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

From: "Martin Harper" <martin-MAOR6hOrJ+i/zRsMOHpXgkbqmpVPkGQOWmv/[email protected]>
> On 30 Nov 2003 at 13:45, Bryan Derksen wrote:
> > How about using both interpretations together? There are many
> > open-source projects that are dual-licenced, perhaps we could release
> > the whole entire Wikipedia under a single GFDL with a single set of
> > principal authors on its title page and then in addition to that
> > release each individual article under its own GFDL with its own list
> > of five principal authors determined by some algorithm. That way
> > people could pick whichever approach to re-using Wikipedia content
> > that was most convenient. It could even offer a little incentive for
> > people to put their entire site under the GFDL, without forcing them
> > to if they really don't want to.
> >
> > IANAL either, just kicking around ideas.
>
> I would also support that approach. However, note that this requires us to
do a little
> extra work in GFDL compliance: IE, we would have to give a list of
"principal
> authors" on the main page, and also on any individual article where we've
imported
> text from a GFDL'd third party (such as Nupedia, FOLDOC, etc). I think
this minimal
> amount of extra work would be worth it.

Is it Wikipedia that must do the compliance? I do not think that
Wikipedia/Wikimedia
has any authority to reinterpret the GFDL. As well, all the list of
principal authors,
as mav suggests ,is really an impossible ideal in the Wikipedia environment.
It really
must be done on a page by page basis. Does the Columbia Encyclopedia  list
all the
authors of articles at the beginning of each volume? The byline is listed at
the end
of each article. Do newspapers list all the contributors under the masthead?
They
are given bylines in the articles. This is attempting to take away rights of
Wikipedia
contributors-- and not in compliance with the GFDL in my opinion.

> To make this dual licensing official, we would need to change our license
from "all
> text is licensed under the GFDL..." to "The English Wikipedia, as a whole,
is licensed
> under the GFDL.... All Wikipedia articles are licensed under the GFDL...".
To make
> one or the other single license options official, we'd need to do
something similar but
> with only one of these clauses.

I think that "all text" is clear. It is up to the downstream user to
interpret what that means.
Wikipedia cannot change the terms of the GFDL by such creative accounting
practices.
Each contributor to each page has the right to have their authorship
acknowledged.
That would be against moral rights provisions in many countries and it is
also against
the GFDL which is recognizing these moral rights principles in a licensing
context.
Any publication of a server outside the US in a fully Berne Convention
compliant
country requires full authorship attribution, no matter what the GFDL says.

No one has waived moral rights under Wikipedia and all downstream users
outside
the US in Berne Convention countries that have moral rights provisions must
not
take away the author attribution, this dual licensing scheme is attempting
to do that,
and should fail.

Regarding using third party names in any copyright notice "copyright by
Wikipedia
contributors" I also do not think that is really necessary. Any attribution
is kept on
the page history, that is enough notice to anyone who looks on that page to
figure
out who make the contributions (as long as permissions are recorded in the
summary
edit box). No need to clutter up the pages any more than neceesary.

Alex756 (IAAL, but this is not a legal opinion)