Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
This is a good idea in theory, but the tags-per-country could become endless, and I wonder who would be brave enough to upload images to such a project, as the uploader would be responsible for the freeness of the uploaded content and the associated completeness of license tags. Perhaps if you just open it for certain popular types of images that could each be supported with a standard USRAA-exemption-type template (I am thinking of unattributable news photos of famous people of the 20th century, WWII art, or WLM photos of monumental structures in locales without freedom of panorama that are taken by non-residents of those locales). Do we have any stats on what types of images are on the en.wiki under fair use and so forth? 2014-03-03 4:16 GMT+01:00, Avenue avenu...@gmail.com: That would be wonderful. I imagine we would want to tag the images to indicate their copyright status in certain jurisdictions, and set up a mechanism so that projects can define which sorts of images they want to be able to embed in their local pages, and which they do not want (unless a locally EDP-compliant tag is attached). However, that wouldn't improve the URAA situation much. We would still need to delete clear infringements under the URAA, unless they are covered by some project's EDP. I guess it would at least reduce the number of transwiki transfers needed. On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 12:51 AM, Sam Klein sjkl...@hcs.harvard.edu wrote: On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 6:24 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: Which led to the thought that hey, what we really need is a meta-project for hosting images that is *explicitly* intended to serve the other projects. We tried this before, right? But maybe this time we make the meta-project a technical implementation without its own community, where local uploads can be toggled to make files globally available without giving some global intermediary the right to turn that toggle off. I can see every file that is uploaded to any project being available via some global namespace. Commons as we currently imagine it could become the core set of maximally free images: those freely reusable in every jurisdiction. And there would be a separate threshhold for the rest of the images. Covered by at least one project's Exemption Doctrine and tagged as such; freely reusable in almost all of the world and tagged as illegal in one or two countries; c... ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 2 March 2014 08:55, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 2 March 2014 02:01, Mark delir...@hackish.org wrote: I personally would welcome more attention to our actual mission, producing free content, rather than the mission some of our members seem to be engaged in, making the *.wikipedia.org sites look nice in the short term, even if nobody external can reuse the content. You're seriously characterising the present dispute as this? Its a pretty accurate description. What do you think the law says? -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On Sun, 2 Mar 2014, geni wrote: On 2 March 2014 08:55, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 2 March 2014 02:01, Mark delir...@hackish.org wrote: I personally would welcome more attention to our actual mission, producing free content, rather than the mission some of our members seem to be engaged in, making the *.wikipedia.org sites look nice in the short term, even if nobody external can reuse the content. There seems to be a disconnect between what Commons sees as it's mission: To be a repository of Free media; and what other projects see as Commons' mission: To be a repository of media for use on Wikimedia projects. There is a further disconnect in that Commons is taking an increasingly ultra-conservative approach to the definition of Free, whereas most other projects are working to a definition of Free for all practical purposes. It is the latter interpretation that the board, in consultation with the legal team, are recommending as the way forward but is being resisted strongly by many on Commons. These days I wouldn't dare upload an image that was not either my own work or public doman due to life+100 because I couldn't guarantee that it wont be delted. Even with my own work I'm wary because of recent cases of amateur lawyering over the definition of permanent for the purposes of UK freedom of panorama. Chris McKenna cmcke...@sucs.org www.sucs.org/~cmckenna The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes, but with the heart Antoine de Saint Exupery ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 2 March 2014 16:31, Chris McKenna cmcke...@sucs.org wrote: These days I wouldn't dare upload an image that was not either my own work or public doman due to life+100 because I couldn't guarantee that it wont be delted. Even with my own work I'm wary because of recent cases of amateur lawyering over the definition of permanent for the purposes of UK freedom of panorama. Indeed. The extreme paranoia over images people created themselves versus the ridiculously sloppy standards for anything on Flickr (a bot can't meaningfully verify an image) makes Commons merely seem capricious. tl;dr Commons is behaving like damage that needs to be worked around. If people who consider themselves part of the Commons community don't like that being noted, they're the ones who need to consider changing; their intransigence up to now is *why* Commons appears to behave like damage. - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 3/2/14, 5:31 PM, Chris McKenna wrote: There seems to be a disconnect between what Commons sees as it's mission: To be a repository of Free media; and what other projects see as Commons' mission: To be a repository of media for use on Wikimedia projects. But since the other Wikimedia projects should be producing free-content encyclopedias, this is no disconnect: Commons should host Free media, and the other projects should include Free media. Otherwise the other projects' content cannot be reused externally, and they are not free-content encyclopedias. There is a further disconnect in that Commons is taking an increasingly ultra-conservative approach to the definition of Free, whereas most other projects are working to a definition of Free for all practical purposes. It is the latter interpretation that the board, in consultation with the legal team, are recommending as the way forward but is being resisted strongly by many on Commons. This is more the crux of the issue, I think. I'm mostly familiar with en.wiki, but on there the definition swings pretty far to the opposite extreme, with a lot of content that is *not* Free for most practical purposes. For example, a large number of our articles on 20th-century artists cannot be legally republished in their home countries, or even other English-speaking countries, without stripping the images, due to the author having died less than 70 years ago. As a result, the illustrated version of en.wiki is effectively Free only for *American* reusers specifically; someone in the UK or Spain cannot legally republish [[en:Pablo Picasso]]. One possible approach is certainly to choose a representative country per language, and define freeness as only free in that country specifically. So en.wiki's ambition is to be free only for Americans. Perhaps es.wiki's goal will be to be free for Spaniards, and/or Argentinians. de.wiki will be focused on freeness for Germans. etc. I think that would be... suboptimal, though. -Mark ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
