re: CC-Share Alike information; possible matrix
Randy Fisher
Given that the "thought-leaders" here are grappling with the licenses
- their meanings and permissions - does anyone know of the existence
of a matrix to see all of the possibilities of the different licences.
What I'm getting at here, is that as more people contribute content to
WikiEducator, it seems to me that they will be grappling with the same
issues. A matrix - akin to a comparison chart that you might see for
different versions of a software product, might be a neat way to
convey essential information.
Thoughts, comments?
Randy
Leigh Blackall
The way I look at it there are 3 licenses we might use. Public Domain (PD), Attribution (BY) and Share Alike (SA). At the moment, the only setting is SA. Any Share Alike content is not usable in institutionalised education for reasons I've already outlined, so hopefully PD and BY will be made available as options sooner than later. The sooner the better because once content is made SA it is difficult to change it to PD or BY because of the collaborative nature of the wiki. So during this growth spurt for Wikieducator everything is being made SA :(
What should we (Otago Polytechnic) do? Should we stop loading content into Wikieducator? Because doing so creates SA materials by default, when we want to publish using BY, and we want to be able to reuse derivatives of that content any way we need to...
--
Leigh Blackall
+64(0)21736539
skype - leigh_blackall
http://leighblackall.wikispaces.org/
Erik Moeller
> Any Share Alike content is not usable in institutionalised education for
> reasons I've already outlined,
You've described very specific reasons why your institutions has
chosen to adopt CC-BY and exclude other free content licenses. You've
hardly made an argument why these reasons are applicable to other
contexts, and even your own reasons are open to debate (such as your
expressed desire to mix materials with proprietary content). There
are, quite obviously, plenty of educational institutions that make use
of content under copyleft provisions (including Wikipedia).
Can you cite a single other educational institution that has adopted a
similar policy to Otago Polytechnic?
--
Peace & Love,
Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic
Leigh Blackall
Erik Moeller
there are two major flaws in your argument.
1) Your institution accepts and embraces proprietary content from
businesses and minorities. This content comes with none or few of the
freedoms that characterize free content, but you are willing to argue
that it is necessary to use it. Fair enough. However, you are not
willing to make that same argument for content that is _free_ and only
comes with the provision to keep it so. In other words, you are
inclusionist when it comes to proprietary content, and exclusionist
when it comes to free content.
This is a logical inconsistency. Either you strive for compromises and
working models (in which case you would try to use content from many
different licenses, perhaps expressing a preference for CC-BY), or you
are "ideologically pure" -- in which case it does not make any sense
to embrace proprietary content in the first place. Indeed, while you
have spent much time highlighting the cases where you feel CC-BY-SA
harms your institution, your conclusions are no more than rhetoric:
"To keep things simple, we will not use SA content at all "
"Share Alike (SA) does not work in education "
"Share Alike content is not usable in institutionalised education"
These statements are bizarre, as one can easily demonstrate by
replacing "SA" with "proprietary" -- you are not willing to make these
statements for proprietary content, but for SA content? This, then,
leads me to conclude that your rhetoric is designed for no other
purpose than to change the current policy on WikiEducator. It is not
founded in reason or actual institutional practice beyond your
particular policies (which, I suspect, have been influenced by a
certain Leigh Blackall ;-).
If your model was consistent, you would try to develop institutional
practice around ways in which CC-BY-SA content _can_ be used, rather
than excluding it from use, just like you develop practices to use
proprietary content. And these possible practices are obviously a lot
broader, given the freedoms that CC-BY-SA does provide.
2) Much of your skepticism about CC-BY-SA still seems to me to result
from a misunderstanding of the extent to which copyleft actually
applies. Copyleft extends only to derivative works, not to separate
and independent works. So a lot of mixing & aggregation is not legally
problematic at all (such as embedding your ND photos or recordings
into a Wikieducator article). The first thing you should do with any
material you want to use is consider the _specific_ use scenarios,
then consider which ones of them would be impossible.
Don't get me wrong: I think the arguments for and against SA ought to
be carefully weighed when making a decision about what the licensing
policy on WikiEducator should be. But polemics do not help us in doing
so; in fact, they weaken your case. Let's save the firebrand rhetoric
for the important battles, shall we?
Leigh Blackall
you are inclusionist when it comes to proprietary content, and exclusionist
when it comes to free content.
In SOME instances yes, because we have to be! In most instances there would be no problem, but because we cannot know the future situations we will be in with our training and educational arrangements, we need to be able to quickly respond. Having some content with SA and some with BY will mean we cannot quickly respond. Of course we encourage people to use CC, but not all will be willing, and not all at the same time.
it does not make any sense to embrace proprietary content in the first place.
