Re: RE: [Wikipedia-l] since we are on legal matters ...

From: "The Cunctator" <[email protected]>
<...snip...>
> No, you do not remember correctly. The GFDL requires derivative works to
> give at least the 5 major contributors, unless the creators of the
> original work release that obligation.
>
> The GFDL makes no requirements on authorship attribution to the original
> work.

Wikipedia automatically attributes original works. I can't imagine it being
otherwise
because then no one could make GFDL compliant derivative works. How would
one determine who the five major contributors were?

Also since WP is a collective work anyone who posts without their being
authorship information of the prior posters to a page would be violating the
GFDL, because in essence each new edit is a derivative work of the prior
works.

> > I agree on Anthere's point of view that we should all give up
> > 'ownership' of articles, and simply work together.

This might be hard to implement now as it would require getting a copyright
assignment from every contributor to every Wikipedia from day one. Otherwise
chuck out the work of 175,000 plus articles and start all over. This is not
a
realistic option IMO.

> It would behoove us (and potential authors of derivative works) if we
> did explicitly state that we release people from the 5-author
> obligation.

I don't think you can do that without modifying the GFDL. Anyway I don't see
how that is a problem just put the author attribution in the summary field
or
if it is an original contribution it is either identified by the the user
name (usually
a pseudonym, but that is allowed under copyright law) or by the IP number
(another form of pseudonym). Otherwise, once again, you need to get
a retroactive grant not something even a revised version of the GFDL will do
as it is only a non-exclusive license and the old common law property adage
is
applicable, you can't grant more of a right to property than you have thus
the
Free Software Foundation cannot retroactively grant all copyright ownership
to Wikipedia, it would require the consent of each and every contributor.
With
the page histories (which are readily available to anyone who know how to
find
the current version of a page) one has the full history of the article,
including
author attribution and the type and extent of that contribution (once again
this
is a good reason to adapt some kind of analysis along the lines of the work
done at that MIT lab project).

Alex756