One possible approach is certainly to choose a representative country per language, and define freeness as only free in that country specifically. So en.wiki's ambition is to be free only for Americans. Perhaps es.wiki's goal will be to be free for Spaniards, and/or Argentinians. de.wiki will be focused on freeness for Germans. etc. I think that would be... suboptimal, though. I agree that it would be suboptimal - most of the English speaking world would be at a disadvantage then! You would also have to ask difficult questions about Anglo Saxon, or Portuguese, where the language to country link is not as clear. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 2 March 2014 16:56, Mark delir...@hackish.org wrote: On 3/2/14, 5:31 PM, Chris McKenna wrote: There is a further disconnect in that Commons is taking an increasingly ultra-conservative approach to the definition of Free, whereas most other projects are working to a definition of Free for all practical purposes. It is the latter interpretation that the board, in consultation with the legal team, are recommending as the way forward but is being resisted strongly by many on Commons. This is more the crux of the issue, I think. I'm mostly familiar with en.wiki, but on there the definition swings pretty far to the opposite extreme, with a lot of content that is *not* Free for most practical purposes. This discussion is not even about en:wp or its content; you are derailing the discussion. - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On Sun, 2 Mar 2014, Mark wrote: On 3/2/14, 5:31 PM, Chris McKenna wrote: There seems to be a disconnect between what Commons sees as it's mission: To be a repository of Free media; and what other projects see as Commons' mission: To be a repository of media for use on Wikimedia projects. But since the other Wikimedia projects should be producing free-content encyclopedias, this is no disconnect: Commons should host Free media, and the other projects should include Free media. Otherwise the other projects' content cannot be reused externally, and they are not free-content encyclopedias. You've missed the point. Commons is not at present a reliable source of media, Free or otherwise, because media gets deleted because once someone alleges that it is not free it gets deleted if the original uploader cannot prove it is free, regardless of the merits of the allegation. The Foundation has said do not delete images that *might* be unfree under URAA unless there is a takedown notice yet the images continue to be deleted. There is a further disconnect in that Commons is taking an increasingly ultra-conservative approach to the definition of Free, whereas most other projects are working to a definition of Free for all practical purposes. It is the latter interpretation that the board, in consultation with the legal team, are recommending as the way forward but is being resisted strongly by many on Commons. This is more the crux of the issue, I think. I'm mostly familiar with en.wiki, but on there the definition swings pretty far to the opposite extreme, with a lot of content that is *not* Free for most practical purposes. For example, a large number of our articles on 20th-century artists cannot be legally republished in their home countries, or even other English-speaking countries, without stripping the images, due to the author having died less than 70 years ago. As a result, the illustrated version of en.wiki is effectively Free only for *American* reusers specifically; someone in the UK or Spain cannot legally republish [[en:Pablo Picasso]]. This is entirely irrelevant to the attitude at Commons. English Wikipedia is Free according to the definition it uses, which is essentally Free for practical purposes as an Encyclopaedia and that is applied reliably. In contrast, Commons is arbitrarily and inconsistently Free and appears to be prioritising point making over being a practical media repository. You are free to disagree about en.wp's choices, but this does not excuse the attitude of Commons to the Wikimedia community. Chris McKenna cmcke...@sucs.org www.sucs.org/~cmckenna The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes, but with the heart Antoine de Saint Exupery ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 2 March 2014 20:50, Chris McKenna cmcke...@sucs.org wrote: On Sun, 2 Mar 2014, Mark wrote: On 3/2/14, 5:31 PM, Chris McKenna wrote: There seems to be a disconnect between what Commons sees as it's mission: To be a repository of Free media; and what other projects see as Commons' mission: To be a repository of media for use on Wikimedia projects. But since the other Wikimedia projects should be producing free-content encyclopedias, this is no disconnect: Commons should host Free media, and the other projects should include Free media. Otherwise the other projects' content cannot be reused externally, and they are not free-content encyclopedias. You've missed the point. Commons is not at present a reliable source of media, Free or otherwise, because media gets deleted because once someone alleges that it is not free it gets deleted if the original uploader cannot prove it is free, regardless of the merits of the allegation. As someone with OTRS access I beg to differ The Foundation has said do not delete images that *might* be unfree under URAA unless there is a takedown notice yet the images continue to be deleted. or without such actual knowledge of infringement The reality is that the Resolution:Licensing_policy: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy Is still the standard we work to. The relevant section is All projects are expected to host only content which is under a Free Content License, or which is otherwise free as recognized by the 'Definition of Free Cultural Works' as referenced above. Individual projects can file an Exemption Doctrine Policy to get around that however commons is explicitly banned from doing so. This is entirely irrelevant to the attitude at Commons. English Wikipedia is Free according to the definition it uses, which is essentally Free for practical purposes as an Encyclopaedia and that is applied reliably. Nope. Probably the closest to an actual description of the English wikipedia position would be free in the US unless certain record and film companies decide to become as lawsuit happy as they are commonly portrayed and even that isn't done consistently. In contrast, Commons is arbitrarily and inconsistently Free and appears to be prioritising point making over being a practical media repository. You are free to disagree about en.wp's choices, but this does not excuse the attitude of Commons to the Wikimedia community. You are aware that most commons bods are active on other projects? -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 2 March 2014 13:51, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: Its a pretty accurate description. What do you think the law says? It's possible, if you want people and organisations to stop their moves against you, that snideness and word play may not serve to convince them that you have any evidenced interest in working with others, and don't have to be treated as simply intransigent. - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On Sun, Mar 2, 2014 at 8:50 PM, Chris McKenna cmcke...