDL does not require a history for each section of the
publication
> but for the whole publication.
>
> > "by Andre Engels, Bryan Derksen, Brion Vibber, Michael Hardy,
> > Vicki Rosenzweig, Anthony DiPierro, thousands of Wikipedians,
> > and various others worldwide"
>
> This is his attempt at fulfilling the fiver principal author rule of
> attribution.
> No doubt he looked for the individuals who made the most edits and
> he determined them to be: Andre Engels, Bryan Derksen, Brion Vibber,
> Michael Hardy, and Vicki Rosenzweig. Then he added himself and
> also gave credit to Wikipedians as he believes that they hold the
copyright,
> not Wikipedia (just as JamesDay believes).
>
> > And regarding the FDL:
> >
> > Copyright (c) 2004 Anthony DiPierro. [Standard FDL short version
follows.]
> > Warning: this license extends solely to those parts of this document
which
> > are copyright by Anthony DiPierro, who makes no claims as to the license
> > status of other document parts. Use at your own risk!
>
> This is his warranty disclaimer that he is adding.
>
> > To summarize
> > 1) Neither the McFly main page nor individual pages link back to
Wikipedia
> > or to its page histories
>
> He does have a history section that links back:
> http://www.slashdotsucks.com:8080/wik/History
>
> > 2) The main page does *not* state that the content which is not written
by
>
> > Anthony is licensed under the FDL.
>
> Just as Wikipedia has rather unequivocally stated (until I changed it
> recently)
> "Please note that all contributions to McFly are considered to be released
> under the GNU Free Documentation License. If you don't want your writing
> to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then don't submit it
> here.
> You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from
a
> public domain or similar free resource.
> DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION! "
>
>
> > We have to determine whether Wikipedia as a whole is "the document" or
> > whether individual articles are.
>
> What ADP is stating by his actions is that it does not matter what "we"
> think.
> He has interpreted the GFDL in his own manner, providing the names of
> the five principal authors, links back to the original texts (history)
that
> all
> contributions are considered released under the GFDL, and that he is
> publishing
> a documentation work that is encyclopedic. I see his strategy clearly.
>
> > In my opinion, the English Wikipedia is
> > no more a single document than the combined English and German
Wikipedias
> > are -- the English Wikipedia is an aggregation of separately
FDL-licensed
> > articles. This is clear because each document has a separate "history"
> > section, a separate license footer, and most documents have different
> > contributors.
>
>
>
>
> > Under this interpretation, Anthony is clearly in violation. If he
refuses
> > to make the necessary changes I strongly recommend taking legal action
as
> > otherwise this could easily become a precedent for third parties to use
> > Wikipedia content without giving proper credit. We should probably send
a
> > warning letter anyway because of the "this license extends solely .."
> > part.
>
> The question is who are the owners of these individual articles? Some
argue
> that the joint copyright is owned by all contributors to a particular
> article,
> and thus they have the "exclusive right" to issue a 512 takedown notice,
> no one else has that authority. My interpretation is that Wikipedia is a
> collective
> copyright that is distinct from all individual contributions because the
> whole
> cannot exist without these parts and thus Wikipedia, as a voluntary
> association
> has an exclusive right and can issue the required notices. No one has
tested
> the law in this regard and it is not clear what the ISP will do if they
> receive a
> takedown notice. If they do nothing then Wikipedia will not only sue ADP
but
> the ISP as well.
>
>  > The way I know Anthony he won't listen to anyone without legal
standing.
> I
> > therefore would like to ask Alex in particular to take a look at this
case
> > and help in preparing the necessary letter.
>
> I will gladly help, but this may really be a test case and could require a
> lot of
> work and effort. I don't know if anyone would be able to do it for free.
> Also
> since Wikipedia has not published its work or registered it federally it
> cannot
> file suit against this individual (whom may be difficult to locate).
>
>  > When I temp-banned Anthony for vandalism a few days ago I knew that he
> was
> > a troll. But this goes beyond simple trolling. Anthony's actions here
> > could do serious long-term damage to our project, and we need to quickly
> > respond.
>
> Maybe this shows that using the GFDL is not necessarily the best licensing
> scheme to use. But what are the actual damages, everyone wants the content
> of Wikipedia copied, he is copying it, it is just that his interpretation
of
> what
> the GFDL says is not the same as the interpretation of what is being done
> on Wikipedia. Who is to say that Wikipedia is right and he is wrong? I
have
> argued for Terms of Use and Submission Standards, but everyone keeps
> saying, "Oh Alex you want us to sound like lawyers, we don't like lawyers
> we want to be an open community." ADP's actions are testing how open
> Wikipedians are willing to be.
>
> BTW, even if people start complaining about violation their attribution
> rights on articles, he could just list five contributors for each article
> and
> then say he is complying no? It would take as many take down notices as
> there are articles, he would get them, add the five authors who sent the
> notice under sect. 512 and then he would say that he was complying and
> refuse to take the material off his site (he is probably running the site
> off his own dynamic DNS server so he is the ISP). Then for each page
> the five prinicpal authors will have to sue him and he will say that he is
> already complying and that at best the damages are nominal ($1) which
> would mean that they would have to pay their attorney fees ($2,000 per
> suit) and he would be in compliance. This would have to be repeated
> for every Wikipedia article if you follow the JamesDay theory of
> Wikipedian copyright (which I do not subscribe to, I think that
> Wikipedia has copyright because of the collective nature of a wiki
> project, we would have to sue him in the name of the association of
> Wikipedians and argue that the page histories are part of the article
> and that a transparent link has to go back to each article page, not just
> the Wikipedia.org page mentioned on his "history section".
>
> Will the Board of Trustees or the President of the Wikipedians
> start registering Wikipedia at the  US Copyright Office soon?
> Copyright registration is necessary to file suit or the Copyright
> office has to be added as a party.
>
> Alex756
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l