That's ridiculous! We want to use ANYTHING that is educationally and financially sound. Limiting ourselves to only free content would be.. well, limiting ourselves.
your conclusions are no more than rhetoric:
Sheesh! they are practical problems that I experience every day! Just this morning, in talking with a Ngi Tahu representative, showing her Wikieducator to see if she would be willing to use the platform to develop educational content about Maori culture. I did not show her the CC BY SA as I did not want to discourage her, just the openness of it was a challenge enough! Just the other week I was in discussions with our Product Design lectures who train people in design companies.. and in some instances those designs are rapt up in multiple investors who may not agree to releasing images or even descriptions of particular patterns at that particular time, and no amount of discussion about free culture and emergent economic models will change that investor thinking just yet.
"To keep things simple, we will not use SA content at all "
"Share Alike (SA) does not work in education "
"Share Alike content is not usable in institutionalised education"
These statements are bizarre, as one can easily demonstrate by
replacing "SA" with "proprietary" -- you are not willing to make these
statements for proprietary content, but for SA content?
I am argueing with you because I would have thought Wikieducator wanted maximum use, and maximum benefit. I cannot argue with proprietary people because they are OUR clients, just as perhaps we are YOUR client... (?)
This, then,
leads me to conclude that your rhetoric is designed for no other
purpose than to change the current policy on WikiEducator.
Yes, it is! No bones about it. I want wikieducator to support the use of CC BY so that such content might exist on the platform. I would go further and say that I want Wikieducator to use CC BY as a default on all NEW pages, because CC BY is more usable (for us) and it is easier to change CC BY into SA than it is to change SA to BY.
(which, I suspect, have been influenced by a
certain Leigh Blackall ;-).
And where is Eric in all this?
If your model was consistent, you would try to develop institutional
practice around ways in which CC-BY-SA content _can_ be used, rather
than excluding it from use, just like you develop practices to use
proprietary content.
That may be fare to say. I am thinking hard about that, and as yet the only ways I can think of are too complex. On 1 level I have to teach staff about copyright, and to get them to stop just using Google Image Search in their powerpoints. Then it is to show them how to search CC. Then it is to get them to license to CC! Now I have to ask them to manage what they sample between BY and SA! Impossible.
And these possible practices are obviously a lot
broader, given the freedoms that CC-BY-SA does provide.
2) Much of your skepticism about CC-BY-SA still seems to me to result
from a misunderstanding of the extent to which copyleft actually
applies. Copyleft extends only to derivative works, not to separate
and independent works.
It has always been derivative works that I am talking about. A printed handout with BY photographs, SA text, and C graphs and charts is not usable because of the SA content conflicting with the C content. Given that the C content will not change for REAL reasons, I can only ask the SA content to be BY.
The first thing you should do with any
material you want to use is consider the _specific_ use scenarios,
then consider which ones of them would be impossible.
Thanks for the advice.
Don't get me wrong: I think the arguments for and against SA ought to
be carefully weighed when making a decision about what the licensing
policy on WikiEducator should be. But polemics do not help us in doing
so; in fact, they weaken your case. Let's save the firebrand rhetoric
for the important battles, shall we?
Its frustration Eric. I am caught between 2 hard places. The teachers I hope to get participating on wikieducator and other platforms, and the difficulty in getting you to appreciate why we cannot use SA materials.
I see this getting to the level of flame war between us, and I even see the Wikiversity IRC channel having its go at me too. This has an emotional toll on me, so I'll withdraw my argument at this point and consider the situation I am in, and hope that others will lend support to either side of the debate and see if they can facilitate negotiation.
Regards
Leigh
Peter
I'll give you my support. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest (British
Columbia, CANADA) and we also have a large aboriginal community and
the work I have done with them helps me (maybe) understand your
position on the SA in regards to the Maori. I have found some
Europeans define freedom in a very Euro-centric way, it's usually very
cerebral (as indicated in this dialogue). In my mind, freedom is
largely spiritual and until a person has lived close to first
nations / aboriginal / Maori culture they really don't understand
freedom, or they only understand their definition of freedom. True
freedom isn't mono, can't be defined in words, freedom allows everyone
to express themselves as they see is best for themselves, their
community and culture. Freedom is also about how you release your
freedom into the world. I see imposing SA as euro-centric or maybe
first world imposing on the developing world. Its kind of like "Hey,
come over here and play with this great technology infrastructure we
have built, its called a wiki and you can put all your great IP,
traditional methods, stories, healing, etc... so we can all use them.
Oh, by the way, you can only do it by our rules and that means you
have to Share Alike...". Depending who holds the power, Share-Alike
(particularly when imposed) can be exploitation... I'd vote for CC-BY.
I think there are three points of inquiry that come from what I have
read so far;
1) Everyone should spend some time reflecting upon who does SA
benefit. particularly, reflect upon it as if you were non-european.
