[Wikipedia-l] New License was anyone heard back from Jimbo Re: 100M?

Tue Nov 7 22:24:35 UTC 2006

On 11/6/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:

> Steve wrote:
> > Liberatory 100M.
>
> A lot of good ideas of stuff we want were collected.  There is no
> further news at this time, but remember... this is not about a donation,
> but someone trying to think of sustainable business models around doing
> content liberation in conjunction with Wikipedia...  it is one thing to
> imagine someone deciding to donate that much money to the movement, but
> another thing altogether to think about someone doing something
> sustainable (i.e. where they can recoup their investment).

One way to sustain regain such an investment would be to provide a new kind
of hybrid license. I have been mullying over this for some time because of
some conversations with people who have an image library and sell individual
pictures for use on websites or as hard copies. One indicated an interest in
donating some images to commons but when I explained that any images they
donate could be downloaded from Wikipedia and redistributed at will (with
only attribution as a requirement) they decided not to pursue further
discussions.

Therefore it would be useful to have a license that would be acceptable on
commons that had the following characteristics:
1) Work remains copyrighted and is licensed for use
2) Work can be used by Wikipedia without limitation on any pages of a
Wikimedia Foundation project
3) Work can be freely used by anyone who redistributes content from
Wikipedia as long as:
    a) the work is attributed to the source; and
    b) the work is small part of a the total redistribution of Wikipedia
content
4) The Work can not be individual redistributed without consent, nor can it
be sold as an individual unit in electronic print or other format.

I think this would create a situation where an owner of vast amounts of
content could provide Wikipedia with decent resolution images (like (1-2MB),
and still be protected from someone using commons to harvest images and
resell them elsewhere without getting a proper license.

Additionally, this creates no undue burden on any of the users of WMF
content like WikiJunior books, sites that mirror WMF projects, or sites that
use some subset of WMF content, because they can use the works in question.

Those that are looking to redistribute specific content would have to get
permission, but if there is value in selling or redistributing a single
work; then there will be enough value in forging a license agreement with
the author.

Of course details would have to be worked out like what to do if someone
uploads a bunch of images of "dinosaurs" that are used on almost every page
of the WikiJunior Dinosaur project, and how would that be different than
someone who created a compilation of all the dinosaur images and sold them
as a group rather than individually and without wikipedia articles, etc.

I think this type of license would do very little to detract from our
mission; and it would allay the fears of professionals that an image they
took could be widely used without them getting the proper compensation for
their professional endeavor (image a photographer who photographed a
"historic moment" uploaded it; and then it was splashed on the front page of
every major newspaper without any compensation).

This would also allow a archivist organization to provide works to Commons
without worrying that they are devaluing the images that they sell to the
public; or failing to meet the obligations imposed upon them by the
endowments by not meeting their fiduciary duty to protect the assets that
have been entrusted to them.

Thus providing a means for someone who wants to license and partially
"liberate" content in a way to create a sustainable business model since
they could sell the individual uses of the content.

Thoughts?
--Trödel

> Again, to be clear, this has nothing to do with AOL or Jason Calacanis'
> idea of slapping banner ads on Wikipedia.
>
> This might not be a bad time for people to start mulling that over... :)
>
> --Jimbo