@sucs.org wrote: You've missed the point. Commons is not at present a reliable source of media, Free or otherwise, because media gets deleted because once someone alleges that it is not free it gets deleted if the original uploader cannot prove it is free, regardless of the merits of the allegation. That's an odd view of the merits. The content should not really have been uploaded to begin with if the uploader couldn't show it was free. Commons has help desks to assist people who are unsure. The Foundation has said do not delete images that *might* be unfree under URAA unless there is a takedown notice yet the images continue to be deleted. I would take that complaint more seriously if people had identified deletions where the URAA status was not entirely clear, and complained about them. Instead the current proposal is that *all* URAA-related deletions would be overturned. The Foundation has not changed its position (expressed two years ago) that images which are clearly unfree under URAA should be deleted. This is entirely irrelevant to the attitude at Commons. English Wikipedia is Free according to the definition it uses, which is essentally Free for practical purposes as an Encyclopaedia and that is applied reliably. In contrast, Commons is arbitrarily and inconsistently Free and appears to be prioritising point making over being a practical media repository. You are free to disagree about en.wp's choices, but this does not excuse the attitude of Commons to the Wikimedia community. Modify that to Free for practical purposes *in the USA* as an Encyclopaedia, and you're getting closer. Commons should have a broader goal than that, though. Getting back to URAA-affected images, [[en:Template:Not-PD-US-URAA]] places images in [[en:Category:Works copyrighted in the United States]], which says we are currently trying to figure out what to do with files like this one. It's more than two years since Golan vs Holder, which seems a long time to be figuring this out. That's fair enough in a way, since image hosting probably shouldn't be high on enwiki's list of priorities. But contrast that with Commons, where the essential decisions regarding URAA were made (based partly on WMF Legal input) within 6 months or so, and substantial progress has been made towards implementing them, despite the much larger scale of the problem there (several thousand images, compared to 127 in [[en:Category:Works copyrighted in the United States]]). ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 2 March 2014 16:35, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: Indeed. The extreme paranoia over images people created themselves versus the ridiculously sloppy standards for anything on Flickr (a bot can't meaningfully verify an image) makes Commons merely seem capricious. No the same standards are applied to flickr images. The bot is verifying against later changes of license not that the license claim is correct. The reality is though that flickr images tend to be either fine of straightforward copyvios so arguments over less known areas of copyright law tend not to be an issue. Its mostly a matter of spotting the stream has an unlikely range of images or cameras. tl;dr Commons is behaving like damage that needs to be worked around. If people who consider themselves part of the Commons community don't like that being noted, they're the ones who need to consider changing; their intransigence up to now is *why* Commons appears to behave like damage. Because you and various other members of the project seem to view insisting on free content as damaging. Fundamentally there isn't much that can be done about. -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 02/03/2014 01:26, geni wrote: On 1 March 2014 23:59, ??? wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: On 01/03/2014 23:06, geni wrote: On 1 March 2014 19:58, ??? wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: You have no guarantee that the account that the images were scraped from held the copyright in the first place, and as such you are unable to pass that guarantee on to any one else. Want means its an objective not something we have actually archived yet. Then it is an objective that cannot be fulfilled unless you get written clarification from all the accounts that are being scraped on flickr and elsewhere, that the images contained within the accounts were taken by the account holder. There are various approaches. Personally I'd like to see the software modified so images can be tagged by level of certainty with regards to their copyright status. Many flickr accounts collect images found on the web. Many of them upload those images under a CC license, because images on the web are all public domain. Those are usually fairly obvious and can be avoided for the most part. Really? You may be able to detect those that have an AP or Getty watermark and similar, but with other flickr streams it is not so clear. A few years ago one poster to flickr was uploading images taken a pre-Arab Spring protests in Egypt. All of them were uploaded as CC-BY-SA, but they weren't all from the same photographer. As I recall people were sending him the photos and he was uploading them to flickr, and then these were being reused on various anti-Mubarek blogs. Whether or not everyone that was emailing photos was aware of the CC licenses that were being added is unknown. A casual observer would not of been able to detect that the stream was from dozens of photographers. Names were kept out of the uploads and the EXIF data was removed for obvious reasons. Again on flickr people may set there default upload settings to CC-BY-SA and by and large only upload images that they have taken. However, that doesn't mean that everything they upload is something they have taken. Other sites offer CC-BY-SA images, and there is no guarantee that the uploader to those sites is the copyright holder either. On Commons there are a number of people trawling through websites offering CC-BY-SA images, and uploading them to Commons. There is absolutely no guarantee that they are properly licensed. Even if they are, there is no traceability to show that in five years time the anon uploader to the original site (if the original site still exists) is the same person that is claiming copyright on the images. The bottom line here is that IF your business relies on CC-BY-SA images, then you are unwise to take at face value any CC-BY-SA license, particularly commercial use, unless YOU have traceability. That today Commons can provide any guarantee that the images it holds are properly licensed is a fantasy. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 2 March 2014 22:20, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 2 March 2014 13:51, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: Its a pretty accurate description. What do you think the law says? It's possible, if you want people and organisations to stop their moves against you, that snideness and word play may not serve to convince them that you have any evidenced interest in working with others, and don't have to be treated as simply intransigent. Given that attempt to explain how the law actually works have been ignored there isn't much we can do to avoid being perceived as intransigent. If people won't listen there isn't much we can do other than add them to the list of people who unaccountably have better things do on weekends than read through copyright statutes and caselaw. It may be worth noting at this point that the Israelis and the Argentinians face two different problems. The Argentinian one probably can't be solve short of the US government adopting the rule of the shorter term (assuming stability in Argentinian copyright law in the meantime). The Israeli problem on the other hand could probably be solved by getting their government to issue a statement on the status of their copyrights overseas (the Brits did back in 2005). I'm not up enough on the Israeli Freedom of Information Law to know if that would be the appropriate mechanism ( and in any case I'm not an Israeli citizen or resident so I can't file one) but even if it isn't I expect the chapter would get a response to a query. But that is up to them. I can make an Israeli do this. -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 3/2/14, 6:17 PM, David Gerard wrote: On 2 March 2014 16:56, Mark delir...