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Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF"

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snooze210904 at yahoo

Aug 21, 2008, 10:17 AM

Post #1 of 18 (1090 views)
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Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF"

Forwarding to foundation-l, I forgot it the first time.

--- On Thu, 21/8/08, Patricia Rodrigues <snooze210904 [at] yahoo> wrote:
From: Patricia Rodrigues <snooze210904 [at] yahoo>
Subject: Re: [Commons-l] [Foundation-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF"
To: "Wikimedia Commons Discussion List" <commons-l [at] lists>
Date: Thursday, 21 August, 2008, 5:55 PM

Dear everyone,

According to the Wikimedia Foundation's values (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Values), "An essential part of the Wikimedia Foundation's mission is encouraging the development of free-content educational resources that may be created, used, and reused by the entire human community. We believe that this mission requires thriving open formats and open standards on the web to allow the creation of content not subject to restrictions on creation, use, and reuse."

Indeed, one of the milestones achieved by Wikimedia was the approval of the resolution about licensing policy across projects (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy), setting up restrictions about how EDPs are to be implemented, and which legislations should be respected when writing up such EDPs. This is appliable to all projects except Commons,
which is expressively forbidden to have such a thing as an EDP - because EDPs are for non-free content, and Wikimedia Commons is supposed to host only free content (free defined as in http://freedomdefined.org/Definition).

In practice, things are a little bit different. Projects here and there have been setting up EDPs, and although there is no visible record of this (as far as I know), hopefully all these EDPs have been set up in accordance to this licensing resolution. I do not if such is supervised, but that is not really what I'd like to talk about today.

What I hopefully can point out today is that Commons is also not complying to the Four Freedoms, in light of its own licensing policy, which is the centerpiece of the project (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing). We have several inconsistencies in our "subpolicies", but the biggest one has just been introduced: the modification to {{PD-Art}} that has been the topic
for this thread. The new wording on this template reflects a position of the community in light of opinions/positions of WMF staff members, and goes to the point of considering this an official position of the WMF.

So if you don't mind, I'd like to pose some questions:
*Is the official position of the WMF to consider only US copyright in what concerns content to be hosted in any Wikimedia project?
**If the answer is yes, is Commons included?
**If the answer is no, which copyrights should we consider to host content? Please specify the situation for Wikimedia Commons too.
*Is any WMF staff member entitled to give a "position" in behalf of the Board in a way that condones (even incites?) breaking the law outside of the US, in the sake of lobbying for Free Content/Licensing?
*Are the positions/opinions given by Erik and Mike to be considered for the National Portrait Gallery/UK copyright law only, or for any legislation that has
similar/equivalent problems, such as the Swedish one?
*Finally: if we are to consider US copyright only in this specific (PD-Art) matter, but non-US admins are required by some authority in their own country to take down any media that is copyrighted in that country, should admins defy the local authorities or the new Commons licensing?

I believe that if we start allowing exceptions of this kind, Commons does not fulfill its role as a media repository that is indeed free to reuse, and its existence is not making much sense. So I would like to know what is the future of this project, and whether it is more feasible to have local uploads everywhere else, tightly regulated with a legislation, whichever that may be, instead of a central repository of "more or less free stuff, it sort of depends, you know".

Thank you for your time.
PatrÃcia Rodrigues
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erik at wikimedia

Aug 21, 2008, 11:03 AM

Post #2 of 18 (1054 views)
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Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" [In reply to]

2008/8/21 Luiz Augusto <lugusto [at] gmail>:
> So, yes, there is a need to an official statement. Erik and Mike have given
> theirs *opinions*.

There are three separate questions here:

1) Does hosting these images put the WMF in legal danger? Mike has
weighed in on this, and said that based on the record so far, there is
no reason to assume that this is the case. If you want to know if
something should be deleted to protect WMF from harm, Mike is the
person to ask. He has been asked and has answered.

2) Does WMF's licensing policy require Commons to delete these images
to remain free-as-in-freedom? Our organizational response has always
been "no", dating back to Jimmy's first public statements on the
matter years ago, our response to demands to remove PD-Art images,
etc. I co-authored both the licensing policy and the Definition of
Free Cultural Works it refers to; I believe I can safely say that
neither of these documents was intended to suggest deletion of PD-Art
images.

