[Foundation-l] [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF"

Thu Aug 21 20:32:08 UTC 2008

Erik Moeller wrote:
> 2008/8/21 Luiz Augusto <lugusto at gmail.com>:
>> So, yes, there is a need to an official statement. Erik and Mike have given
>> theirs *opinions*.
> 
> There are three separate questions here:
> 
> 1) Does hosting these images put the WMF in legal danger? Mike has
> weighed in on this, and said that based on the record so far, there is
> no reason to assume that this is the case. If you want to know if
> something should be deleted to protect WMF from harm, Mike is the
> person to ask. He has been asked and has answered.
> 
> 2) Does WMF's licensing policy require Commons to delete these images
> to remain free-as-in-freedom? Our organizational response has always
> been "no", dating back to Jimmy's first public statements on the
> matter years ago, our response to demands to remove PD-Art images,
> etc. I co-authored both the licensing policy and the Definition of
> Free Cultural Works it refers to; I believe I can safely say that
> neither of these documents was intended to suggest deletion of PD-Art
> images.

I agree that these are the issues, and I still believe the board ought
to explicitly state its opinion on #1 and #2.

Matt Flaschen