Talk:Wikimedia Blog/Drafts/Wikipedia Shows the Value of a Vibrant Public Domain

Comments

That is a nice text, but I suggest to add a few illustrations, ideally one each for image, audio, video. Also, CC0 is cited as an example for a free license, but it is actually not a license, and the SOPA/PIPA protest involved other communities, not just Wikipedia, while only the English-language version went black. I would suggest to mention The Public Domain Review. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 01:02, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

@Daniel Mietchen: Thanks for your helpful comments! I will incorporate them in the draft shortly. YWelinder (WMF) (talk) 01:44, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

You can find lists of public domain content which was undeleted from the Commons in Category:Undeleted in 2014. User:Romaine has a much longer, more comprehensive list -- I think taken from the Public Domain Review? -- at User:Romaine/Public Domain Day/2014, including a bunch of early movies. -- Gaurav (talk) 09:53, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

The general idea of this kind of post is great, but pretty please make it less Wikipedia-oncentric, remembering that public domain works is a Wikimedia movement, not Wikipedia, issue. Some mention to Wikisource (also a Wikimedia Foundation project, as Wikipedia is) would also be great. Years ago we've forced to start forks (wikilivres.ca, biblioteca.wikimedia.it [now closed]) specially devoted to host digital curation of works due to the United States non-acceptance of the rule of the shorter term. This is a blocking issue for us: we are still a small project but we are forced to fork ourselves and, in some cases, we are unable to try to atract new users on yearly scanfests (example: Monteiro Lobato still is a best seller writer on Brazil. All of his works will be PD-old here in 2018 but the most majority will still be in copyright in USA). Just my two cents. Lugusto • ※ 03:19, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Completely agree with Lugusto. Wikisource, even more than Wikipedia, love January 1°, as is the day it can join other authors in the library. But of course the US Copyright it's an obstacle. Wikisource literally lives on public domain texts and authors, much more than Wikipedia. --Aubrey (talk) 09:15, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the importance of the Public Domain for Wikisource should be stressed. It may also be worth mentioning that Wikidata is under CC0, specifically to avoid limiting the kinds of reuse that people might come up with. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 09:22, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I think Lugasto's point need to covered better since it is affecting almost all non-US wikisource/commons projects . For photographs, while the binding limit (Berne/TRIPs) is 25 years from the making of the work, India is life of photographer + 60 years after death, and in the US it is life + 70.

For literary works, the binding limit (Berne/ TRIPs) is life + 50 years, whereas in India it is life + 60, whereas in the US it is life + 70 or 120/95 if made on work for hire.

(The binding limit is the WTO mandated term that country members - US and India and 150 others - have to follow. As you can see, typically, most countries exceed the limit for reasons of their own, which they are allowed to do, with the US exceeding in far greater amount than India.)

In short, there can be a difference of between 10 and 40 years between the time a work goes into the public domain in a country with shorter terms than the US (any number of countries in the non-Anglo-European world) and the US. This seriously affects even 'Indian' works (where India is the first country of publication) because of the copyright protection granted to such works in the US even long after they've gone in to the public domain in their source country.

The case to consider here is Golan. A summary of the US Supreme Court decision in this case is - US law trumps international agreements, so the US copyright term holds within US territory, and restores copyright protection to any works that have gone into the public domain by virtue of a shorter copyright term in another country. Because Google/wikimedia servers are based in the US, Golan applies to them--AniVar (talk) 21:29, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikisource is awesome! I would love to discuss it, but I also want to keep this blog post persuasive and focused. Given that this will be a guest post for the EFF blog as well as the Wikimedia blog, we aimed to be persuasive to a broader audience, who is probably more familiar with Wikipedia than our other projects. We focused on Wikipedia because the average internet user is more likely to already be using it. The purpose of this blog is to concisely communicate to the average reader why they need to care about a diminishing public domain based on the sites that they already use. If they take action against legislation that harms the public domain, it will benefit Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikidata, and all our projects that rely on the public domain. But it is difficult to discuss other Wikimedia projects here without making this post less effective. Cheers, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 23:52, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Surely the broader audience is more familiar to Wikipedia, but it is probably due to Wikimedia Foundation itself doing no single action to the second class projects other than merely allowing they to be hosted in the same servers. What about doing a second post, focused on Wikisource? Maybe you will remember us that the Wikimedia blog is open to contributions, but I personally will prefer if the paid staff start sometime to help the non-Wikipedia projects in marketing actions as they currently does with Wikipedia instead of merely promoting the Wikipedia trademark because it's the most profitable trademark. Sorry to disturb this post draft with this complaint, but since 2006 I read "will be helpfull to others projects if we promote Wikipedia" with no single attempt from no one, ever from the Board of Trustees or ever from the paid staff, for doing any really helpful action (in the past this kind of rumbling ended on some paid staffers doing things for sister projects in their volunteer hours, what made me very grateful to the involved persons but it also made ​​me stuned to the Foundation on why they are so lethargic on adding to their daily work ways to promote and develop the non-Wikipedia projects.) Lugusto • ※ 03:12, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate your concern for all our projects (and I very much enjoy contributing to English Wikisource in my volunteer capacity). Writing an additional blog post that focused on Wikisource might be difficult, given our timeline: we are publishing along with a few other organizations during the public domain day during Copyright Week. But please get in touch with me if you have other ideas about how we can support your work. Thanks! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 20:08, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Your rhetoric attempt on mentioning your userpage on en.ws only have made me more very sad than before: 1616 edits made during 2010-2012 and didn't you ever tried to do anything related to Wikisource in none of the six themed days? *epic sigh* The EFF invited the Wikimedia Foundation to talk only about Wikipedia or it was a choice made by the WMF employees? Lugusto • ※ 21:01, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Lugusto, the invitation is not limited to Wikipedia at all -- you are welcome to write on the public domain or other topics. I would be happy to help you coordinate with the other organizations involved in the Copyright Week. I believe a few Wikimedians are writing about Open Access this week, as well. In this post, our goal is to effectively show how the public domain is relevant to average internet users. Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 21:39, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

CCZero work on Wikibooks

Hello: just a quick mention, we've been using Wikibooks as a translation platform for the Peeragogy Handbook (see e.g. b:it:Peeragogia) which is licensed as CCZero. This work has mostly been handled by Fabrizio Terzi, but with input from other volunteers. These efforts have not always been understood as constructive by Wikibooks editors/admins, as you can read about here (in Italian), which I think is a pity! I wonder if there is a way to get some involvement from other people involved with Wikimedia to help lay out some "best practices" for contributors in our position. In particular, probably the most concerning issue with regard to the current context of discussion is the following (auto-translated):

Furthermore, by saving the text on wikibooks , you agree that this text should be released in CC-BY -SA (as written below) , for this reason, the contributions can not be considered in the public domain.

Is there any way to make Wikibooks more friendly to a "living" Public Domain? Thanks, -CC-BY -SA-Arided (talk) 16:43, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Hello @Arided: have you considered raising this point on Wikimedia-l? Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 20:11, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

The paradox is that I request the cancellation of the manual on "wikibooks.it" at the same Admin (or "sheriffs" as I prefer define him) who sent me message about CC-BY -SA and apparently I'm not even free to delete my own contributions. --Fabrizio Terzi (talk) 22:05, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Signpost Op-ed

about Public Domain Day: en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-01-08/Op-ed. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 06:46, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Seems the link is actually en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-01-08/Public Domain Day now. Like this blog post, focused on the U.S. Having a more international viewpoint here would be nice. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 01:17, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the link! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 20:13, 13 January 2014 (UTC)