3) Is the Commons community free to decide that, in spite of 1) and
2), it wants to delete some PD-Art images in order to be maximally
free-as-in-freedom? As far as I can tell, the answer is "yes", in the
absence of an explicit Board-level policy statement on PD-Art images.
None of my or Mike's comments was intended to suggest otherwise.

I hope that clarifies the situation.
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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thomas.dalton at gmail

Aug 21, 2008, 11:09 AM

Post #3 of 18 (1055 views)
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Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" [In reply to]

> I hope that clarifies the situation.

Seems clear to me, thank you!

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bryan.tongminh at gmail

Aug 21, 2008, 1:18 PM

Post #4 of 18 (1059 views)
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Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" [In reply to]

On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 6:55 PM, Patricia Rodrigues
<snooze210904 [at] yahoo> wrote:
[...]
>
> What I hopefully can point out today is that Commons is also not complying
> to the Four Freedoms, in light of its own licensing policy, which is the
> centerpiece of the project
> (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing). We have several
> inconsistencies in our "subpolicies", but the biggest one has just been
> introduced: the modification to {{PD-Art}} that has been the topic for this
> thread. The new wording on this template reflects a position of the
> community in light of opinions/positions of WMF staff members, and goes to
> the point of considering this an official position of the WMF.
>
We have never followed the Definition of Freedom to the letter and
neither to its spirit. The Commons community has always followed their
own way interpreting freedom just like they did in the PD-art
discussion. Which ended up in a decision that will allow us to use
become a broader repository but arguably also will drift us away from
freedom in its strict sense and may have rather unfortunate
consequences for our fellow UKians and Scandinavians. I know at least
one admin who did not want to take the risk of administering a
repository that would cause him to break his country's law. In the end
this was the decision of the Commons community itself only. The
Foundation allowed the project decide for themselves which they did.

>
> I believe that if we start allowing exceptions of this kind, Commons does
> not fulfill its role as a media repository that is indeed free to reuse, and
> its existence is not making much sense. So I would like to know what is the
> future of this project, and whether it is more feasible to have local
> uploads everywhere else, tightly regulated with a legislation, whichever
> that may be, instead of a central repository of "more or less free stuff, it
> sort of depends, you know".
>
Free to reuse is rather vague. The community has always drawn the line
of freedom themselves (indeed in some cases directly violating the
Definition of Freedom and the Licensing resolution).

Bryan

(As a side note I had seen this coming. It has always been a matter of
when, not if)

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matthew.flaschen at gatech

Aug 21, 2008, 1:32 PM

Post #5 of 18 (1056 views)
Permalink

Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" [In reply to]

Erik Moeller wrote:
> 2008/8/21 Luiz Augusto <lugusto [at] gmail>:
>> So, yes, there is a need to an official statement. Erik and Mike have given
>> theirs *opinions*.
>
> There are three separate questions here:
>
> 1) Does hosting these images put the WMF in legal danger? Mike has
> weighed in on this, and said that based on the record so far, there is
> no reason to assume that this is the case. If you want to know if
> something should be deleted to protect WMF from harm, Mike is the
> person to ask. He has been asked and has answered.
>
> 2) Does WMF's licensing policy require Commons to delete these images
> to remain free-as-in-freedom? Our organizational response has always
> been "no", dating back to Jimmy's first public statements on the
> matter years ago, our response to demands to remove PD-Art images,
> etc. I co-authored both the licensing policy and the Definition of
> Free Cultural Works it refers to; I believe I can safely say that
> neither of these documents was intended to suggest deletion of PD-Art
> images.

I agree that these are the issues, and I still believe the board ought
to explicitly state its opinion on #1 and #2.

Matt Flaschen

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snooze210904 at yahoo

Aug 22, 2008, 12:19 AM

Post #6 of 18 (1045 views)
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Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" [In reply to]

Bryan, I agree with you that we are not following the spirit of the Definition of Freedom strictly. That is the main problem, and we keep on introducing exceptions to the general licensing spirit for the sake of convenience. Two wrongs does not make one right - where does it stop?

Yes, it's rather unfortunate that we have already lost one administrator because of possible legal issues. One issue is: people working with free software/free culture in affected countries are faced with the issue that they are promoting something (liberation of material to the public domain or under free licenses by those who have such material closed in cellars in museums or available only through gatekeepers, so that it's usable by Wikimedia Commons) that in the end is useless to promote because it's possible to use it anyway, on a clause that is perfectly fine in the US but absolutely not in those countries. So instead of smoothly and diplomatically convincing such institutions, we're bullying them into it. A bad strategy, and bad publicity for Wikimedia, imho.

