Re: Re: [Wikipedia-l] FDL used to stifle distribution of articles

On 29 Nov 2003 at 20:05, Bryan Derksen wrote:

> Does anyone know if there's an accepted legal definition of "principal
> author" anyway?

I doubt it. In any case, note that there are two meanings of "principal": "first", and 
"most important". In the context of section 4B, "principal authors" might simply mean 
"authors of the original version" (to contrast with the authors of the modified version).

Counting characters seems like a lot of work, and would only be necessary if you 
intend to find the five *most principal* authors. Since the GFDL doesn't require this, 
a lighter-weight process is a better option: either credit "Wikipedia contributors" as 
an entity, or credit a selection of those who've made major edits (ie, not set the 
"minor edit" flag) to the article in question.

> The licence only requires five names attached to the work; that's a single
> line of small text, which can be tucked down at the bottom of the page 
> somewhere discreet.

INCORRECT! The GFDL requires you to list them on the "Title Page", which is 
defined in section 1:

The "Title Page" means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following 
pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in 
the title page. For works in formats which do not have any title page as such, "Title 
Page" means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, 
preceding the beginning of the body of the text. 

Hiding the authorship attribution someplace nobody will look at is certainly in 
violation of the spirit of the GFDL, as is redefining your Title Page to include "by 
reference" content on an external website. The real problem here isn't Ulrich Fuchs 
exercising his rights under the GFDL - it is that our copyrights policy is inaccurate 
and it is misleading redistributors of our content as to their obligations.

-Martin "IANAL" Harper.