If you were designing Wikipedia from the ground up, would you use the GFDL? Why or why not? What's the best alternative? What about simply letting everything become public domain?

I wouldn't use GFDL, as it has some vestiges of terms that better relate to software manuals. I think Creative Commons has clear language. Maybe the CC Attribution/Non-Commercial, although I see some value in permitting commercial uses too.

Why is this in the lounge? This is very on-topic.

I agree. I think Emperor was being modest because it might pertain to his wiki. But I think it could be moved to "General."

There's been a few posts lately that have ended up in the wrong spot, especially being in off topic when they are very much on topic. I wonder if people are so fearful that their posts will be moved to the dreaded lounge/tar pit that they put them there to begin with to save the harm.

This topic does not appear to be likely to result in any problems.

As for the question:



I wouldn't use a license that allows people to copy it happily without even having to say where they got it from. It is perfectly legal to submit an assignment for a school report which is 100% word-for-word copied from Wikipedia. Schools can't scare children away with talk about breaking copyright and all of the rest, because there is none. On top of that, there is absolutely nothing to stop someone from taking what is written on Wikipedia and then using it for profit. Angela Beesley has done this with many "deleted articles" that she has put in various wikia projects for profit. And of course there is nothing to stop mindless scraping sites from using Wikipedia text to then add google adsense ads in (there's heaps of such pages about) to make money for nothing for themselves, without even any effort.

When I write something, I want it to be known that that is my intellectual property. Thus if anyone is going to write anything based on that, they need to say my name. If someone else contributes, then they can say both of our names, and so forth. The idea that I could be a banned user and have quality articles that I have written used to teach students in schools, and yet I am not allowed to say that that was what I wrote is wrong. I mean I could tell them, and I could even prove it, but then it makes me look stupid because of all of their "banned user" banners and the like. And even still, there's 30 edits to the page, only 10 are mine, but the others are adding categories and changing spelling.

Wikipedia makes sure to add references in its articles, to be "verifiable" so why can't they do the same for their own articles? I write something, its mine. And even more pertinent is when I upload photos. Apparently Wikipedia can then steal those photos and claim them to be theirs, meaning that I can't then claim that I own them, even if I took them with my own camera (see Malber's argument, and why he got banned).

I don't know if I'd bother with a license, I'd just use pertinent laws, and then build something around that. In the end make up your own name for a license, and just have it based on what is legal and what makes sense. Its not like when you publish a book you have to decide "hmm, who will I allow to copy this?" Its usually a no brainer. Something like Wikipedia should be a no brainer too. This whole GFDL thing is stupid and adds far too much complexity and in the wrong way.

This is basically a legal issue. If WP were thrown into the public domain, entirely without a license, then anyone could privatize it trivially and give no credit at all.

Al

The GFDL does require that the five most important authors of a work be named. All the work is still copyrighted and owned by whoever wrote it - you still own the copyright to everything you wrote and all the images, you just licensed them in a way you can't take back.

And kids who copy Wikipedia for school assignments are breaking copyrights, notably they have to a) license their assignment under the GFDL, and post notice of it and attribute the main authors. By not doing that, they're most definitely in violation of copyright, just as if you'd included no license at all.

Uhm, this doesn't matter. These kids aren't going to be sued for copyright violation, they're going to get F's for plagiarism.

Al

Well let's put aside the unlikely nature of enforcement. Let's say someone breaks WP's GFDL (by no attribution) who has a right to enforce the copyright? WMF? Every prior editor? The immediately preceding editor?

Theoretically, any preceding editor could sue for breach of copyright. However, it's very likely that a judge would read the license, would say "you've basically thrown your rights away by agreeing to this. Why are you wasting my time?" and maybe even throw the case out.

I don't think that anyone has ever tested this kind of license in the courts, so I don't think that anybody really knows...Does anyone know of any court decisions regarding GFDL?

There hasn't been a GFDL court case, as far as I know, but a violator of the GPL (which is related) was successfully sued in Germany.
http://gpl-violations.org/news/20060922-dl..._frankfurt.html
They didn't ask for damages beyond court fees, just cease and desist, which they got (with a slight reduction in court fees (~$500)), but it does serve to identify the GPL as a legally binding document in Germany.

That said, regardless of license, a judge is likely to say "Why are you wasting my time?" if you sued a kid for copyright infringement for submitting a school assignment that breached copyright. If I submit an article for Wikipedia or from Britannica for school, a judge is likely to say "Who gives a fuck?"

Bingo. Thanks for moving it.

I guess I'm asking because I'm having trouble seeing the value in a license that is complicated and basically unenforceable. Also, I see Wikipedia as an organization that basically steals copyrighted content and uses it for profit, so I'd want to discourage that and try not to make any legal pretenses.

Even when contributors aren't plagiarizing other websites, they are unwittingly donating their work to a for-profit enterprise and losing any say in what happens to it in the future. At least in the U.S., if you give someone something with some vague idea that it's licensed for a specific purpose, that purpose is out the window once the property is transferred and the new owner can do whatever they want with it.

What about going to the other extreme and just telling everyone that they are donating their work to a nonprofit, the nonprofit is copyrighting it, and no one else can use it under any circumstances without written permission?

I'm not too familiar with the creative commons license but I will check it out. Thanks for the suggestion.

To keep this on-topic to Wikipedia, I think their GFDL system is a farce. Just my opinion.



Yes, well put. I don't think 1/10 of 1% of Wikipedians really understand the GFDL, and this should be avoided in any new projects.

I would also consider adding language to address vandalism. Something like "Modification, alterations (etc)... are permitted, providing that they are made with the intent of improving the quality or accuracy of the material. This would be a major step back from the "freedom" of the information but would address a foreseeable misuse. It might occasionally give a vandal pause. Right now I can't understand all the complaining about vandalism while the license would permit such activity.

I also think that making the contributors material the property of the site operator and copyright with full reservation has merit if the intend is to develop the content on a specific site. This has worked with "Letters to the Editor" for hundreds of years.

Well, the notion of "parody" is something which is built into most national copyright laws, so I don't know how you could get around that. A vandal could just say "I was creating a parody of webpage" and he'd be covered, even as far as copyright was concerned....

That is a good point. Of course the limitation would not take away any rights (fair use, parody) that would be available even with a full reservation of rights. I suppose "Mr. Marvin is gay" or "I like cheese" edits might be viewed as a type of parody. Outright defamation vandalism would not, as it would require an assertion of believable fact.

That would depend on how a judge would interpret a particular law and would certainly depend on context. I think that in most cases, it would involve too many variables to be able to predict...

Generating doubt as to whether a vandal's actions might not be completely without consequences would be a good thing, at least from the perspective of the site operators.