@hackish.org wrote: On 3/2/14, 5:31 PM, Chris McKenna wrote: There is a further disconnect in that Commons is taking an increasingly ultra-conservative approach to the definition of Free, whereas most other projects are working to a definition of Free for all practical purposes. It is the latter interpretation that the board, in consultation with the legal team, are recommending as the way forward but is being resisted strongly by many on Commons. This is more the crux of the issue, I think. I'm mostly familiar with en.wiki, but on there the definition swings pretty far to the opposite extreme, with a lot of content that is *not* Free for most practical purposes. This discussion is not even about en:wp or its content; you are derailing the discussion. You argued that there is a big divergence between the goals of Commons and those of the other projects, and that Commons is the outlier diverging from the Movement's goals. I am arguing that isn't the case, and Commons is in fact closer to the movement's goals than the projects that have been complaining. As someone interested in reusing Wikipedia content outside of the main countries of origin (en.wiki content in Denmark, in my case), I actually find Commons's copyright policy one of the few useful things helping out reusers, which is one reason I'm defending it. Here is one heuristic for freeing-up a Wikipedia article: for each image, look to see if it's locally hosted or hosted on Commons. Keep it if it's hosted on Commons, remove it if it's locally hosted. This will remove *most*, though not all, of the unfree or free-only-in-one-country images, meaning I can them (probably) legally publish the resulting article in Denmark. Of course, a detailed case-by-case copyright investigation is still the gold standard, but we're not very useful to reusers if everyone has to engage in one, and we can't present people a body of proably free for you to reuse content. That's what I think Commons is doing fairly well, or at least better than the other projects. To the extent that other projects are, as you advocating, routing around Commons, they are routing around free content and reusers' ability to actually reuse our content— in multiple countries, in multiple settings, by nonprofits and for-profits, in part or in whole. -Mark ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 6:24 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: Which led to the thought that hey, what we really need is a meta-project for hosting images that is *explicitly* intended to serve the other projects. We tried this before, right? But maybe this time we make the meta-project a technical implementation without its own community, where local uploads can be toggled to make files globally available without giving some global intermediary the right to turn that toggle off. I can see every file that is uploaded to any project being available via some global namespace. Commons as we currently imagine it could become the core set of maximally free images: those freely reusable in every jurisdiction. And there would be a separate threshhold for the rest of the images. Covered by at least one project's Exemption Doctrine and tagged as such; freely reusable in almost all of the world and tagged as illegal in one or two countries; c... ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
That would be wonderful. I imagine we would want to tag the images to indicate their copyright status in certain jurisdictions, and set up a mechanism so that projects can define which sorts of images they want to be able to embed in their local pages, and which they do not want (unless a locally EDP-compliant tag is attached). However, that wouldn't improve the URAA situation much. We would still need to delete clear infringements under the URAA, unless they are covered by some project's EDP. I guess it would at least reduce the number of transwiki transfers needed. On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 12:51 AM, Sam Klein sjkl...@hcs.harvard.edu wrote: On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 6:24 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: Which led to the thought that hey, what we really need is a meta-project for hosting images that is *explicitly* intended to serve the other projects. We tried this before, right? But maybe this time we make the meta-project a technical implementation without its own community, where local uploads can be toggled to make files globally available without giving some global intermediary the right to turn that toggle off. I can see every file that is uploaded to any project being available via some global namespace. Commons as we currently imagine it could become the core set of maximally free images: those freely reusable in every jurisdiction. And there would be a separate threshhold for the rest of the images. Covered by at least one project's Exemption Doctrine and tagged as such; freely reusable in almost all of the world and tagged as illegal in one or two countries; c... ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 1 March 2014 19:58, ??? wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: On 28/02/2014 01:23, geni wrote: We could do that but it pretty much removes commons only advantage over say imgur or flickr. We want the images on commons to be free. Not simply stuff no one has got around to complaining about yet, You are deluding yourself and reusers if you believe and promote that nonsense. On Commons you have people uploading works from flickr, and other sites, where the account that is being scraped is anonymous. In many cases after the images have been uploaded the original account is deleted. You have no guarantee that the account that the images were scraped from held the copyright in the first place, and as such you are unable to pass that guarantee on to any one else. Want means its an objective not something we have actually archived yet. -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 01/03/2014 23:06, geni wrote: On 1 March 2014 19:58, ??? wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: You have no guarantee that the account that the images were scraped from held the copyright in the first place, and as such you are unable to pass that guarantee on to any one else. Want means its an objective not something we have actually archived yet. Then it is an objective that cannot be fulfilled unless you get written clarification from all the accounts that are being scraped on flickr and elsewhere, that the images contained within the accounts were taken by the account holder. Many flickr accounts collect images found on the web. Many of them upload those images under a CC license, because images on the web are all public domain. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 1 March 2014 23:59, ??? wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: On 01/03/2014 23:06, geni wrote: On 1 March 2014 19:58, ??? wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: You have no guarantee that the account that the images were scraped from held the copyright in the first place, and as such you are unable to pass that guarantee on to any one else. Want means its an objective not something we have actually archived yet. Then it is an objective that cannot be fulfilled unless you get written clarification from all the accounts that are being scraped on flickr and elsewhere, that the images contained within the accounts were taken by the account holder. There are various approaches. Personally I'd like to see the software modified so images can be tagged by level of certainty with regards to their copyright status. Many flickr accounts collect images found on the web. Many of them upload those images under a CC license, because images on the web are all public domain. Those are usually fairly obvious and can be avoided for the most part. -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 2/28/14, 1:43 PM, David Gerard wrote: On 28 February 2014 08:27, Delirium delir...