The other issue is: what to do if you are an admin from one of the affected countries and receive a request from the authorities in that country to take down some PD-Art media from the site (copyrighted in that country)? Do you refuse your local authorities saying "it's in a server in the US, ha-ha", risking whichever consequences, or do you violate Commons "policy" so you won't disobey local authorities, and delete the media?... Is it possible to be an admin in such conditions?

It's very nice to talk about lobbying for Free Culture and having some courage against such unfair and ridiculous legislations when you're sitting comfortably on US soil.

Well, there you go, more questions to be answered.

Regards,
PatrÃcia

--- On Thu, 21/8/08, Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh [at] gmail> wrote:
From: Bryan Tong Minh <bryan.tongminh [at] gmail>
Subject: Re: [Commons-l] [Foundation-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF"
To: "Wikimedia Commons Discussion List" <commons-l [at] lists>, "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l [at] lists>
Date: Thursday, 21 August, 2008, 9:18 PM

We have never followed the Definition of Freedom to the letter and
neither to its spirit. The Commons community has always followed their
own way interpreting freedom just like they did in the PD-art
discussion.
Which ended up in a decision that will allow us to use
become a broader repository but arguably also will drift us away from
freedom in its strict sense and may have rather unfortunate
consequences for our fellow UKians and Scandinavians. I know at least
one admin who did not want to take the risk of administering a
repository that would cause him to break his country's law. In the end
this was the decision of the Commons community itself only. The
Foundation allowed the project decide for themselves which they did.

Free to reuse is rather vague. The community has always drawn the line
of freedom themselves (indeed in some cases directly violating the
Definition of Freedom and the Licensing resolution).

Bryan

(As a side note I had seen this coming. It has always been a matter of
when, not if)

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chiesa.marco at gmail

Aug 22, 2008, 12:58 AM

Post #7 of 18 (1053 views)
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Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" [In reply to]

On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 8:03 PM, Erik Moeller <erik [at] wikimedia> wrote:

> 2008/8/21 Luiz Augusto <lugusto [at] gmail>:
> > So, yes, there is a need to an official statement. Erik and Mike have
> given
> > theirs *opinions*.
>
> There are three separate questions here:
>
> 1) Does hosting these images put the WMF in legal danger? Mike has
> weighed in on this, and said that based on the record so far, there is
> no reason to assume that this is the case. If you want to know if
> something should be deleted to protect WMF from harm, Mike is the
> person to ask. He has been asked and has answered.
>
> Sueing the WMF for publishing online photos of old work of arts may be
counterproductive for the copyright owner (at the end of the day if I see a
picture on Wikipedia I may just be tempted to go the museum and see the real
thing paying the ticket); however, I'm concerned that a bona fide reuser,
who has seen the PD tag on commons, may be sued.
Cruccone
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lars at aronsson

Aug 22, 2008, 7:30 AM

Post #8 of 18 (1046 views)
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Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" [In reply to]

Patricia Rodrigues wrote:

> *Is the official position of the WMF to consider only US
> copyright in what concerns content to be hosted in any Wikimedia
> project?

From a philosopical standpoint, I doubt that this kind of question
is useful. In order to guarantee that content can be reused
freely everywhere, you need to consider not only copyright law but
also laws on privacy, blasphemy, national security, etc. Images
that we share, such as caricatures of national leaders and photos
of train stations, might be unlawful in various countries. To
what extent should we let that stop us?

Exactly what is legal or illegal varies from place to place and
from time to time. It can only be determined by a court of law,
and not by a popular vote on Commons, or by any statement from the
board of the WMF. Even though WMF/Commons policies can provide a
guideline, it is impossible to guarantee that any image or content
is "safe" or "free" for any use. That cannot be the goal for such
policies. Instead, such policies must have the limited goal of
protecting the WMF, so it can continue to function.

Disclaimer: I'm not speaking for anybody, only for myself.

