Is Wikipedia becoming less free?
The most recent featured article at the Creative Commons blog is the announcement that Wikipedia is converting to CC BY-SA for most, if not all, its content. While the Creative Commons people is obviously elated at this development, heaping tremendous praise towards Wikipedia (and Wikia!) co-founder Jimmy Wales, some commenters of the post aren't particularly convinced.
Here's the basic line of thinking:
Wikipedia is supposed to be a free encyclopedia. And by free, I mean this literally. Free. As in public domain free. Not you-have-to-credit-me free, not you-can-freely-remix-but-don't-use-it-for-commercial-purposes free, I mean literally FREE.
The Grounds of Protest
To my knowledge, and the 26th August 2009 ver. of Wikipedia agrees with me, Creative Commons has retired any licenses without the "Attribution" element. The implication is that if you want to use Wikipedia-based resources, you HAVE to attribute the article. In a real, literally free resource (like what Wikipedia is supposed to be), this is not an issue.
Free Culture activists have raised a red-flag over this, as you can see in the comments of the original post. I myself remains to be convinced by either side...
But how about you?
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5 Comments
1 Gendel wrote:
Another shout game for the otherwise silent revolution. One part of me says Wikipedia deserves it (too many people now are taking Wikipedia for granted, especially those shitty blocked writers/content scrapers/copy-paste posters who never bother to give credit to any resources), the other says "Damn!" I guess my stance is with the latter. I am that shitty blocked writers/content scrapers/copy-paste posters who never bother to give credit to any resources, after all.
2 Ababil Ashari wrote:
Thanks for visiting, Gendel.
Yeah, Wikipedia pretty much started with a pretty flawed assumption that everybody is altruistic. And, maybe the assumption that there are no "shitty blocked writers/content scrapers/copy-paste posters" EVAR in the world. Lolz....
And now they're introducing measures that go against their initial descriptor, that is of "The Free Encyclopedia".
Mind you, all those measures make a better encyclopedia, at least a more credible one.
But is it still free?
3 Gendel wrote:
I don't know. For me part (oh me, ignorant boy), as long as I can scrape their content for FREE, i don't have much to complain.
What really intrigued me was their real motive behind the conversion. Is it possible that wikipedia finally shifts toward the monetization of its product, with this conversion as the start? What's next? Wiki ad service?
Maybe we should print a t-shirt: "Which part of 'FREE ENCYCLOPEDIA' you don't understand?!"
Nice topic Ababil.
4 Ababil Ashari wrote:
"As long as I can scrape their content for FREE, i don't have much to complain."
Which is the opinion of most people, I bet, but that pressure of attribution is going to be what the legal problem is.
Attribute to who? To the specific editor of the content you nicked? To the "Wikipedia Hivemind"? To Jimmy Wales?
The Attribution element of Creative Commons Licenses does hold up in court, in Europe or the U.S.A. at least. Clarification, that make sense to the common man, must be said to clear things up.
But as far as gross monetation of Wikipedia, that's possible.
If you go to a Wikia!, like the Mass Effect Wikia or the Star Wars Wikia!, you are bound to see ads. Which makes the Creative Commons License necessary, because Wikia! HAS a unique commodity that has the power to get ad-clicks, the unique writings of Wikia! contributors.
If Wikia! was truly public domain, there's nothing stopping me from creating another mirror of the Wikia!, charge for my own ads and run it.
I definitely can see a "wikipedia ad service" and "wikipedia ad buys" in the future.
Legally, there's nothing wrong.
5 Gendel wrote:
"Wikipedia is supposed to be a free encyclopedia. And by free, I mean this literally. Free. As in public domain free. Not you-have-to-credit-me free, not you-can-freely-remix-but-don't-use-it-for-commercial-purposes free, I mean literally FREE."
Nevertheless, I found these in Wikipedia :
"However, there is no such thing as the public domain on the Internet."
Mental note: Never deals in absolute.
Up to this minute, having Wiki and all its sub-families change their status from GFDL to CC By SA, do not affect me (that means most people too) to the point where we all should worry over the consequences of the way we use/abuse their contents. That's what matters.
I'm not even aware of the conversion in the first place. Not until you post it up, that is.
However, what I do care is "what are they up to with this shift of license?" "What's the virtue?"
Because I don't believe, they would make that change for the sake of change alone.
If it is to reduce plagiarism I surely agree (sooner or later I should really write something original).
But if that change is made so that someone can sue another simply because s/he don't put the attribution note/link in their borrowed contents (like the dispute between the poor mama and one major label in your other post), that's a different story.
To hell with that.