[Foundation-l] Only non-commercial re-use od Wiki content?

Thu May 5 14:21:01 UTC 2005

On 5/5/05, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't know what arguments the Wikimedia lawyers have, but as far as
> I can see, the GNU/FDL does not allow publishing something under it
> with restrictions going beyond those of the GNU/FDL, which this would
> be. If someone has arguments why this would be allowed, I would love
> to hear them.
> 
> Andre Engels
> 
> 
> On 5/5/05, Tomasz Sienicki <tsca at edb.dk> wrote:
> >
> >  "After the consultation with Wikimedia lawyers I can inform you that
> >  it is acceptable to import content to our Wiki under the licence
> >  disallowing its commercial re-use," wrote the admin of one of the
> >  Wikimedia projects and entered into a co-operation with a certain
> >  external service (with the aim of importing their content to the Wiki
> >  under such non-commmercial re-use only licence; although the service
> >  agreed to relicence their content as PD, the admin suggested CC BY-NC).
> >
> >  My personal opinion is that this goes against the policy of Wikimedia
> >  and violates the principles crucial to a lot of people who contribute
> >  to the Wikis. I don't mention names here as I believe it is a
> >  misunderstanding and that the person in question acts in good faith.
> >
> >  However, I'd like to hear the Board's official opinion: are there
> >  circumstances under which the above licence is acceptable for
> >  Wikimedia Wikis (texts)? Is it even debatable?
> >
> >  Thank you,
> >  [[m:user:tsca]]

It seems to me that this would immediately be a problem for any
Wikimedia content mirror that includes ads. Couldn't that be construed
as a commercial use? Perhaps Wikimedia would not be legally
responsible, since Wikimedia would not be using it for a commercial
purpose, but do we really want to put all the mirrors into such a
position?

Is Wikimedia syndicating content for a fee? Is that a "commercial purpose"?

All of which says nothing of the more basic problem that m:user:tsca
raises -- GFDL compliance. What happens when someone posts content to
one of the Wikimedia sites and simultaneously claims a more
restrictive license? Does the standard language "by posting you agree
that the content is released under GFDL..." take precedent over the
user's statement that "this content is released under CC BY-NC..."?

I notice that on en:Wikipedia there are templates for such things as 
{MultiLicenseWithCC-ByNCSA}} and {{MultiLicenseWithCC-ByNCND}} that
attempt to do just that.

Of course, IANAL...in case anyone had any doubts ;-)

-- Rich Holton

[[W:en:User:Rholton]]