[WikiEN-l] About copyright violations

Wed Jul 30 02:32:51 UTC 2003

Hey everyone,

I would like the template for every article to be altered, to include 
something similar to the following: "This is licensed under GFDL...if 
you with to copy this article, go ahead...but you are required to 
provide a link to the GFDL... and you are required to link back to the 
original article..."  That is essence of what needs to be added to the 
template for every Wikipedia article.  This is in order to stop the 
ripping of Wikipedia articles without full copyright/license compliance.

I posted this today on the 
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sites_that_use_Wikipedia_for_content 
page.

"Jesus, there are two many websites out there in non-compliance. The 
template for all pages needs to say explicitly what people are to do if 
they wish to copy the text. I mean, here we are advertising "Wikipedia: 
The Free Encylopedia" everywhere, and there is a link to GFDL at the 
bottom of every wikipedia article. What is the average person to 
think??? Of course they will assume they can just rip off the content. 
If they have any knowledge of GFDL or GPL, they might think that they 
can use it and modify it as long as they put it under the same license. 
But how are they supposed to know that they have to link back to the 
original article? We should stop the problem at the source and put 
explicit instruction on EVERY SINGLE wikipedia article at the bottom or 
top of the page so that when people are clicking and dragging their 
mouse across the page they will see it. Or if they save the HTML, they 
will also see it when they edit that hopefully. Who to talk to about 
this? Just my two cents. I'll continue to help out sending letters and 
such though, because I think it's a worthy cause. dave 
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dgrant> 23:28, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)"

Please CC to david.grant at telus.net, or reply all...

-- 
David J. Grant
Masters Candidate
a-Si and Integrated Circuits Lab
University of Waterloo
Room DC2551A
519-888-4567 x2327
http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~djgrant