The work of Anil K Gupta is required reading in this capacity,
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/sustsci/ists/TWAS_0202/gupta_250101.pdf
2) self-organization also means honoring everyones view, and if people
don't want to SA this should also be honored
3) It would a HUGE loss for WikiEducator if we had policy that kept a
large group of traditional and indigenous knowledge experts from
contributing
I believe what we really need is a number of traditional and
indigenous knowledge experts to share there views. In my experience
they usually don't engage, and for good reasons. What we need is
policy that encourages their engagement, does not create barriers...
My $0.02
Be Well...
Peter
> On 4/27/07, Leigh Blackall <leighblack...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > > No I cannot site another institution here in New Zealand that has
> > drafted a
> > > CC BY policy, or that is sampling CC content to develop new content
> > (most
> > > spend $$$ developing from scratch). But, I am am puzzled as to why you
> > find
> > > it so difficult to see how the 3 scenarios I have outlined would not be
> > > common accross other training institutions. Either you have no
> > experience
> > > working in such a place, or you are asking me to collect statements to
> > > proove what is common practice!
>
> > > On 4/27/07, Erik Moeller <eloque...@gmail.com> wrote:
Peter
If anyone is further interested in this other perspective, I suggest
you visit Anil K Gupta's site at; http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/~anilg/
in particular read his papers on IP from a grassroots perspective. I
see this is what we should be encouraging within WikiEducator.
Policies that empower the traditionally exploited knowledge experts to
engage and contribute to WikiEducator.
Be Well...
Peter
> The work of Anil K Gupta is required reading in this capacity,http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/sustsci/ists/TWAS_0202/gupta_250101.pdf
mackiwg
reading the critical deliberations. This is a feature of free
democratic communities - and is a good example of the freedom of
speech we value so much. I've been a little snowed under this past
week and I am sorry that I could not participate in the discussions
more actively.
What I admire most about the freedom culture is our respect for
freedom of choice. We respect individuals for the choices they make -
and this should include the debates and choices on licenses. A few
observations from the discussions and some of my thoughts.
Leigh wrote: <<there are 3 licenses we might use. Public Domain
(PD), Attribution (BY) and Share Alike (SA)>>
Minor technicality - PD is not a license. It requires a public
declaration - but does not have the status of a license. It is the
"most" free example we have. The problem with PD is that different
national jurisdictions assign different rights and protections under
PD which are not universally applied. Very sad to see how lawyers can
interfere with the intent of the creators.
I agree with Erik that there are advantages and disadvantages to both
CC-BY and copyleft licenses and this is influenced by context. There
is a strong argument to be made for indigenous knowledge especially
from the perspective that freedom is spiritual - not legal. Sadly
Western culture has warped notions of freedom which are governed
through copyright. Copyright is really a product of the industrial
revolution following the invention of the printing press - and we all
know why this happened.
The West has a long history of abusing freedom. Think about slavery
and colonization and abuse of native American people. The point I want
to make here is that freedom is easily lost and given our knowledge of
western culture, I do think that its important to protect and value
freedom. If we don't know what the essential freedoms are - then its
difficult to protect and fight for freedom. That's why projects like
the Free Cultural Works definition are so important.
While I don't always agree with copyleft restrictions - I do respect
them. Copyleft is a very intelligent hack using copyright law in ways
never intended by the law makers. I respect the copyleft because were
it not for this group of pioneers who were prepared to fight for
freedom - I would not have a free software system on my desk. There is
also a counter argument that because of the shortcomings of Western
thinking about freedom - cultural resources which are given freely
from a foundation of spiritual freedom - should always remain free.
As I've stated before, I have a personal preference for CC-BY - the
decision for CC-BY-SA on WikiEducator was taken for very pragmatic
reasons to promote sustainable growth of WikiEducator among an
academic community - a community that is traditionally very
conservative. (I've been in the academy for most of my professional
career.) I am very pleased to see an academic institution like Otago
Poly bold enough to take a leadership position with a CC-BY license.
Connexions is the only other OER project that I know of using a CC-BY
license. There may be others - so If you can find any more reference -
please let me know.
In my view, I don't think that Leigh has made a sufficiently
compelling argument concerning the pragmatic justifications for why CC-
BY cannot live alongside CC-BY-SA, and I do find errors of logic in
some of Leigh's reasoning. It seems to me that we should be looking at
ways in which communities using free content licenses can work
together - rather than spending too much energy debating which license
is best. The problem is that contexts differ and we should respect
each others reasons for choosing a specific license.
Our aim at WikiEducator is to develop as much free content for
Education in the shortest possible time.
1. A copyleft license is an easier sell to a conservative academic
community - you just need to look at the proliferation of NC
restrictions in the OER movement.
2. It is always possible to negotiate with the copyright holder to
release the materials under a less restictive license - for example
asking the CC-BY-SA holder to release the materials under CC-BY.