@hackish.org wrote: But the other Wikimedia projects are *also* supposed to share that goal: of producing a Free-as-in-freedom encyclopedia whose contents can be safely reused and adapted by a wide range of other people and organizations, who should be able to assume that it is legal to do so without exhaustive case-by-case investigation. The movement's main job is not merely hosting the websites *.wikipedia.org, putting up whatever we find useful to put up, and taking down things when we get complaints or lawsuits. You're justifying the observed, serious problems with current actions by saying but they should work in theory! I'm just disagreeing with the view that Common and the rest of the projects have some big gap in goals, and especially with the view that the rest of the projects are achieving the Movement's goals successfully in this respect, while Commons is not. Given the large gray area that is copyright, it's inevitable that there will be a mess. But I think to the extent projects are incorrectly approaching the issue, the blame is quite distributed. For example, I would judge the English Wikipedia's current image policy a failure in practice: a failure in the too-permissive direction. The English encyclopedia, as it currently stands, is not really free content unless you strip the images. It cannot in practice be safely reused by organizations who are not Wikimedia, without extensive case-by-case analysis. This is because there is a large reliance on a bunch of narrow and brittle exceptions to copyright law, with images that are not either solidly public domain, or solidly CC-licensed. Examples: 1) works that are in copyright in almost the entire world, including their country of origin, *but* are out of copyright in the USA (only); 2) weak fair-use rationales that would be hard for a reuser to win a case on (especially a reuser that isn't a nonprofit educational charity like Wikimedia is); and 3) images with quite weak sourcing. I personally would welcome more attention to our actual mission, producing free content, rather than the mission some of our members seem to be engaged in, making the *.wikipedia.org sites look nice in the short term, even if nobody external can reuse the content. This doesn't mean Commons isn't erring too far in the other direction, of course. But I think it's a more complex issue than Commons diverging from the correct path. -Mark ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 2/28/14, 9:18 AM, David Gerard wrote: On 28 February 2014 01:23, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 27 February 2014 22:03, Galileo Vidoni gali...@gmail.com wrote: And we remain convinced that there is space for a way more prudent implementation of URAA that prevents deleting educational resources until there is complete copyright information and no legal alternative, which to our understanding (and to our interpretation of WMF's communications) can mean waiting for DMCA takedown notices. We could do that but it pretty much removes commons only advantage over say imgur or flickr. We want the images on commons to be free. Not simply stuff no one has got around to complaining about yet, This supports what I noted: Commons increasingly just can't be relied upon as a repository for the other Wikimedia projects. This implies no bad faith or bad actions on the part of the Commons community. (But that that's a distinct thing from the Wikimedia community is a lot of the problem.) Nor that what Commons *is* is inherently problematic; but what it is is less and less useful inside Wikimedia. But the other Wikimedia projects are *also* supposed to share that goal: of producing a Free-as-in-freedom encyclopedia whose contents can be safely reused and adapted by a wide range of other people and organizations, who should be able to assume that it is legal to do so without exhaustive case-by-case investigation. The movement's main job is not merely hosting the websites *.wikipedia.org, putting up whatever we find useful to put up, and taking down things when we get complaints or lawsuits. What level of scrutiny we want to apply is indeed a judgment call, so and I don't know if the current URAA policy falls on the right or wrong side of that (I haven't investigated it). But I don't think the fundamental goals are different. And if they are, it's the other projects that are in the wrong: *not* having a free, reusable body of content as the project goal is fundamentally incompatible with the Wikimedia Movement. We want the content on all Wikimedia wikis to be free-as-in-freedom and reusable by anyone. That's the point. -Mark ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
2014-02-28 7:00 GMT+05:30 geni geni...@gmail.com: On 27 February 2014 22:56, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: This is the essential point of the problem: * Commons has a long-running attitude of absolute copyright paranoia, so that no reuser will ever be put in legal danger. This is extremely unlikely to change, and particularly not with what the Commons community perceive as outside intruders (rather than e.g. its main users) coming in to question it. Not true. If anything commons copyright policy tends towards the legally (...) Yes, that is sadly true. David hit the nail on the head very well. aggressive. A lot of that involves finding and exploiting loopholes. However the other side of that involves obeying copyright law to the letter. Its far easier to defend the edge cases if we have a solid record of respecting the law as it stands at this present time. Now if someone could get the US to follow the law of the shorter term that would simplify things somewhat. Yes, that's won't come any time soon. -- geni Regards, Yann A Commons admin. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
This would be the more concise open letter that I think all projects could support, no? Sent from my iPad On Feb 28, 2014, at 10:08 AM, Yann Forget yan...@gmail.com wrote: 2014-02-28 7:00 GMT+05:30 geni geni...@gmail.com: Now if someone could get the US to follow the law of the shorter term that would simplify things somewhat. Yes, that's won't come any time soon. -- geni Regards, Yann A Commons admin. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 7:02 AM, Jane Darnell jane...@gmail.com wrote: This would be the more concise open letter that I think all projects could support, no? Yes, this would be helpful. It's in everyone's interest for the US to adopt the rule of the shorter term. And the current Register of Copyrights is smart and interested in constructive discussion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Pallante On Feb 28, 2014, at 10:08 AM, Yann Forget yan...@gmail.com wrote: Now if someone could get the US to follow the law of the shorter term that would simplify things somewhat. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 28 February 2014 08:27, Delirium delir...