[Wikipedia-l] Dream a little...

Mon Oct 16 18:26:35 UTC 2006

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 12:19:13 -0400, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Right.  So one of the things I am hearing loud and clear is that our 
> community would generally like to see more money spent on lobbying 
> efforts for copyright reform.  That is a point very well taken.

It is not so much about copyright reform as it is about investing money
rather than spending it, and this is a rare opportunity to talk about that.

Another example, unrelated to copyright reform: Wikipedia editors need
access to primary sources, particularly academic journals. The fate of
current ventures in Open Access journals largely determines whether most
potential Wikipedia editors will have easy access to the sources they need
in the years to come, and funding for these journals (or lack thereof) will
be a major factor.

> However, our task at the moment is not to dream about _that_ per se, but 
> rather to dream about what kinds of work under existing copyright, we 
> would like to see made free.  There have been many good suggestions, and 

I agree. All I ask is that if such a decision is ever taken, consider very
carefully not only the value of the information you are setting free, but
also the message you are sending to content owners/producers and other key
players.

Roger