--
Lars Aronsson (lars [at] aronsson)
Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se

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snooze210904 at yahoo

Aug 25, 2008, 1:22 PM

Post #9 of 18 (992 views)
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Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" [In reply to]

I believe the matter has got some extra questions in it that are a bit out of the issues I raised in a previous post, which means most of those issues have not been really addressed yet. Some of the extra questions are:

*"Erik and Mike have the right to talk for Wikimedia" - I do not question this. They are both staff members, and I honestly do not know well enough the internal organization of Wikimedia Foundation to be asserting who has the right to talk about which issues. Indeed, the fact that they _were_ talking as Wikimedia staff and giving an explicit position is what prompted me to start fussing on foundation-l. Because I have failed to see whether their statements were done regarding the situation specifically in the UK, or in other countries too; and because I have still oblivious about which copyright law we *must* follow and which we *should* follow. I'll come back to this later.
*"Local projects have the right to make their own amendments" - Absolutely! The Board is not to decide on how local projects should be regulated. Nor am I asking for external interference from the Foundation to revert any local decision. I have seen such requests (mainly for the English Wikipedia) on this mailing list, and the mantra "WMF does not interfere in local decisions" always comes up, and rightfully so. But again, a clarification about our licensing policies helps local projects to decide on their contents; and Commons is especially sensitive to that, and the result was that from a couple of statements, a major turn in the Licensing policy was done. Especially because the change was not to make it narrower, but broader.
*"WMF is not going to be legally harmed for hosting such content" - I truly believe that too, and I really hope that. However, at this point, I couldn't care less about if WMF would be sued or not about images under the PD-art problem. I am mostly worried about:
1) Reusers of this content. We have to tell people that the media is PD, but actually it may not be so PD in their country, so you have to know your local legislation to know if you can reuse it or not. Not exactly very easy. So it's free content, but heh maybe not *that* free. Which takes me to point 2...
2) People in Free Software/Free Knowledge/Free Culture movements/organizations in affected countries. Suddenly, organizations in such countries supporting Wikimedia projects, lack a good reason to convince patrons to release media to the public - if the content can be used even against such organizations' will, why should they bother negotiating such release? I don't know how big this problem is, but it would be good if people from Wikimedia chapters from affected countries could weigh in their opinion.
3) Administrators and/or OTRS personnel receiving take-down orders. What should they do? Contact our designated agent (Mike Godwin/Sue Gardner)? The legal counselor (Mike Godwin)? Ignore such orders and show them {{PD-Art}}, stating we can't do anything because it's against policy? Even if that means ignoring local legislation? (in "local" here I mean where these people are physically located - do they become liable for not taking down such content when prompted to?)
*"We're teaching the world to free up content" - by breaking/ignoring local laws? Again, I question the methods. Why are we then accepting the lack of Freedom of panorama in the USA, or even following USA's interpretation of the Rule of the shorter term? These are also limitations to freedom of use, and on Commons we accept media from other countries that are not following strictly USA's interpretations on these matters... are we doing wrong? Should we start choosing which laws we deem "stupid" (I actually read this term on the discussion about changing PD-Art) and ignore them, regardless of them being US laws or not? This is not a rhetorical question.
So, I'm afraid that some things have not been really clarified... but the main one is: which copyright laws must/should Commons follow, in order to be absolutely compatible with WMF's values and licensing policies? Because the Board resolution from 2007 is not including Commons. Are we in a legal vacuum?

PatrÃcia

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cary at wikimedia

Aug 25, 2008, 1:42 PM

Post #10 of 18 (994 views)
Permalink

Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" [In reply to]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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Patricia Rodrigues wrote:
> 3) Administrators and/or OTRS personnel receiving take-down orders. What should they do? Contact our designated agent (Mike Godwin/Sue Gardner)? The legal counselor (Mike Godwin)? Ignore such orders and show them {{PD-Art}}, stating we can't do anything because it's against policy? Even if that means ignoring local legislation? (in "local" here I mean where these people are physically located - do they become liable for not taking down such content when prompted to?)
> *"We're teaching the world to free up content" - by breaking/ignoring local laws? Again, I question the methods. Why are we then accepting the lack of Freedom of panorama in the USA, or even following USA's interpretation of the Rule of the shorter term? These are also limitations to freedom of use, and on Commons we accept media from other countries that are not following strictly USA's interpretations on these matters... are we doing wrong? Should we start choosing which laws we deem "stupid" (I actually read this term on the discussion about changing PD-Art) and ignore them, regardless of them being US laws or not? This is not a rhetorical question.
> So, I'm afraid that some things have not been really clarified... but the main one is: which copyright laws must/should Commons follow, in order to be absolutely compatible with WMF's values and licensing policies? Because the Board resolution from 2007 is not including Commons. Are we in a legal vacuum?