@hackish.org wrote: But the other Wikimedia projects are *also* supposed to share that goal: of producing a Free-as-in-freedom encyclopedia whose contents can be safely reused and adapted by a wide range of other people and organizations, who should be able to assume that it is legal to do so without exhaustive case-by-case investigation. The movement's main job is not merely hosting the websites *.wikipedia.org, putting up whatever we find useful to put up, and taking down things when we get complaints or lawsuits. You're justifying the observed, serious problems with current actions by saying but they should work in theory! The trouble is that (a) there's no natural limit of caution - we could question every single file on Commons and require OTRS for every single one *years* after the fact (as is happening with many of the files the current issue is about) - but we don't. Why is that? (b) the Commons community has already gone way past the limits *the WMF has explicitly said are fully OK*. I can't speak to the claims of selective zealotry in caution, but the effects are clear enough. - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 28 February 2014 08:18, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: This supports what I noted: Commons increasingly just can't be relied upon as a repository for the other Wikimedia projects. Given the general failure of such projects to file exemption doctrine policies they wouldn't be able to host the content either per the Resolution:Licensing policy they wouldn't be able to host the images either. -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 28 February 2014 16:05, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 28 February 2014 08:18, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: This supports what I noted: Commons increasingly just can't be relied upon as a repository for the other Wikimedia projects. Given the general failure of such projects to file exemption doctrine policies they wouldn't be able to host the content either per the Resolution:Licensing policy they wouldn't be able to host the images either. This would be why we're having a serious discussion here. Well done. - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 28 February 2014 12:43, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: You're justifying the observed, serious problems with current actions by saying but they should work in theory! No. Its more that they are features rather than problems. There have always been images hosted locally that commons won't touch. The English Wikipedia fair use stuff is probably the best known but the polish wikinews also has an Exemption Doctrine Policy. Other projects are free to file them per Resolution:Licensing policy. Of course it could be interesting to watch them try and argue that such images are PD under US law but that at the end of the day between them and the foundation. Commons provides the base-load of free images. If projects want to use unfree images then they need to do that locally taking their language norms into account. The trouble is that (a) there's no natural limit of caution - we could question every single file on Commons and require OTRS for every single one *years* after the fact (as is happening with many of the files the current issue is about) - but we don't. Why is that? Because we have no particular reason to believe they violate US copyright law. (b) the Commons community has already gone way past the limits *the WMF has explicitly said are fully OK*. The WMF have said no such thing. -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
Still no explanation (nor appologies) on usage of inappropriate wording towards volunteer by the board of Wikimedia Argentina. It quite amazing when almost all projects have policies on civility ... 2014-02-27 0:24 GMT+01:00 geni geni...@gmail.com: On 26 February 2014 22:39, Galileo Vidoni gali...@gmail.com wrote: [Sorry for this excurse] Dear Geni, the 20 years indeed come from article 24 of law 11 723. The 25 years come from the Berne Convention. But that merely established a minimum under international law. Unless you have some case law that says otherwise I'd suggest that article 6 applies to unpublished photographs which results in an effective term of life+10 for unpublished photographs (although life+30 could be gained through careful timing of publication). In any case, Argentine copyright law is already known and documented in Commons, and we have been using a specific template (PD-AR-Photo) for years. See the last section of the template talk page which covers some of the issues the template has with US law. I'm afraid years of use doesn't mean that it has been reviewed by common's more serious copyright nerds. -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- Pierre-Selim ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
And what about the [apparently lack of] self-criticism of some Commons sysops/admins? I think being able to accept criticism and moreover being able to say hey, somebody is questioning what we do. Why would that be? instead of plainly rejecting any questioning, is one essential part of civility.. M El 27/02/2014 09:19 p.m., Pierre-Selim escribió: Still no explanation (nor appologies) on usage of inappropriate wording towards volunteer by the board of Wikimedia Argentina. It quite amazing when almost all projects have policies on civility ... 2014-02-27 0:24 GMT+01:00 geni geni...@gmail.com: On 26 February 2014 22:39, Galileo Vidoni gali...@gmail.com wrote: [Sorry for this excurse] Dear Geni, the 20 years indeed come from article 24 of law 11 723. The 25 years come from the Berne Convention. But that merely established a minimum under international law. Unless you have some case law that says otherwise I'd suggest that article 6 applies to unpublished photographs which results in an effective term of life+10 for unpublished photographs (although life+30 could be gained through careful timing of publication). In any case, Argentine copyright law is already known and documented in Commons, and we have been using a specific template (PD-AR-Photo) for years. See the last section of the template talk page which covers some of the issues the template has with US law. I'm afraid years of use doesn't mean that it has been reviewed by common's more serious copyright nerds. -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- *Jülüjain wane mmakat* ein kapülain tü alijunakalirua jee wayuukanairua junain ekerolaa alümüin supüshuwayale etijaanaka. Ayatashi waya junain. Carlos Manuel Colina Vicepresidente A.C. Wikimedia Venezuela RIF J-40129321-2 +972-52-4869915 www.wikimedia.org.ve ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
Not to mention demanding excuses and delivering such high expressions of politesse as this one: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AWikimedia_Argentina%2FOpen_letter_regarding_URAAdiff=7665183oldid=7665158 I'll repeat it here for the record: I'm sorry and I offer our apologies if any Commons admin felt offended or personally touched by our words. We keep them, though, because the situation that motivated us to make our voice heard in that terms has not changed. It is always hard to find the exact tone in a multilingual community as ours, even including cultural disagreements about the nature of open letters as Cristian has noted. Our language was intended to be hard, not rude, and I apologize if anyone considers we crossed that line. We remain convinced that something is fundamentally wrong when its practical result is self-inflicting the highest possible loss of contents. And we remain convinced that there is space for a way more prudent implementation of URAA that prevents deleting educational resources until there is complete copyright information and no legal alternative, which to our understanding (and to our interpretation of WMF's communications) can mean waiting for DMCA takedown notices. Best, Galileo On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 6:47 PM, Carlos M. Colina ma...@wikimedia.org.vewrote: And what about the [apparently lack of] self-criticism of some Commons sysops/admins? I think being able to accept criticism and moreover being able to say hey, somebody is questioning what we do. Why would that be? instead of plainly rejecting any questioning, is one essential part of civility.. M El 27/02/2014 09:19 p.m., Pierre-Selim escribió: Still no explanation (nor appologies) on usage of inappropriate wording towards volunteer by the board of Wikimedia Argentina. It quite amazing when almost all projects have policies on civility ... 