Is someone from WMF monitoring wikimedia-l and notifying relevant employees when an issue arises under their remit? This issue - big companies using our writing without attribution and like-licensing - has been hanging with no word from the WMF for six months.
Anthony Cole On Thu, Apr 5, 2018 at 6:22 PM, Anthony Cole <ahcole...@gmail.com> wrote: > I see this from Brian Heater at Tech Crunch on 25 March: > > "In a conversation earlier this week, Wikimedia’s Chief Revenue Office, > Lisa Gruwell told TechCrunch that this sort of usage doesn’t constitute any > sort of formal relationship. Most companies more or less hook into an API > to utilize that breadth of knowledge. It’s handy for sure, and *it’s all > well within Wikimedia’s fair use rules*, but as with Maher’s letter, the > CRO expressed some concerns about seemingly one-sided relationships ... *Smart > assistants are certainly playing by the applicable rules when it comes to > leveraging that information base.*"[1] > > That article I link to has both Katherine (WMF ED) and Lisa (Chief Revenue > Officer) asking the companies who use our work for free to "give back." I > want them to give back too, but I don't absolve them of their obligation to > meaningfully attribute my work and share it with the same rights attached. > If it is the opinion of the WMF that these smart assistants are not > breaching my rights, I'd like to see the legal advice that opinion is based > on. > > 1.https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/24/are-corporations-that- > use-wikipedia-giving-back/ > > Anthony Cole > > > On Thu, Apr 5, 2018 at 5:47 PM, WereSpielChequers < > werespielchequ...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Yes of course the WMF can contact those who are detected reusing our >> content without fully complying with licenses and encourage them to >> comply. >> >> If a case were to go to court it would need to have one or more >> contributors who were willing to cooperate with WMF legal in the case. But >> I doubt there would be a shortage of contributors who were keen to do so. >> >> As for why the WMF should do so, here are three reasons: >> >> Each of our wikis is a crowd sourced project. Crowd sourcing requires a >> crowd, if a crowd settles down and stabilises it becomes a community. The >> community is broadly stable, but we need a steady flow of new wikimedians, >> and our only really effective way of recruiting new Wikimedians is for >> them >> to see the edit button on our sites. An increasing shift to our content >> being used without attribution is an existential threat to the project and >> hence to the WMF. >> >> Our communities are made up of volunteers with diverse motivations. For >> some of us the BY-SA part of the licensing is important, personally I feel >> good when i see one of my photos used by someone else but attributed to >> me. >> If the de facto policy of the WMF was to treat volunteer contributions as >> effectively CC0 this would be demotivating for some members of our >> community. I'm also active on another site where every member regularly >> gets stats on their readership, something I very much doubt would happen >> if >> it wasn't an effective mechanism to encourage continued participation. >> >> Every organisation needs money, the WMF gets most of its money by asking >> for it on wikipedia and other sites. Again, encouraging attribution back >> to >> Wikipedia etc tackles the existential threat of other sites treating >> wikipedia et al as CC0. >> >> >> WSC >> >> On 5 April 2018 at 08:04, <wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org> >> wrote: >> >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > Hi, >> > >> > On 04/04/2018 08:36 PM, Anthony Cole wrote: >> > > I'm curious also. I release my articles under "attribution, share >> alike" >> > > and rely on WMF to preserve those rights. >> > >> > Why are you relying on the WMF? Wikipedia contributors (like yourself) >> > are the ones who own copyright to the articles - the WMF doesn't. Unless >> > you've granted/transferred copyright to the WMF (or some other license >> > enforcement agreement), I don't think they can pursue legal action for >> > you or other Wikipedians. (IANAL, etc.) >> > >> > -- Legoktm >> > >> > >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wik >> i/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wik >> i/Wikimedia-l >> New messages to: 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, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
