[Wikipedia-l] [Foundation-l] contents under education/information licenses

Tue Nov 21 14:22:22 UTC 2006

I would support this proposal if there is a lot of content which would
fall under the new category.

Despite being hosted in the US, Wikipedia is one of the most
international sites, and its policies should not be US-centric.

On 11/21/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/21/06, David Monniaux <David.Monniaux at free.fr> wrote:
> > Note that, in the US, NASA, whose photographs are in the public domain,
> > is protected from abusive by specific US laws prohibiting misuse of some
> > symbols of the US government, including the NASA logo (the same applies
> [snip]
> > Note also that the Wikimedia Foundation also copyrights its logos in
> > order to prevent abuse. We should not be hypocrites and deny to others
> > what we do for the same purpose (especially since the Foundation grants
> [snip]
>
>
> As far as I can tell your argument is seriously lacking in internal consistency.
>
> There are two primary areas where I find your argument completely
> unconvincing at first glance:
>
> You make an argument that we should permit logos which are encumbered
> by copyright related restrictions, because non-copyright methods are
> insufficient to protect the logos in some jurisdictions outside of the
> US.   However, you fail to describe the nature of this failure and the
> jurisdictions where it is material.  Although the law differs from
> place to place, trademark is a powerful and well established concept
> in most of the places I suspect matter to you.  Without a specific
> argument related to the insufficiency of trademark protection outside
> of the United States, I can not measure the importance of your
> concerns.
>
>
> > * This would enable us to counter systemic bias ; that is, allow content
> > from some providers from countries where "fair use" does not apply (we
> > for instance currently totally unbalance the portrayal of space programs
> > by having 7000 photos from NASA and hardly any from ESA/CNES).
> [snip]
>
> More importantly, in my mind, is that while you might have an argument
> related to the protection of logos and identifying marks for the
> purpose of avoiding confusion and false associations,  you then take
> the unexplained leap to non-identifying images.. Things like
> scientific phenomena, rather than logos.
>
> Images of research are best held in the public domain, they are things
> which should be "free", as they are the result of the culmination of
> work from generations of people.  It would be fundamentally
> inconsistent for us to profess a commitment to Free Knowledge and then
> endorse discriminatory restrictions on that knowledge.
>
> "You may use this for educational purposes" is a false offer: for what
> use is material that you may learn from, but may only put to use so
> long as you can sufficiently hide the origins of your knowledge?
>
>
> So argue to me that we should allow unfreely copyrighted images of
> trademarked logos, and I will agree with you, for I support that
> policy on the English Wikipedia (where such logos are used as 'fair
> use' consistent with both US code and with established public
> practices).   But I can not see how you can paint informative content
> with the same broad brush.
>
> If the European Space agency is so paranoid and so afraid to share,
> that they will adopt a copyright policy which keeps their work from
> the public eye then it is by their own choice.   The historical memory
> of man is not always kind to those who wish to shroud their work in
> secrecy, and no policy of Wikimedias will change that.
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-- 
Written with passion,
J.L.W.S. The Special One