Actually, any take-down orders (DMCA or otherwise legal) should be sent
directly to the foundation office as designated agent (via email, fax or
mail) for handling.
- --
Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator

Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia
Foundation today: http://donate.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
Phone: 415.839.6885 x 601
Fax: 415.882.0495

E-Mail: cary [at] wikimedia
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node.ue at gmail

Aug 25, 2008, 2:02 PM

Post #11 of 18 (997 views)
Permalink

Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" [In reply to]

Yes, exactly. Thus, if the Italian-language OTRS receives a takedown
notice, the appropriate response, I think (correct me if I'm wrong) is
not to cave and delete everything out of fear but to 1) direct the
sender of the notice to send it to the Foundation itself, and 2) to
ask the Foundation office for further advice as well.

Mark

On 25/08/2008, Cary Bass <cary [at] wikimedia> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Patricia Rodrigues wrote:
>> 3) Administrators and/or OTRS personnel receiving take-down orders. What
>> should they do? Contact our designated agent (Mike Godwin/Sue Gardner)?
>> The legal counselor (Mike Godwin)? Ignore such orders and show them
>> {{PD-Art}}, stating we can't do anything because it's against policy? Even
>> if that means ignoring local legislation? (in "local" here I mean where
>> these people are physically located - do they become liable for not taking
>> down such content when prompted to?)
>> *"We're teaching the world to free up content" - by breaking/ignoring
>> local laws? Again, I question the methods. Why are we then accepting the
>> lack of Freedom of panorama in the USA, or even following USA's
>> interpretation of the Rule of the shorter term? These are also limitations
>> to freedom of use, and on Commons we accept media from other countries
>> that are not following strictly USA's interpretations on these matters...
>> are we doing wrong? Should we start choosing which laws we deem "stupid"
>> (I actually read this term on the discussion about changing PD-Art) and
>> ignore them, regardless of them being US laws or not? This is not a
>> rhetorical question.
>> So, I'm afraid that some things have not been really clarified... but the
>> main one is: which copyright laws must/should Commons follow, in order to
>> be absolutely compatible with WMF's values and licensing policies? Because
>> the Board resolution from 2007 is not including Commons. Are we in a legal
>> vacuum?
>
> Actually, any take-down orders (DMCA or otherwise legal) should be sent
> directly to the foundation office as designated agent (via email, fax or
> mail) for handling.
> - --
> Cary Bass
> Volunteer Coordinator
>
> Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia
> Foundation today: http://donate.wikimedia.org
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
> Phone: 415.839.6885 x 601
> Fax: 415.882.0495
>
> E-Mail: cary [at] wikimedia
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> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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birgitte_sb at yahoo

Aug 25, 2008, 2:17 PM

Post #12 of 18 (991 views)
Permalink

Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" [In reply to]

--- On Mon, 8/25/08, Patricia Rodrigues <snooze210904 [at] yahoo> wrote:

> So, I'm afraid that some things have not been really
> clarified... but the main one is: which copyright laws
> must/should Commons follow, in order to be absolutely
> compatible with WMF's values and licensing policies?
> Because the Board resolution from 2007 is not including
> Commons. Are we in a legal vacuum?
>

Commons is only excluded from being able to make an EDP [1] The rest of the resolution still applies to Commons. No one with any authority is going to tell you what copyright law should be followed. The standard answer is: Commons needs to work out their local policy within the bounds of resolution.

Personally I don't think the resolution offers much in the way of clarity, *especially* in regards to "public domain". But for better or worse, the board has not been willing to touch the issue since the resolution was passed.

However if both sides of the debate were not compatible with WMF's values and licensing policies, I am sure the board would be vocal in pointing out the problem. They spoke up loudly enough when it.WP was using "with permission" images. So I would interpret Domas saying "I'd really like to trust the community [with preserving WMF values]" (as well as silence from the rest of board) to mean "both sides of the debate seem to be inbounds of WMF policy and values right now". it.WP certainly wasn't told that their community was trusted to do as they saw fit to preserve WMF values. They were pretty much told to change their policy.

Birgitte SB

[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy

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vacuum at jeb

Aug 25, 2008, 2:43 PM

Post #13 of 18 (993 views)
Permalink

Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" [In reply to]

> 1) Reusers of this content. We have to tell people that the media is PD,

but actually it may not be so PD in their country, so you have to know your

local legislation to know if you can reuse it or not.

