[Wikipedia-l] Dream a little...

Thu Oct 19 16:32:46 UTC 2006

Lars Aronsson wrote:

>If you want to make copyrighted contents free, I think you should 
>avoid to involve money, because Wikipedia's moral argument is far 
>stronger than its financial assets will ever be. But is that the 
>problem addressed here?  It sounds a lot more as if the real 
>problem is how to spend this money that somebody happens to have, 
>while at the same time pushing the idea that copyrights are worth 
>paying for, and thus shouldn't be given up for nothing.
>
>The whole scheme reeks of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 
>where so-called "money" is spent to help schools, when in fact 
>that money is paid to Microsoft Corporation for software licenses, 
>that the school could have for free if they used free software.
>
If we are going to pay anyone to buy copyrights it doesn't need to be 
the big copyright owners.  I'm sure there are many works where the 
author is deceased, and the heirs who hold the copyright have no 
intention of republishing the work themselves.  It's limited audience 
would not make that worthwhile.  The prospect that someone would make 
the work available may leave these owners willing to accept a modest 
payment for all rights.

Ec