[WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List

Sun Jun 26 11:57:04 UTC 2005

The problem with asking is that, in the words of Admiral Grace  
Hopper, "it is easier to apologize than to get permission."

The problem with asking for permission in a situation like this is  
that the person you are asking has absolutely no reason whatosever to  
say "yes." What's in it for them? It's a foggy situation, there's no  
obvious benefit to them to say "yes." Since you're _asking,_ that  
means _you_ think that the thing being asked for is a) not already  
yours, and b) of _some_ valuable.

Now, it's _not_ a routine request. It's not Stephen King's publisher  
asking to quote song lyrics or whatever is the sort of thing that  
permissions departments handle. Since it's an unusual situation,  
they're not going to be absolutely sure what would be the  
consequences of saying "yes."

And anyone is going to realize that Wikipedia and the EB are  
_rivals_. Maybe not bitter rivals, but probably not even friendly  
rivals.

And it's not clear how much is being given away. If I were a midlevel  
manager in the permissions department at EB and fearful or hostile of  
the GFDL, I'd probably say to myself "Do I know, 100% for sure, that  
giving permission for this might not create a legal avalanche of  
unintended consequences in which WIkipedia could claim that the  
permission extended to the entire content of EB? Because if I'm only  
99.999% sure of that, I'm not going to say 'yes.'"

There are no potential bad consequences of saying "no."

It's like a baseball runner asking the pitcher, "My I have your  
permission to try to steal a base?" What's the pitcher going to say?

And I think the situation is in every possible way worse if you ask  
for permission in writing, get told "no" in writing, and do it  
anyway. It is really unwise to ask for permission unless you're ready  
to be bound by the answer. In this case, that means getting consensus  
that Wikipedia is ready to be bound by the answer.

--
Jean is going to be bicycling 83 miles in the Pan Mass Challenge in  
August, raising money for cancer research. Her profile is at http:// 
www.pmc.org/mypmc/profiles.asp?Section=story&eGiftID=JS0417