3. There are practical ways in which we can deal with dual licensing
and the WikiEducator community is keen to explore alternatives.
4. At the time of the license decision, COL was prepared to release
key resources under CC-BY-SA - this is a large volume of high quality
materials - which due to our status as an International Governmental
Agency - would not have been possible under a CC-BY.
I've always acknowledge publicly that WikiEducator stands on the
shoulders of giants. The giants of the free software movement and the
experience from a top 10 website. WikiEducator has been bold in
permitting mp3 and flash on the site - something that would not be
possible in other free content environments. We have a forward looking
disposition. Notwithstanding WikiEducator's exponential growth in its
first year of operation - we must recognise that we do not have enough
experience yet to take rash and hasty decisions. WikiEducator will
deal with these questions in a democratic and transparent way - I
agree - it will take time, but our work is far too important to make
mistakes on licensing.
Leigh - I speak from first hand experience of the NZ tertiary
education system and was one of the pioneers in moving the free
software in education agenda forward through the eCDF. (I won't share
my battle scars on this list <smile>) My sense of the tertiary Ed
sector in NZ is that Otago Poly may be standing alone on the license
issue - noble pioneers, but its going to be hard to achieve
collaboration among different TEIs with a CC-BY license. The
sustainability of free content is dependent on mass collaboration -
that's the secret to our success. So we must focus on strategies that
will achieve the maximum number of users.
That said - I recall that someone once said "If it weren't for
dissenters - we would still be living in caves"
Lets build the future together.
Cheers
gnuchris
making sure that all content is publishable using the Creative
Commons Attribution license
Is this correct?
Regards
Chris Harvey
http://chris.superuser.com.au ~ gnuc...@gmail.com Libre Learning
FSF Associate Member http://www.fsf.org
Wikiversity http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Chrismo
Learnscope http://nswlearnscope.com/wiki/index.php/User:Chris
Mobile: 0423 964 529
Leigh Blackall
Leigh Blackall
Looking at the Flickr CC database as a quick survey of success in commons content:
CC BY = 3,916,903 images
CC BY SA = 2,743,591 images
Which says to me that more publishers on the flickr platform appreciate the freedom of CC BY even when faced with the option for SA. In saying that though, there are 12,455,260 SA NC :( but what I think is relavent to us here is the comparison between BY and SA.
Erik Moeller
first, we're all friends here. :-) And we are all committed to
promoting free culture - this is why a statement like "SA does not
work for educational users" tends to be very divisive and can make
people react strongly to what you say. I also think it's an inaccurate
statement. What I would agree with is:
"Between the choices of copyleft and attribution-only,
attribution-only can have practical advantages for educators in the
short term."
And if you believe that the free culture movement will never displace
certain types of proprietary educational content (whatever they are),
you can leave out the "in the short term". I don't believe that, and
if you want, I can explain why, but this mail is already very long
:-).
> It has always been derivative works that I am talking about. A printed
> handout with BY photographs, SA text, and C graphs and charts is not usable
> because of the SA content conflicting with the C content.
That is not true. Under the CC-BY-SA license, the text and the graphs
are considered separate works that are joined in a collection. The
copyleft does not extend to the graphs, only to modifications made to
the text. I was under the same impression you were, but Lessig
clarified this issue for me. It would be different if you wanted to
use the materials in a movie; the license makes explicit reference to
"time-synchronization" creating a derivative, rather than being a
collection. But CC-BY-SA copyleft is not as strong as you think, which
in turn weakens some of your arguments against it.
Much to your dismay I am sure, I am actually working on a draft for a
stronger copyleft clause that remedies this. ;-)
All that said -
I think there are two possible roads to take for any institution or
community. The "high road" of free culture exclusionism, which is the
road the Wikimedia Foundation has decided to take (and WikiEducator
has been mostly following that trail, with some pragmatic detours),
and the "short path" of pragmatic inclusionism. Let me elaborate on
both:
== The High Road ==
If you are a member of the Free Culture Exclusionist Club, I would
describe you as follows:
* You're unable to avoid proprietary content utterly, but you make a
clear separation between Free Content and non-free content, using the
Definition of Free Cultural Works or equivalent guidelines;
* You treat non-free content as being completely separate from free
content and being governed by different policies, e.g.:
** The Debian project has a "non free" repository for proprietary
applications and treats them as not being part of the official Debian
distribution
** Wikimedia Foundation only allows proprietary content under "fair
use" principles, which require a rationale, limited contextual use,
and immediate replacement wherever possible:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy
** Ubuntu accepts non-free drivers, but only as long as free
replacements are not available, and actively promotes projects like
Nouveau that seek to create free drivers.
