[Foundation-l] Copies of Wikipedia's articles found on Knol

Fri Aug 1 22:56:59 UTC 2008

On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 3:13 PM, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 1:58 PM, Philippe Beaudette
> <philippebeaudette at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I don't doubt this statement, but do wonder if you have a citation for
> > it...?
>
> But of course.
>
> http://baens-universe.com/articles/salvos6
>
> Not exactly an academic text, but it's by one of the authors (Eric
> Flint) who believes (and has numbers to support) that his income is
> strongly helped by making his writing available freely on the web...
>
>

There is a large difference, at least in my mind, between choosing to give
away text or music to others for them to read/listen to, and giving it away
in such a manner that they repackage and republish it without needing the
original author's consent.

Using "free" content as a marketing tool or as a means to drive other
sources of revenue (e.g. web ads), is certainly a legitimate publishing tool
and one that is commonly used.  However, I think if you ask Jim Baen Books
about whether you can republish their books without paying royalties, then
they will flatly deny such a request.  Copyleft works generally are more
"free" to the public than the "free" books and music people give away.  In
other words the public can not only enjoy them, but also build upon them.

I suspect that most of the authors you cite as benefitting from giving away
free works nonetheless have an expectation that "free" means less than the
concept of radical freedom that started this diversionary thread.

As Wikipedians, I think we are all committed to giving away the content
(i.e. no fees for reading the encyclopedia), but the question arising from
the GFDL vs. CC-BY, etc. is what limitations may be appropriate on the
additional uses that people might have for that content.  Personally, I am
glad that Wikipedia is subject to strong copyleft, which serves to ensure
that we should also benefit from future works that build upon Wikipedia.

-Robert Rohde