[Wikipedia-l] [Fwd: Open-Site.org]

Fri Jan 31 20:17:07 UTC 2003

vladd wrote:

>>>When it comes to copyright, the real problem is not going to be with 
>>>
>people who put copyrighted material into an on-line encyclopedia. 
> That's easily removed as soon as it's recognized.  It's going to be 
>with people who try to claim personal copyrights on openly licensed or 
>even public domain material.  <<
>
>Public domain material is by definition uncopyrighted. People can not, by 
>definition, claim personal copyrights on public domain materials. At best, 
>they can argue whether a certain material is in public domain or not.
>
>Personal copyrights on openly licensed material is not something new. If I 
>create a material and publish it under the GNU FDL license, I still have 
>copyright on it and I'm free to distribute it under any other license that I 
>choose to. People will be able to use my material according to the GNU FDL, 
>or select the alternative licenses that I offer to them.
>
The problem is not that simple.  Under US law as it now stands copyright 
lasts for 95 years, and that's plenty of time for lots of mischief.  A 
lot of material gets published now with a copyright notice.  Such an 
item may be a very long unattributed extract from a public domain source 
(perhaps fromWikipedia or Open-site or an obscure old book) preceded by 
one paragraph of original introductory material.  The copyright notice 
doesn't make any distinction between what is original and copied 
material.  Ten years later, when somebody uses a significant portion of 
that article (not from the introduction) the person who first copied it 
claims copyright violation.  The difficulty is not with the theoretical 
rights that anybody has; from our vantage point these are quite clear. 
 It is with proof, and who is in a position to defend material that is 
in the public domain or under GNU-FDL license from wrongful claims of 
copyright.  Stretch that process out over a 95 year period, and the 
prospects are boggling!

Eclecticology