* You tend to have a distaste for web 2.0 "mash-up" culture because of
its lack of a commitment to free content & open source. You prefer to
build free alternatives to Google Maps, Flickr, and so forth.
* When negotiating with third parties, you emphasize the importance of
free culture and you use copyleft as a "lever" to convince people who
are afraid of their works being exploited.
* You're in it for the long haul. Your policymaking is dominated by
thinking about sustaining your community for the next few decades or
more.
There is some disagreement within this group between copyleft
advocates and attribution or PD advocates, but the copyleft advocates
currently tend to prevail (see Wikipedia, most open source software,
etc.). A big reason for that is the strong conviction among many that
market-driven decision making is not accessible to philosophical
appeals. Like voluntary emission control won't stop global warming,
many believe that copyleft is a necessary regulatory instrument to
prevent the exploitation of free content resources.
Copyleft does not make it impossible to maximize profit, but it
requires playing by the free culture rules. Therefore it interacts
neatly with a free market economy, as can be seen by the substantial
back-contributions many corporations have made to open source software
(and perhaps also by the lobbying of some corporations against
copyleft as being "viral" and generally evil).
I count myself among the "High Road" group. I am supportive of
copyleft in many situations. I am also a legal minimalist and dislike
the use of law to regulate basic social transactions, among which I
count all cultural sharing. So, to be clear, I would prefer a society
without much of what is today called "intellectual property", and I
often use the public domain exactly to communicate this point as
strongly as possible. One should also clearly not resort to copyleft
if one never realistically intends to enforce it.
That said, I also recognize that IP laws _exist_. Without copyleft,
anyone _can_ create added value and make free content non-free, even
lock it into DRM systems. Exploiters can get people thrown into jail
or fine them for making straight copies of material they based on what
others contributed for free. And this would very much be happening
with open source software already if the GPL was not so prevalent.
Many, myself included, would have no problem if copyleft vanished
alongside copyright and all its associated laws on reverse
engineering, copy prevention mechanisms, and soon. Under today's IP
laws, copyleft seems highly appropriate and useful in many contexts.
== The Short Path ==
There is another group of people, typically made of practitioners who
are somewhat impatient for theoretical arguments. If you were a member
of this group, I would characterize you as follows:
* You want to remix and appropriate as many cultural works as
possible, right now.
* You love Google Maps, Flickr, YouTube, & Co. You embed them into
your content wherever they make sense.
* You try to use free content licensing for your own contributions.
* You want to pick people up where they are and bring them into the
free culture community with baby steps.
* You are frustrated by any legal impediments to mixing, be it
enforcement of copyright or copyleft, incompatible non-commercial
clauses, or anything else.
* Therefore, every restriction that is loosened is a small victory for
you. That goes from (C) to CC-BY-NC as much as for CC-BY-SA to CC-BY,
or even CC-BY to PD.
* Your focus is on your own ends, not on those of others. Therefore,
whether the content you produce ends up being only useful internally,
you are happy as long as it serves its purpose.
* You view many of the purists in the free culture movement as unrealistic.
I understand and sympathize with this view -- to some extent. It
reminds me of the notion of bringing people to open source software by
gradually convincing them to use various open source tools like
Firefox, OpenOffice.org, and so on.
Yet, it also strikes me as short-sighted (hence the name). First of
all, while underground movements and internal institutional uses do
not depend strongly on legal explicitness, as soon as your activities
take on public permanence (as any online community does), the absence
of legal clarity and uniformity creates immense friction -- that's why
we need explicit licensing policies, and I'm sure this is not being
challenged by anyone.
Once you recognize that, however, it also becomes clear that for these
communities to thrive as resources in their own right (independent of
any particular "sub-surface" institutional context), they need to
build and grow an explicit commons of materials. This is exactly what
we are doing, and in a perfect world, Wikimedia Commons will be a free
culture alternative to both YouTube and Flickr.
The short term achievements of convincing people to accept some
limited use of their materials may actually make the long term
achievement of getting commitment and buy-in into free culture harder
to reach. See, for example, the difficulty of getting MIT's OCW to
move away from the NC restriction.
Psychologically, people tend to rationalize decisions they have made.
This is especially true when it concerns something as complex as
licensing policy. This is easily demonstrated when looking at the
"freeware" and "shareware" culture in software. While many freeware
authors would really quite obviously benefit from open sourcing their
code and inviting others to contribute, this very rarely happens.
People tend to find reasons why it's a bad idea. But would they ever
have looked for these reasons if they had been exposed to open source
ideas sooner? I doubt it.
But again, if you want the free content communities to thrive, you
need to convince people to flock to them. And here copyleft becomes
the crucial motivating instrument -- as it has always been with open
source software.
Within a community with free content leanings, allowing some
proprietary content to seep in also disincentivizes and demotivates
people: "Why should I make (resource X) available under a free
license, if (agent Y) can use (non-free license A)?" Following a
strong standard of freedom is an important tool for building
community, conviction, and coherence.
I have observed all this in Wikimedia projects, so here I am speaking
as a different kind of practitioner with my own set of considerable
real world experience. I've already witnessed many more people speak
and write in favor of our free culture principles since we made our
licensing policy more explicit a few weeks ago. I should tell you a
few of these stories sometime.
Moreover, imagine a non-copyleft Wikipedia. Now imagine that Google
puts its best engineers on the task of building "the nice, new, more
reliable Wikipedia 2.0" (and Google has damn good engineers, according
to this GMail addict!). The originally attribution-only content is now
incorporated into a more restrictive framework (say, "free to download
and make exact copies, but edits only on Google"). Many contributors
who do not care about licensing make it a better resource, and Google
rakes in plenty of money with advertising as well.
Perhaps contributors would be wise enough to reject such non-free
nonsense, but the fact that YouTube and MySpace (both participatory,
both proprietary) are getting more traffic than Wikipedia does not
fill me with confidence in that prediction. I agree that people who
_think_ about the issue can be convinced easily, but the majority
never thinks about it at all. That's why defaults matter- and the
default of "attribution-only" can be easily changed by anyone forking
a community, especially someone with the commercial resources to do so
on a vast scale.
Your institution may not require copyleft. But the "institutions" of
Wikipedia, WikiEducator, open source communities, and so on, may
depend on it as a crucial tool for their long-term survival. If so,
whose needs take precedence?
== On indigeneous communities ==
I feel that indigenous communities have been used as pawns in this
discussion, with motives and values attributed to support arguments.
These may indeed be present, but (as Leigh acknowledges) these
communities can be just as right or wrong as any other. I am not the
least reluctant to condemn the practice of female circumcision as the
primitive barbarism that it is without feeling like a colonialist; I
am equally prepared to acknowledge past and present barbarisms in my
own culture. I do not hold a position in support of barbarism as
"equally valid" to one opposed to it. Finally, I believe our only
obligation to our history is to learn from it; guilt is not inherited.
This is drastic rhetoric, but I apply these same principles in any
situation.
Of course, we need to argue with people using methods and terms that
are likely to convince them. But, if we believe that free culture
using explicit licenses is important in the presence of copyright,
then I think we can make that argument convincingly -- by showing the
cultural diversity of this movement, by explaining the ways in which
copyleft _subverts_ copyright law, by citing its adoption especially
in developing countries, and so forth.
In fact, I would argue (without giving this argument too much weight,
to avoid resorting to the same kind of "useful pawn") that the idea
that particular cultural beliefs, right or wrong, are practically
impossible to change is in itself culturally arrogant; surely, any
culture is open to reason. There is a difference between being
respectful and cautions, and compromising core values in service of
questionable cultural relativism.
== On WikiEducator's licensing policy ==
What, then, with all this back and forth, should our default licensing
policy be on WikiEducator?
Being more in the "High Road" camp above, I conclude that CC-BY-SA is
a reasonable default. It compels us to think about long term
strategies to build the commons. The very legal difficulties it
creates to use proprietary content are the mother of a lot of creative
thinking about alternatives to it. It makes our proposition more
attractive to many communities we want to join us, while not limiting
us in the incorporation of existing CC-BY materials. It ensures that
nobody will ever get sued for exercising the four freedoms with
material built on WikiEducator resources.
I believe we should allow CC-BY and PD materials in three ways:
* For media files (user's choice between various free content licenses);
* For imported and donated resources already under CC-BY (underlying
principle: never add additional restrictions upon a given resource);
** CC-BY resources would have a tag that asks contributors to add new
material under CC-BY wherever possible, to avoid increasing the legal
complexity of the resource.
* For selected initiatives that are relatively isolated (e.g. a highly
specific course) and where redistributability is considered to be of
extreme importance. There needs to be a community process for this
decision.
* As an option for users to dual-license their contributions.
In order to increase the number of users who make an informed choice
about this, I would also support making the dual-licensing an option
at sign-up (requires a bit of hacking). DL is not going to give you a
_lot_ of clearly CC-BY content, but since many resources have
essentially one author, it does have an impact.
This policy also avoids an overly complex mixed licensing framework.
There is the informal component (DL) and a formal one (explicit
tagging of imported resources).
I understand that the copyleft default would still be uncomfortable
for many in the "short path" group, but as we move forward on the
"high road," I hope they will join us one by one. These people may not
become contributors initially, but I don't believe that a significant
number of institutions will reject WikiEducator materials because of
copyleft.
If you can manage copyright in an institution, you can also manage
copyleft. If you want free content purity, copyleft is part of that.