In Norway there is no such thing as PD.
John

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cary at wikimedia

Aug 25, 2008, 3:13 PM

Post #14 of 18 (993 views)
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Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" [In reply to]

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Birgitte SB wrote:

> However if both sides of the debate were not compatible with WMF's values and licensing policies, I am sure the board would be vocal in pointing out the problem. They spoke up loudly enough when it.WP was using "with permission" images. So I would interpret Domas saying "I'd really like to trust the community [with preserving WMF values]" (as well as silence from the rest of board) to mean "both sides of the debate seem to be inbounds of WMF policy and values right now". it.WP certainly wasn't told that their community was trusted to do as they saw fit to preserve WMF values. They were pretty much told to change their policy.
>
> Birgitte SB

I've noticed that Italian Wikipedia contains a rather large number of
cc-by-nd, cc-by-nc and various different combinations thereof images
like that[1]. I was not aware of any moment when the Foundation told
it.wp it wasn't trusted to preserve WMF values, and feel secure that if
this took place after the EDP policy went into effect then I would have
heard something about it...can you source that?
- --
Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator

[1] http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categoria:Immagini_creative_commons

Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia
Foundation today: http://donate.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
Phone: 415.839.6885 x 601
Fax: 415.882.0495

E-Mail: cary [at] wikimedia
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geniice at gmail

Aug 25, 2008, 3:37 PM

Post #15 of 18 (996 views)
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Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" [In reply to]

2008/8/25 John at Darkstar <vacuum [at] jeb>:
>> 1) Reusers of this content. We have to tell people that the media is PD,
>
> but actually it may not be so PD in their country, so you have to know your
>
> local legislation to know if you can reuse it or not.
>
> In Norway there is no such thing as PD.
> John

Huh? Yes chapter 6 does give some some pretty strong moral rights but
copyright expires after life+70.

--
geni

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vacuum at jeb

Aug 25, 2008, 5:11 PM

Post #16 of 18 (985 views)
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Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" [In reply to]

geni skrev:
> 2008/8/25 John at Darkstar <vacuum [at] jeb>:
>>> 1) Reusers of this content. We have to tell people that the media is PD,
>> but actually it may not be so PD in their country, so you have to know your
>>
>> local legislation to know if you can reuse it or not.
>>
>> In Norway there is no such thing as PD.
>> John
>
> Huh? Yes chapter 6 does give some some pretty strong moral rights but
> copyright expires after life+70.
>

Sorry, not much solutions here, mostly just a bunch of new questions.

The exclusive rights to control the use of the works vanishes, but the
overall rights does not transform into something like public domain.
[http://www.lovdata.no/all/hl-19610512-002.html] I think it is a common
misconception to call this "moral rights". Its in the law, and as such
they are binding.

I have several times tried to get lawyers to explain "public domain" in
a Norwegian context. So far none has been willing to do such a thing. If
there is any such written explanation I sure would be glad to get a note
about it.

One expert opinion I got was that CC-by-sa-nd was within the law,
CC-by-sa could be within the law, and CC-by and CC was not according to
the law. Same person said that because you have to adjust them to the
law they simply got the same limitations as CC-by-sa. Because someone
could refuse to accept a specific derivative work he said CC-by-sa-nd
would be more comparative to the Norwegian law. He also said that
nd-type of licenses was a lot more flexible then we regards them, and
that adaption to suit a specific use, even cropping and color adjusting,
would be well within what is acceptable. (This is somewhat out of the
question for us as CC-by-nd -type of work are voted out, on this grounds
I can't understand why)

Another person said that if someone still alive donated a work on given
terms, ie GFDL or whatever, then it would be very difficult to change
that will. When I asked if she could say that they couldn't change if,
she wouldn't say that for sure. That could potentially create a problem
when someone donates work under a specific license, then that person
dies and his or hers heirs then revokes the license. (Probably we could
just drop the use as they have to make such a revoke of the license
known somehow)

I've also asked about the GFDL, and the thing about the five most
prominent contributors. That is interesting, as it seems like the "main
creators" of a work can do more or less as they chooses, without regard
to contributors, but all of them has to be attributed. GFDL used in a
Norwegian context then has to identify all creators of the work.
(Identifying creators are a mess, compared to contributors. The easiest
way is to go for the last.)

A problem is then, does the concept of «creating a work» changes over
time? Ie, is a creation easier when the work is small?

