DIY wiki copyright

[John Stumbles]

I'm concerned that if we wait until the wiki contains many substantial

> articles and then try to impose a copyright license it may cause > friction with existing contributors if they disagree with the specific > license chosen. OTOH I don't think we should rush into choosing a > specific license, so may I suggest that we (==Grunff as sysadmin :-)) > configure our mediawiki to put in a placeholder copyright notice, under > the edit box on edit pages. > > Maybe we could say something like "Contents of this Wiki will be subject > to a license yet to be determined but possibly like GFDL or Creative > Commons. If you are unhappy with the license eventually chosen you will > be able to edit your content out of the current article but it may not > be practicable to remove it from the system (i.e. it may still be > accessible under the page 'history'). Please consider this when deciding > whether to contribute content."

Colin Bignell (nightjar) replied thus:

It would not be possible to apply a retrospective copyright licence to > any contributor. That person retains the copyright to the work and would > have to agree the licence, or the work would have to be removed > completely. If that would not be possible, articles should not be > accepted until a licence is in place and an agreement to that licence is > a condition of work being accepted.

What do people think? IANAL but I'd have thought a statement such as I suggested would constitute a copyright licence in itself and that people contributing materials would by doing so accept their contributions being used under a subsequently-decided licence (with the option of using the wiki to edit out their work from the 'current edition' as it were, if they wanted).

That would still leave the question of existing contributions i.e. before we apply any licence. Some contributors are known and their agreement could be sought. All are, presumably, readers of uk.d-i-y and likely to follow discussions there: would discussion in the group be 'reasonable' notice that a licence is being applied and warning that if they're unhappy they should get the system administrator to pull their stuff?

And what is the legal position of stuff contributed anonymously i.e. when the wiki 'user' is recorded as an IP address rather than a registered user name? Presumably in practical terms it would be hard enough for any individual to lay claim to content attributed to an address that (for the value of text already in the wiki) it could be discounted?

[nightjar]

You are asking people to agree to a licence without knowing what the terms of that licence are. That would be an unfair clause, which would make the whole thing invalid.

....

For anonymous written work, copyright applies for 70 years from the date of publication. If the author is identified during that time, it applies for 70 years from the date of publication or from the death of the author, whichever is the later. The problems that could arise from this is another good reason to have the licence in place and for it to be a condition that anyone submitting work accepts that licence, before any contributions are accepted.

Colin Bignell

[Alex Heney]

No chance.

Anybody contributing to any such thing retains the copyright in their work unless they assign that copyright away.

You can't retrospectively impose terms forcing them to assign the copyright, which any such "licensing" scheme will be doing.

You really MUST get the copyright terms in place before accepting any contributions, or you have no control over those contributions accepted prior to you getting the terms in place.

You would have to remove all copies of their work if they demanded it.

I would not think it hard at all, if the person uses a service which gives them a fixed IP address and that was the one recorded.

[<me]

.........................................No pal. It actually won "The Most Boring Post of 2006 Award". Didn't you get your trophy?

And that is why you have just earned "The First Fuckwit of 2007 Award".