[Foundation-l] Offering Wikibooks content for sale

Tue Jul 4 13:09:19 UTC 2006

Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>I have reviewed this website and it appears to violate the Wikimedia 
>Foundation's trademark rights. I don't think the content is an issue, 
>but the use of the Wikimedia Foundations trademarks and trading on the 
>goodwill of the Foundation seems to impinge on its rights. We are also 
>publishing College Level textbooks in Cherokee from Wikipedia content, 
>however, we are not selling the textbooks, we are paying for the 
>printings ourselves and donating the books to the Cherokee Nation 
>language immersion programs and donating them to our schools of 
>information technology.
>
>Jeff
>
>  
>
I am asking for some reasonable guidelines to be offered to Wikimedia 
users who do things like this so compliance with trademark issues can 
made in terms that can also protect the WMF.  If you are suggesting that 
each Wikimedia user must have a lawyer before they do something bold 
like this, it defeats the whole purpose of putting the content available 
as free (GFDL) content.  Clearly this user and any similar kinds of 
publishers of content like this would like to acknowledge the WMF as the 
source of the information, or at least the people that helped get the 
group together that wrote this content.

I'll say this again, the GFDL does not prohibit making a profit off of 
content like this, and saying that the content is free as in beer is not 
the point of the GFDL.  I'm sorry that this one book is pushing the 
issue, but there seems to be a serious misunderstanding of what the GFDL 
is really all about here.  If you can give away book because you have 
found some sort of philonthropic donor to help out in paying for the 
physical paper, fine.  That is a very noble thing.  But don't muddle up 
the waters here and confuse the issue.  I can also make money off of 
content like this, as can you, Jeff,  and everybody else.  The GFDL 
mainly says that nobody has exclusive publication rights, and why it is 
called copyleft.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning