Talk:Wikinews/Licensure Poll

Previous results

• GNU Free Documentation License (16)
• Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License (3)
• Creative Commons Attribution-Only License (10)
• BSD license (3)
• Public domain (10)
• Dual-licensed (23)
• Contributor licensed (2)

Why is CC-BY-SA 2.5 the only option when this was one of the least preferred options at Wikinews/License straw poll. Angela 22:08, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. I want to vote for CC-BY-2.0 or later. Indeed, I did vote for this, and my vote was removed. This is rather highly disappointing.

James F. (talk) 22:45, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for removal but I support who removed your vote, because the poll hasn't open yet. On my part, I would like to add CC-BY-2.1-JP or later because of two reasons as below:

• CC-BY-2.1 or later and Japanese jurisdictiction is inconsist in details (it fits best to US jurisdiction) and as nationality holder of Japan, I think it is a natural claim to include that modified one as one of possible option.
• CC-BY-2.1-JP is adopted already to Japanese Wikinews edition; in my opinion it is a bad idea to change the current condition without any possiblity to keep it. If the Board think such localization can't be adopted to the project, it would be better for them to state their basic idea clearly. --Aphaia++ 01:30, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Don't worry, my "vote" I was talking about that was removed wasn't for this instantiation of this poll. I'm the one saying that the current one isn't open yet. :-)

James F. (talk) 12:34, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

CC-BY-SA 2.5 Authorship

Creative Commons-Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5, with the attribution to the Wiki

I'm afraid this is impossible. CC-BY-SA 2.5 stipulates : [1], and in order to be an author, you have to be a natural person. According to the Wikipedia article, a Wiki is a piece of software and a piece of software is no natural person. --Theo F 10:12, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

I believe you are mistaken. If you check the You must give the original author credit2.5 legal code you will find they have added the following:

(i) the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied, and/or (ii) if the Original Author and/or Licensor designate another party or parties (e.g. a sponsor institute, publishing entity, journal) for attribution in Licensor's copyright notice, terms of service or by other reasonable means, the name of such party or parties;

in other words, the original author or Licensor may designate Wikinews to be the attribution. - Amgine 20:31, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

So, will the name of the original author be deleted or not? If the original author's name is to be deleted, what I must say is, at least, that the "English (GB)" text is misleading, because deleting the original authors' name is exactly the opposite of You must give the original author credit.--Theo F 23:41, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

NO, the original author's name will never be deleted on Wikinews. However, if another site chooses to reuse Wikinews content they will not be required to give credit to each and every person who contributed to the article; instead they can give credit to Wikinews (who will maintain the article histories, which list the contributors...) The goal is in part to make it easier for people to use Wikinews content on their websites. - Amgine 01:23, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

If the "no deletion of author's names" policy is written nowhere, there is no guarantee that the Wikimedia Foundation will keep enforcing this policy forever.

When I read "attribution to the wiki", I thought it meant "attribution to the Wikimedia Foundation as copyright owner". Wouldn't it be possible to find a wording that makes more clear whether this attribution has or hasn't implications regarding who is the copyright owner? Whether it implies or not that the original writer makes a donation of his copyright to the Foundation? --Theo F 16:10, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

These are some great questions!

I don't know if there is a "no deletion of author's names" policy anywhere; the software in current use cannot allow it, but it is conceivable that at some point the WMF could change software and purge author names from the database.

WNL 0.2 (based on BSD instead of CC-by) uses the term "Credit" instead of attribution, to avoid the question you raise above. Wikinews is actually the Licensor-designate, and the license is between the original author(s) and the content reusers; this should obviously be made more clear in the text of the license. Remember that, at the moment, contributors to Wikinews are giving up copyrights by releasing to the public domain, and we're asking to change that to a rights-reserved state.

- Amgine 17:44, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, the license is GFDL, and the GFDL requires publishers to publish the "secondary sections". So it seems to me that in case of a major software change, the WMF would have to find a way to preserve these "secondary sections", i.e. Wikipedia's author's names. --Theo F 20:12, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

WNL 0.1 - duration of the applicable copyright

for the duration of the applicable copyright WNL_0.1

Don't you need a contract between the original author and the Wikimedia Foundation stipulating exactly that duration ? —Theo F 13:16, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

There is a contract, on the edit page, between the contributors and the projects; it needn't specifically state the duration since "the copyright" also includes its terms. The contract may need to be updated to reflect a licensure change, but that's easily done once a license is selected. - Amgine 20:35, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that no change should be made to the present wording on the edit page, that is : PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION! Please note that all contributions to this site are considered to be released into the public domain. By clicking "Save Page", you explicitly release your contributions into the Public Domain. You are also agreeing that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource. If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then please don't submit it here.? Or will this wording be changed? --Theo F 23:46, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

No, I'm suggesting the change to that text will have to be made in light of the license(s) which are chosen. It is conceivably possible that the Public Domain licensure will be the (lack of) license selected by the poll and/or the Foundation Board, so possibly the text will not require change. - Amgine 01:19, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Who can vote

This is a global poll, open for every Wikinewsie from every language project. You can vote only if you'll link to your user page on the Wikinews project on which you participate, or if such a link is available from your user page here on Meta.

Angela and I both agree all editors should be allowed to vote, as all projects could be impacted. What do you think ?

Anthere

Definitely. Of course, there is the very understandable objection that users from outside the project, who might not be as aware of the needs and interests of the specific community, may make a decision which they do not then have to work under'. This is probably the primary motivation for the language used above. - Amgine 05:32, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I share this idea, but it is not the good idea to shut out potential contributors at the same time; how about to distinguish Wikinewsies and other project participants on the vote, either giving a weight or not. If there is a clear contust among Wikinewsies and other project participants it would be interesting information. Just thought. --Aphaia++ 08:30, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I believe the entire Wikimedia community should be involved in the poll if there must be one. But I agree it would be interesting if there is a marked difference between regular project contributors and votes from those not so involved. - Amgine 08:46, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Correct. This is a valid point, in particular since this is not really a vote, but more a poll, right ? :-) So, either we make two pages (a bit complicated with all the languages), or for each point, we ask people to vote under a heading wikinewsie or other wikimedians. This way, we'll have an easy total... And we will be able to possibly realise a huge gap between opinions of the two groups if there is one. Anthere

Example :

Public Domain

This is not a real discussion, this is an example. Don't vote here.'

Approve

Wikinewsies

1. Jules
2. Jim

Other wikimedians

1. James
2. Bill

Oppose

Wikinewsies

1. Frank

Other wikimedians

1. Liz

Clarificatory note re cc-by vs. BSD equivalents

Although on a superficial level cc-by appears to be equivalent to the BSD licnese, they are not. The entire content of the BSD license fits in half a page and is instantly and completely understandable on reading, whilst the cc-by license has many more provisions and restrictions and is, comparatively, much more complex. Thus I have created the option for BSD licenses. Dysprosia 11:59, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

• Can you summarize the differences? - McCart42 03:40, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
• In looking at the two myself, it seems that cc-by was designed with the legal system in mind, though simplifications exist. That's the whole point of the license: that there exist machine-readable, legalese-readable, and human-readable forms of every type of license. CC-by can be presented as the human-readable summary just as easily as the full legal text. - McCart42 03:43, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

  In my opinion, having spent some time with both licenses, the CC-by licenses were designed to work within the US legal structure, and have related summaries which do not precisely describe the restrictions of the licensure. They are readily linkable via http. The BSD license is a license template, designed to be modified for each application of the license. It is also written in simpler language, has very simple restrictions, and should be easily interpretable in most legal systems (it is designed for an international market usage.) Both licenses assume copyright licensure is assignable; this is not true for all legal systems. But ianal. - Amgine 04:13, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

WNL and Wikipedia

Is content under WNL 1.0 and/or WNL 2.0 able to be used on Wikipedia? - w:User:Bjwebb

The short answer is yes. The long answer is: if the article is included it will need to be linked to (probably using the wikinews template), or the copyright notice and licensure would need to be linked to. The same is true of any of the licenses (0.1 is a specific version of CC-by, and 0.2 is a specific version of BSD) - Amgine 20:07, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Public Domain 2

Why are we not allowed to vote Public Domain in this poll? Almafeta 19:20, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

The main concern is that the public domain does not exist under all jurisdictions beyond works which have fallen out of copyright. Particularly under European copyright law, creators cannot waive their moral rights. Personally, I wouldn't mind taking an activist stance, implying that where it doesn't exist, it should, with an additional CC-BY-like provision for legal security.--Eloquence 22:10, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

The exact meaning of the terms used in the GFDL vary by country, sometimes making marked changes in what the license allows or disallows. This isn't any different. Almafeta 22:19, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

That the GFDL has not been adapted to local jurisdictions is one reason people aren't too happy with it; however, the fact that the legal construction of the public domain does not exist as a publishing option in some countries at all is markedly different from the possibility that individual clauses in a license might be found invalid, I think. All WIPO member countries (practically all nations) recognize licensing, far from all recognize the public domain beyond the expiration of formerly copyrighted works.--Eloquence 23:10, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I imagine "usable for any purpose" etc. would solve this for the non-conforming countries Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 00:09, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

No, surrendering moral rights are not possible in such countries (like, well, the EU, amongst others).

CC-BY is as near as you can get to PD under EU law. Vote for that.

James F. (talk) 23:18, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

No, surrendering moral rights are not possible in such countries (like, well, the EU, amongst others). Huh? What's that supposed to mean? Please explain... Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 23:49, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

There are certain rights related to copyright which are not severable. For example, an author may never give up a work completely in the EU; it cannot become PD, because the author will always be the original author, and this retains certain rights. In the EU you never have to say "rights reserved", because they cannot be given up. This is, in fact, the case with *most* signatories to the Berne conventions. - Amgine 00:00, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for reply... but why can't you just do a "usable for any purpose" license that doesn't require acknowledgement? Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 00:22, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

You cannot surrender the right of acknowledgement. It is known as the "moral right to be identified as the creator of the work", or "moral right" for short. This is why PD is impossible - not requiring acknowledgement is not legally possible.

James F. (talk) 23:44, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Regardless of its applicability in certain jurisdictions, I still would have voted for Public Domain and I still believe it should have been an option. Kaldari 15:49, 20 September 2005 (UTC)