2014-02-27 0:24 GMT+01:00 geni geni...@gmail.com: On 26 February 2014 22:39, Galileo Vidoni gali...@gmail.com wrote: [Sorry for this excurse] Dear Geni, the 20 years indeed come from article 24 of law 11 723. The 25 years come from the Berne Convention. But that merely established a minimum under international law. Unless you have some case law that says otherwise I'd suggest that article 6 applies to unpublished photographs which results in an effective term of life+10 for unpublished photographs (although life+30 could be gained through careful timing of publication). In any case, Argentine copyright law is already known and documented in Commons, and we have been using a specific template (PD-AR-Photo) for years. See the last section of the template talk page which covers some of the issues the template has with US law. I'm afraid years of use doesn't mean that it has been reviewed by common's more serious copyright nerds. -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- *Jülüjain wane mmakat* ein kapülain tü alijunakalirua jee wayuukanairua junain ekerolaa alümüin supüshuwayale etijaanaka. Ayatashi waya junain. Carlos Manuel Colina Vicepresidente A.C. Wikimedia Venezuela RIF J-40129321-2 +972-52-4869915 www.wikimedia.org.ve ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 27 February 2014 22:03, Galileo Vidoni gali...@gmail.com wrote: We remain convinced that something is fundamentally wrong when its practical result is self-inflicting the highest possible loss of contents. And we remain convinced that there is space for a way more prudent implementation of URAA that prevents deleting educational resources until there is complete copyright information and no legal alternative, which to our understanding (and to our interpretation of WMF's communications) can mean waiting for DMCA takedown notices. This is the essential point of the problem: * Commons has a long-running attitude of absolute copyright paranoia, so that no reuser will ever be put in legal danger. This is extremely unlikely to change, and particularly not with what the Commons community perceive as outside intruders (rather than e.g. its main users) coming in to question it. * Commons policy is, here, being directly damaging to the projects who are its main users. At this point, Commons policy constitutes damage and needs to be worked around. Note that this implies no bad faith or bad actions on the part of Commons admins; just that Commons' aims are increasingly incompatible with the rest of the movement. - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 5:56 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 27 February 2014 22:03, Galileo Vidoni gali...@gmail.com wrote: We remain convinced that something is fundamentally wrong when its practical result is self-inflicting the highest possible loss of contents. And we remain convinced that there is space for a way more prudent implementation of URAA that prevents deleting educational resources until there is complete copyright information and no legal alternative, which to our understanding (and to our interpretation of WMF's communications) can mean waiting for DMCA takedown notices. This is the essential point of the problem: * Commons has a long-running attitude of absolute copyright paranoia, so that no reuser will ever be put in legal danger. This is extremely unlikely to change, and particularly not with what the Commons community perceive as outside intruders (rather than e.g. its main users) coming in to question it. * Commons policy is, here, being directly damaging to the projects who are its main users. At this point, Commons policy constitutes damage and needs to be worked around. Note that this implies no bad faith or bad actions on the part of Commons admins; just that Commons' aims are increasingly incompatible with the rest of the movement. - d. I was going to just repeat the point that any community that wants a more liberal interpretation of the rules can host its own images, but then I thought through the implications of that... Sure, the individual projects would have more liberty than they do relying on Commons, but if each community hives off its uploading then the meta community no longer benefits from that work. Which led to the thought that hey, what we really need is a meta-project for hosting images that is *explicitly* intended to serve the other projects. We tried this before, right? But maybe this time we make the meta-project a technical implementation without its own community, where local uploads can be toggled to make files globally available without giving some global intermediary the right to turn that toggle off. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 24 February 2014 20:51, Galileo Vidoni gali...@gmail.com wrote: However, over the last months certain Wikimedia Commons administrators have conducted massive deletions of these contents, in many cases involving entire categories. The burden of proof has been inverted: instead of having to justify the deletion of a certain file, things go that volunteers have to devout their time trying to justify the validity of their efforts. This has caused great damage, not only by way of our readers loosing access to free educational contents, but also de-motivating many editors and volunteers by making them feel that their efforts are ultimately vain and that our goal of free knowledge for everyone is being replaced by a certain legal fetishism whose reason gets lost in processes and misses the outcome. This strongly suggests that URAA is a good reason to deprecate Commons, and have language wikis self-host images that fail the more unduly stringent requirements Commons is manifesting these days. - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
Hi, ... Many years ago, the editors of the Spanish Wikipedia decided to close the possibility to directly host images, choosing instead to use Wikimedia Commons. If we miss the opportunity to find a workaround that saves hundreds of thousands of images from an unrequested deletion that hurts our very mission, Wikipedia editors could ultimately evaluate reversing that decision, reopening project-hosted uploads just to avoid the restrictive and exclusionary URAA interpretation that Wikimedia Commons has been sustaining against the Foundation's political and legal advice. That would be far from being an optimal outcome. The french version of Wikipedia http://fr.wikipedia.org is already doing that by keeping pictures of recent buildings that got erased from Commons. So I think you should do exactly the same and keep all those documents in your local Wikipedia until they become Free enough for Commons. If you can read french, the decision is here : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Prise_de_d%C3%A9cision/Remise_en_cause_de_l%27exception_au_droit_d%27auteur_sur_les_b%C3%A2timents_r%C3%A9cents Best regards. -- Lionel Allorge April : http://www.april.org Lune Rouge : http://www.lunerouge.org Wikimedia France : http://wikimedia.fr ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