So the essential argument against a CC-BY-SA default boils down to
some institutional discomfort while free culture replacements don't
yet exist for many works. That, from the "High Road" perspective, is
not an argument against copyleft -- only one for being ever more
vigorous in our determination to grow and spread free culture.
Last but not least, I believe we must, collectively, reject any strong
division between copyleft and non-copyleft free content. There are
practical reasons to implement specific policies, but both principles
are perfectly in line with the free culture philosophy. I will
strongly argue against rhetoric that suggests that CC-BY-SA is
non-free in, say, the same way NC is, or that it is "not useful".
There is one useful dividing tool: the Definition of Free Cultural
Works. Beyond that, we should be as cooperative as possible.
I hope this long mail was useful; for me, it was an important exercise
to reflect more deeply on the legal and philosophical arguments, and
to become more comfortable with my conclusions.
Leigh Blackall
Pawns - regrettably, yes. But that has unintentionally emerged as I introduced cultural sensitivity as 1 of 3 issues where SA creates difficulties for work within institutions or sectors that are answerable to current markets and diverse community needs. It would seem that for some reason the cultural argument gains more traction, while the commercial partnerships (scenario 1), and legacy licensing in old content (scenario 3) was generally dismissed as irrelevant to the copyleft ideal, and should somehow be brought in line with free culture thinking.
This relatively hardline position (the high road as you put it) will in the short and mid term alienate many in my view... just like the issues of usability and support have plagued the uptake in open source software... but that's another argument again.
I'd like to thank you for your efforts in understanding my perspective in your "low road" description. Ignoring the value statements of the wording, I would agree that I am on that though I do have a long term vision. Aside from that, I think you should describe the other roads that run along side the low road. These are the people I work with every day.. people I have to some how "sell" high road ideals into practical and usable processes to adopt now. These people rely on pirate software and content, enjoy default support for this activity in a market that is in reality quite tolerant of pirate activity and is actually powerless to stop it. They sample content from anywhere and ignore all reference to copyright - perhaps under the deluded self assurance of some popular misconception of "fare use for educational purposes" or as an act of total disrespect or civil disobedience to copyright laws generally. I could go on describing the variations of this road (mac and PC camps being the most common two versions), but what I really want to say is, to be fare to the "low road" I think "high roaders" could do better in apreciating the environment low roaders work in... I know you do see it - you observed the numbers of Mac and WinOS at the think tank for example, so you know most of the reality. I admire the resolution and faith you have in the free culture movement to believe in SA (and similar) being the mechanism that grows free culture. Personally I am not so sure...
Something I should admit now that I realise it, is that I used the SA provision to lever my Institution's policy towards CC BY. My argument was exactly as you outline. That vast quantities of SA material was available, but until we adopted a free culture policy, we could not use them. Ironic that I should now be in a position of arguing the reverse back into the free culture camp.
But, outside policy and legal discourse, I don't believe that SA is the mechanism that is growing free content. SA was the lever that caused my institution to reconsider their IP position, but after that it is visability and attribution that are the real motivations for releasing content under CC BY. I think the Flickr Creative Commons database shows this. It shows that CC BY has more content than CC BY SA. Why is this? If only YouTube made provisions for CC licensing...
As for the compromise you propose.. if at the very least we could maintain OUR contributions into Wikieducator as CC BY then that would satisfy our immediate concerns. It would ensure that the content we contribute remains reusable in the 3 scenarios I have outlined. It is slightly disappointing that we won't be able to expect to find large quantities of CC BY content in Wikieducator, but not to worry - there are plenty of other places to find such content.
What an intense debate this has been! I admire your resolution and belief in the "high road". I hope the high road prevails, but for some of the reasons you outline, I will remain in the "low road". I also hope that copyright implodes and all this will simply no longer matter somehow. Like for the 3rd road I begun to describe.. it already doesn't matter.
So, when can we expect to see the option to label content CC BY in Wikieducator? Does it still require a vote etc? Or is it enough to say the option (not the default) can be enabled?
Regards
Leigh
Leigh Blackall
Erik Moeller
to knowledge, and of course the same problems do come up over and over
again: copyleft or not? NC or not? It makes me want to write a big
licensing manual ...
I called your position "short path" instead of "low road" to avoid any
moral implications. I don't think there are any--it is not morally
problematic to lack the faith some of us have in the long term
viability of the free culture movement. Perhaps we're deluded
optimists. ;-)
I must admit that the massive inroads Wikipedia has made in the last
few years -- in spite of all the things that could be better about it,
including the awkward GNU FDL -- have to me justified much of that
optimism. We've gotten to the point where 36% of adult Internet users
in the US consult Wikipedia regularly. And that is only the average --
among college students, we've become indispensable:
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/212/source/rss/report_display.asp
(Never mind the fact that an increasing number of teachers and profs
massively discourage or prohibit the use of Wikipedia. People like the
resource so much that all attempts to stop its use have failed.)
