[Wikipedia-l] An FDL test case: McFly

Thu Feb 12 13:31:55 UTC 2004

From: "Alexandre Dulaunoy" <alexandre.dulaunoy at ael.be>
> On Thu, 12 Feb 2004, Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> > Alex-
> > > I think what he is trying to say is that Wikipedia is one
encyclopedia,
> > > and the GFDL does not require a history for each section of the
publication
> > > but for the whole publication.
> >
> > When I view a Wikipedia article, I can view the article directly -- I do
> > not have to pass through a title page, as I would when viewing an FDL-
> > licensed book. I could search for "Donald Rumsfeld" on Google and
> > immediately end up on the Wikipedia article about him.
> >
> > Or on the McFly article, in which case I would be told nothing about the
> > fact that the article is licensed under the GNU FDL, or about its
history,
> > its authors etc.
> >
> > This is clearly in violation of both the letter and the spirit of our
> > license.
>
> Before  a  violation   of  the  license,  it's  a   violation  of  the
> copyright/author's  rights.   References  to  the   authors  has  been
> removed. This  case is before a  licensing issue, it's  a violation of
> the  copyright. The  nuance is  quite  important because  we don't  go
> directly of the question of  licensing and its validity. Various cases
> around  GNU GPL  was not  around the  license itself  but only  on the
> violation of the author's rights principle.

Why is it a violation of author's rights? There is no law that says you
have to have a copyright notice on every page of a book and a web site
is like a book. You open the book and look at the page, you link into
a web site and see the page. If you want to see the copyright you
go to the title page of the book or the main page of the web site.
There is nowhere in the GFDL that says that you have to link to each
page of a web site? In fact the GFDL was not written for web sites,
it was written for "documentation manuals".  If it is applied by someone
to a web site without modification then that person (or entity or group
of people) is suggesting that the web site is like a book, no? I doubt
any judge would say that Wikipedia requires downstream users to
interpret the GFDL the way Wikipedians say it should be interpreted.
It is not their license and it is interpreted the way any other legal
text is interpreted.

I am not saying that I agree with what McFly Network is doing,
just that there are links back to Wikipedia and that the texts are
"considered released under the GFDL" and there may be a reading
of the GFDL that would say that McFly Network is in compliance
with the GFDL, try and convince me otherwise, please.

Alex756