Hi, 2014-02-26 16:01 GMT+05:30 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: On 24 February 2014 20:51, Galileo Vidoni gali...@gmail.com wrote: However, over the last months certain Wikimedia Commons administrators have conducted massive deletions of these contents, in many cases involving entire categories. The burden of proof has been inverted: instead of having to justify the deletion of a certain file, things go that volunteers have to devout their time trying to justify the validity of their efforts. This has caused great damage, not only by way of our readers loosing access to free educational contents, but also de-motivating many editors and volunteers by making them feel that their efforts are ultimately vain and that our goal of free knowledge for everyone is being replaced by a certain legal fetishism whose reason gets lost in processes and misses the outcome. This strongly suggests that URAA is a good reason to deprecate Commons, and have language wikis self-host images that fail the more unduly stringent requirements Commons is manifesting these days. If only some Commons admins were not pursuing a political campaign to delete all these under false pretences, everything would be much better. Regards, Yann ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
Thanks for your replies. We'll surely take the French precedent into account if Commons' admins fail to reconsider the current policies and we propose hosting images on the Spanish Wikipedia. By the way, I forgot to mention that we've also published this letter on Meta and that there's also an ongoing discussion there: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Argentina/Open_letter_regarding_URAA Best, Galileo On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 2:42 PM, Yann Forget yan...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, 2014-02-26 16:01 GMT+05:30 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: On 24 February 2014 20:51, Galileo Vidoni gali...@gmail.com wrote: However, over the last months certain Wikimedia Commons administrators have conducted massive deletions of these contents, in many cases involving entire categories. The burden of proof has been inverted: instead of having to justify the deletion of a certain file, things go that volunteers have to devout their time trying to justify the validity of their efforts. This has caused great damage, not only by way of our readers loosing access to free educational contents, but also de-motivating many editors and volunteers by making them feel that their efforts are ultimately vain and that our goal of free knowledge for everyone is being replaced by a certain legal fetishism whose reason gets lost in processes and misses the outcome. This strongly suggests that URAA is a good reason to deprecate Commons, and have language wikis self-host images that fail the more unduly stringent requirements Commons is manifesting these days. If only some Commons admins were not pursuing a political campaign to delete all these under false pretences, everything would be much better. Regards, Yann ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 24 February 2014 20:51, Galileo Vidoni gali...@gmail.com wrote: Dear movement fellows, Wikimedia Argentina would like to express its support for the letter by Wikimedia Israel regarding URAA-motivated massive content deletions in Wikimedia Commons. Yet, we would like to express our view not only to the Foundation BoT but also to all Wikimedia editors, and especially to those working in Wikimedia Commons. Volunteers from Argentina have been among the most affected by the policy adopted by Wikimedia Commons administrators regarding images that could fall under URAA copyright provisions. Argentine copyright law provides that images enter the public domain only 25 years after their production and 20 after their first documented publication. You really should cite the relevant law if you want commons to pay attention to you. Okey I get that the 20 years come from Article 34 but I'm not sure where the 25 years comes from. This relatively generous criterion has enabled unaffiliated volunteers and we as Wikimedia Argentina to enrich Commons with hundreds of thousands of historical images that are absolutely free under Argentine law: images of the political and every day life of the country, of its culture, of its popular idols, of its joyful and dark days, of its customs and architecture. Absolutely free? Not so. Due to Article 31 pretty much any photo that shows a person who hasn't been dead for 20 years isn't free (this is a side effect of Argentina going for a rather extreme form of personality rights) I'd also advise you against hosting locally. Under Article 72 bis (d) copyright violations can carry a prison sentence. -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
[Sorry for this excurse] Dear Geni, the 20 years indeed come from article 24 of law 11 723. The 25 years come from the Berne Convention. In any case, Argentine copyright law is already known and documented in Commons, and we have been using a specific template (PD-AR-Photo) for years. Regarding article 31, personality rights do not apply to public activities; what the law is protecting are private portraits in particular: Publication of portraits is free when related with scientific, didactical and in general cultural goals, or with facts or events in the public interest or that have developed in public. Best, Galileo On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 6:51 PM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 24 February 2014 20:51, Galileo Vidoni gali...@gmail.com wrote: Dear movement fellows, Wikimedia Argentina would like to express its support for the letter by Wikimedia Israel regarding URAA-motivated massive content deletions in Wikimedia Commons. Yet, we would like to express our view not only to the Foundation BoT but also to all Wikimedia editors, and especially to those working in Wikimedia Commons. Volunteers from Argentina have been among the most affected by the policy adopted by Wikimedia Commons administrators regarding images that could fall under URAA copyright provisions. Argentine copyright law provides that images enter the public domain only 25 years after their production and 20 after their first documented publication. You really should cite the relevant law if you want commons to pay attention to you. Okey I get that the 20 years come from Article 34 but I'm not sure where the 25 years comes from. This relatively generous criterion has enabled unaffiliated volunteers and we as Wikimedia Argentina to enrich Commons with hundreds of thousands of historical images that are absolutely free under Argentine law: images of the political and every day life of the country, of its culture, of its popular idols, of its joyful and dark days, of its customs and architecture. Absolutely free? Not so. Due to Article 31 pretty much any photo that shows a person who hasn't been dead for 20 years isn't free (this is a side effect of Argentina going for a rather extreme form of personality rights) I'd also advise you against hosting locally. Under Article 72 bis (d) copyright violations can carry a prison sentence. -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina regarding URAA
On 26 February 2014 22:39, Galileo Vidoni gali...@gmail.com wrote: [Sorry for this excurse] Dear Geni, the 20 years indeed come from article 24 of law 11 723. The 25 years come from the Berne Convention. But that merely established a minimum under international law. Unless you have some case law that says otherwise I'd suggest that article 6 applies to unpublished photographs which results in an effective term of life+10 for unpublished photographs (although life+30 could be gained through careful timing of publication). In any case, Argentine copyright law is already known and documented in Commons, and we have been using a specific template (PD-AR-Photo) for years. See the last section of the template talk page which covers some of the issues the template has with US law. I'm afraid years of use doesn't mean that it has been reviewed by common's more serious copyright nerds. -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
