[Wikilegal-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Public Library of Science GFDLCompatible

Fri Oct 31 14:18:41 UTC 2003

From: "Andre Engels" <engels at uni-koblenz.de>
> On Fri, 31 Oct 2003, Tomos at Wikipedia wrote:
>
> > If I am not mistaken, the important part of CC licenses is that they are
not
> > necessarily viral.
> >
> > For example, CC-by (aka CC-Attribution license) allows the authors of
> > derivative works to change the license terms, as I understand. If you
modify
> > the work, you should still make an attribution. But you do not have to
> > license that derivative work you created under the same (CC-By) license.
You
> > can fully copyright it, or you can release it under GFDL.
> >
> > CC-by-sa (CC-Attribution-Share Alike)  is a different story. That is
viral
> > and requires derivative works to be released under the same licenese.
This,
> > I think is clear when one compares two license terms, especially the
part
> > 4-b.
> > And here are the links:
> >
> > http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/legalcode
> >
> > http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/legalcode
> >
> > Sorry if I am mistaken. But if I'm right, you can create some derivative
> > work first, and you can release it under GFDL. I hope someone else can
> > double check the legal code on this point.
>
> Hmmm... Actually you may be right there - given that there is a version of
> the CC license which specifically states that derivative works must be
under
> the same license, it seems reasonable to assume that without this
provision
> this is NOT the case. Which in turn means that we can indeed use it in
> Wikipedia - editing and merging with other material would clearly make it
a
> derivative work.

Isn't one of the conflicing provisions t between GFDL 1.1. and GFDL 1.2 a
problem?. 4.b of the CC Attributions 1.0 license requires that even
derivative
works require more credit than what is required under GFDL 1.2 sec. 4-b
(confusingly the same section number).

>From the CC-a ver. 1.0 sec. 4.b:
...
..."give the Original Author credit reasonable to the medium or means You
are utilizing by conveying the name (or pseudonym if applicable) of the
Original Author if supplied; the title of the Work if supplied; in the case
of a Derivative Work, a credit identifying the use of the Work in the
Derivative Work..."

"...Such credit may be implemented in any reasonable manner; provided,
however, that in the case of a Derivative Work or Collective Work, at a
minimum such credit will appear where any other comparable authorship credit
appears and in a manner at least as prominent as such other comparable
authorship credit. "
...

Wouldn't be true that the above is equivalent to creating an invariant
section
under the GFDL, (i.e. the authors of the CC work must ALWAYS be listed,
even if they are not one of the five principal authors of the modified work)
and the original work must be cited with a credit. Ikipedia does not
accept invariant sections, no?

Alex756