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

Sat Aug 23 20:45:59 UTC 2008

--- On Sat, 8/23/08, Matthew Flaschen <matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu> wrote:

> From: Matthew Flaschen <matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF"
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Saturday, August 23, 2008, 3:00 PM
> Domas Mituzas wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> >> *I officially pronounce that as of June 30, 2004,
> content which we are
> >> using _solely_ by virtue of non-free licenses
> should be removed from
> >> Wikipedia.*[1]
> > 
> > Well, back in 2005 Frankfurt Wikimania's
> "free culture manifesto",  
> > Jimmy supported use of PD-art :)
> > ""I wouldn't encourage you to break the
> law, but if you accidentally  
> > take a photo of these works it would be great to put
> it on Wikipedia  
> > for the public domain."
> > 
> > Please allow me to state my individual opinion, as
> otherwise we'd have  
> > to hold an emergency meeting to provide a board-level
> answer to these  
> > questions.
> 
> I certainly am not asking for an emergency meeting, only
> that it be
> addressed at the next regular meeting.
> 
> 

And afterwards are you and your opponents promising to never asking for a review when the make-up of the board changes hoping to get the answer you like better?  Seriously the problem in your community cannot be solved at a board meeting.  Appeals to authority aren't the answer here.  Commons needs to work out it out.  This is not going to be the last questionable area of copyright law and it is no different than the others. 

Birgitte SB