[Foundation-l] re GFDL publisher credit

Thu Jul 13 10:52:30 UTC 2006

I would agree on the grammatical editing point. For something to be
copyrighted it needs to be in some way original/creative, but
grammatical editing is done by a set of fixed guidelines (MoS,
standard English) and isn't very creative. Therefore, it seems
sensible to not consider such edits copyrightable.

On 13/07/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> > Robert Scott Horning
> > <mailto:foundation-l%40wikimedia.org?Subject=%5BFoundation-l%5D%20GFDL%20publisher%20credit&In-Reply-To=>
> > wrote
> >
> >Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >
> >>If Wikimedia wants to hold a copyright interest inthis material it needs
> >>to be ready to defend those copyrights in a serious way.  Having an
> >>employee make ad-hoc, arbitrary and speculative pronouncements on the
> >>law without a clear policy from the Board to back it up probably puts
> >>the entire project into greater peril than the obvious silliness of the
> >>more ignorant copyright violators.
> >>
> >>Ec
> >>
> >The precedence that I would like to use for why the WMF should hold
> >copyright on Wikimedia project content is the same reason why the Free
> >Software Foundation holds copyright for the GNU projects:  If there is a
> >copyright violation, they can be a legal party to enforcing the
> >copyright and defending the GPL.
> >
> My preference here would be to have each editor appoint WMF as a
> non-exclusive agent for the purpose of taking all steps to defend
> editors' copyrights.  This would prevent some distant future management
> from using its standing as a copyright owner to do things that can only
> be done by any copyright owner.  By disowning any copyrights it may have
> in the material it also helps to maintain its distance from the content
> if it is ever named to defend some suit based on the contents.
>
> >The same thing (I would hope) could apply to the WMF if there is a GFDL
> >violation.  As it stands right now, by disclaiming copyright, all the
> >WMF can do to enforce a flagarant copyright violation of Wikipedia
> >content is sit on the sidelines and act as a cheerleader.  Brad would be
> >legally excluded from even being able to offer advise.  If you are an
> >individual contributor and want to defend the copyright of content that
> >you wrote, you would have to hire your own counsel, as would each
> >seperate contributor who would want to join in the legal defense.
> >
> Being agent should permit WMF to act.  The potential complications if
> the individuals had to do everything themselves boggle the mind.  There
> is also the question that registration of a copyright is a prerequisite
> for prosecuting any infringers.  Whose responsibility is it to ensure
> that all needed registrations happen?
>
> >Frankly, I think this is an ugly situation, although it is "safe" for
> >the WMF and from a legal liability perspective, I do understand why the
> >decision to not claim copyright was done.  The liability instead rests
> >on the individual contributors.  Each time you add some content to
> >Wikimedia projects, particularly if you use the same account for each
> >contribution and are prominent in the "community", you put yourself into
> >harm's way legally speaking.  You can be held responsible for the
> >content that you added, or even failed to edit out when you made a minor
> >change to a page.  In other words, this approach to playing it safe
> >really is just transfering liability from the WMF to individual users.
> >
> >That really should be motivation to being a major contributor to
> >Wikimedia projects, isn't it?
> >
> I have no problem with the idea of WMF being "safe", and that uploaders
> should be legally responsible for the material they add.  I really don't
> agree that a person who has acted as a mere grammatical editor has
> published anything substantive.  Such an editor bases his entire effort
> on what is there in front of him; the research needed to establish the
> legality of the substance is beyond his frame of reference.
>
> Ec
>
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-- 
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)