Yes, that's the US -- but the picture is not that much different in
most places where people do have net access. (A curious exception is
South Korea, which incidentally is also one of the most Microsoft
dependent nations on Earth.) You can see for yourself by looking at
Wikipedia's traffic ranking in different countries:
http://alexa.com/site/ds/top_500
We have not nearly tapped the potential for volunteer contribution,
let alone free content generation through various funding models.
> But, outside policy and legal discourse, I don't believe that SA is the
> mechanism that is growing free content.
It is a mechanism, not _the_ mechanism. I think we've identified well
now its main utility:
* convincing skeptics
* forcing the corporate world to play by our rules.
But I agree that for those who have a positive view of free culture to
begin with, the exact license often doesn't matter--they could even be
convinced to release into the PD relatively easily. There is beauty in
legal simplicity.
> As for the compromise you propose.. if at the very least we could maintain
> OUR contributions into Wikieducator as CC BY then that would satisfy our
> immediate concerns.
No longer a proposal - exists now as Template:Use it! - add
{{Use it!}}
to your user page to dual-license under CC-BY. :-)
mackiwg
I've put up the Work-in-progress template.
We will certainly move the discussion forward about how best to
accommodate CC-BY in the future.
Perhaps the wording could be something along the lines of Wikieducator
endorses the Free Cultural Works definition and currently authors
publish material under CC-BY-SA. This clearly communicates that we are
not ideologically opposed to CC-BY - on the same side of the fence
here ..;-) but also says that the community is dynamic and will be
exploring how best to accommodate CC-BY in the future.
Cheers
W
On Apr 27, 7:02 pm, "Leigh Blackall" <leighblack...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Chris, that is a draft contract. Thanks for alerting me that it is not
> clear. I have put "DRAFT" at the top. Wayne, if you would like to add any
> official line at the top that explains that that contract is in development,
> perhaps that would satisfy Chris and others. I will go through and put SA in
> it for now, but I hope there can be a vote or something to support BY as
> well.
>
> On 4/28/07, gnuchris <gnuch...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> >http://www.wikieducator.org/Metawikieducator/Learning4Content/Contract
>
> > making sure that all content is publishable using the Creative
> > Commons Attribution license
>
> > Is this correct?
>
> > Regards
> > Chris Harvey
> >http://chris.superuser.com.au~ gnuch...@gmail.com Libre Learning
> > FSF Associate Memberhttp://www.fsf.org
> > Wikiversityhttp://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Chrismo
> > Learnscopehttp://nswlearnscope.com/wiki/index.php/User:Chris
mackiwg
Look forward to seeing OP materials using the CC-BY template! Thanks
Erik.
I've added a Work in Progress template to the Learning4Content
learning contract page.
Chat to you soon.
Wayne
Brent
Wouldn't it be more useful and perhaps less tricky to have a template that could be applied to content rather than to user pages that said something like,
This content is being created using CC-BY licencing. All edits will be considered to be under this license.
... or something along those lines.
This could be applied to the front page of a collection of content/resources. Otherwise won't it be almost impossible to sort out what edits have been made by what users who have what template on their user pages, etc....
brent.
Leigh Blackall
Erik Moeller
> This content is being created using CC-BY licencing. All edits will be
> considered to be under this license.
Well, that's a very different proposition. It suggests that anyone can
essentially implement a kind of "policy copyleft" for a resource (a
policy enforcement to keep the resource under CC-BY). This is very
unlike dual-licensing, where anyone can make edits under CC-BY-SA
only, and this then means that the resource becomes copyleft (except
for previous versions that were dual licensed).
I would strongly caution against an arbitrary system of tagging pages
as being "CC-BY only". If you want such tagging, I would recommend
doing it only for a semantically related set of resources (e.g. a
course), and only if the prospective authors of that resource agree
beforehand through some community process that the resource should be
licensed in this way.
Brent
that was my thinking ... that for resources that an institution wanted to put up that might be concerned with the types of scenarios that Leigh is concerned with, they could designate as CC-BY so that up front editors or consumers know what's going on and the entire piece is homogenous - one license.
I don't quite understand how the dual-licensing works in this particular situation. If someone has the template on their user page and another doesn't and we're working on an entire course or tutorial say and people with the template on their page are mixing edits and other content with people who don't... how is that resolvable in this situation? And isn't the point of the copyleft (SA) part that it's somewhat 'viral' (i don't really like the word, but it conveys what i'm talking about)...? That if someone contributes a section that is SA'd... isn't then the work as an aggregate SA'd as well?
This is giving me a headache... but i'm afraid that the solution of dual-licensing based on users is possibly going to give us more of a headache in the long run. I don't know. It all seems a bit 'semantic' at this point, angels on the head of a pin type stuff.
brent.