Then we have the §41a which say; Den som første gang rettmessig gjør
tilgjengelig for allmennheten et åndsverk som ikke er blitt
offentliggjort innen utløpet av vernetiden etter §§ 40 og 41, tilkommer
samme rett som en opphavsmann etter § 2. Denne rett varer i 25 år etter
utløpet av det år verket første gang ble gjort tilgjengelig for
allmennheten.

In short, if someone finds an old work of art, and publishes it after
the 70th year of the creation or the death of the creator, then he gets
the exclusive rights for 25 years. Now, assume a wikipedian that finds
an old image in a book. He checks and finds that the original creator
has went to dust, so he uses it. Then we gets sued because the publisher
of the book has the exclusive rights to the image! (Probably we can
claim that we didn't know, and then remove all use of the image)

John

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birgitte_sb at yahoo

Aug 25, 2008, 7:52 PM

Post #17 of 18 (986 views)
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Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" [In reply to]

--- On Mon, 8/25/08, Cary Bass <cary [at] wikimedia> wrote:

> From: Cary Bass <cary [at] wikimedia>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF"
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l [at] lists>
> Date: Monday, August 25, 2008, 5:13 PM
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Birgitte SB wrote:
>
> > However if both sides of the debate were not
> compatible with WMF's values and licensing policies, I
> am sure the board would be vocal in pointing out the
> problem. They spoke up loudly enough when it.WP was using
> "with permission" images. So I would interpret
> Domas saying "I'd really like to trust the
> community [with preserving WMF values]" (as well as
> silence from the rest of board) to mean "both sides of
> the debate seem to be inbounds of WMF policy and values
> right now". it.WP certainly wasn't told that their
> community was trusted to do as they saw fit to preserve WMF
> values. They were pretty much told to change their policy.
> >
> > Birgitte SB
>
> I've noticed that Italian Wikipedia contains a rather
> large number of
> cc-by-nd, cc-by-nc and various different combinations
> thereof images
> like that[1]. I was not aware of any moment when the
> Foundation told
> it.wp it wasn't trusted to preserve WMF values, and
> feel secure that if
> this took place after the EDP policy went into effect then
> I would have
> heard something about it...can you source that?
> - --
> Cary Bass
> Volunteer Coordinator
>
> [1]
> http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categoria:Immagini_creative_commons

I never said it.WP was told it wasn't trusted to preserve WMF values. (a negative statement)

Rather when the issue was brought up here (just like the PD-Art issue) they were NOT told what Commons has been told regarding being trusted to decide the issue internally. (a positive statement)

It.WP was told to change it's policy (a positive statement)

Just wanted to clear that up even though I don't have time to dig through the archives. Don't know if that actually clarifies. But not being told what Commons has been told != Being told the negative of what Commons has been told.

Birgitte SB

BTW this did not happen after EDP

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chiesa.marco at gmail

Aug 26, 2008, 12:57 AM

Post #18 of 18 (982 views)
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Re: [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF" [In reply to]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 12:13 AM, Cary Bass <cary [at] wikimedia> wrote:

>
> I've noticed that Italian Wikipedia contains a rather large number of
> cc-by-nd, cc-by-nc and various different combinations thereof images
> like that[1]. I was not aware of any moment when the Foundation told
> it.wp it wasn't trusted to preserve WMF values, and feel secure that if
> this took place after the EDP policy went into effect then I would have
> heard something about it...can you source that?
> - --
>
Just to explain, the Italian law does not admit fair use, so the EDP of
it.wp requires that the non-free images (those which qualify for fairuse in
the licensing policy) need a permission for their use on it.wp (a
not-free-enough cc counts as a permission). Others may have a double
license, such as public domain in Italy (non-artistic photos become PD in
Italy after 20 years - but they are not accepted on commons). So, yes, we
changed our policy, we deleted a lot of stuff, some members of the community
were pissed off by the resolution, but nonetheless we complied.

Regarding the take-down notice, if I remember it was 2 years ago. We managed
to make the news know of it, and some proposal of law changes introducing a
kind of fair use were made (then afaik the Government fell and it all got
stuck).

The point is: there are a lot of things in Italy that have restrictions on
their use that are not related to copyright, and commons/the WMF only speak
copyright, so we get the contradiction of having something which is free
(from copyright) but that still requires permission to be used. And of
course when you ask the WMF for legal advice, the answer is see it by
yourselves (I perfectly understand the reasons - such as mixing of copyright
laws of different countries is too complicated to give a precise answer).
Cruccone
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