Archive:Should authors share copyright with the Citizendium Foundation?

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Revision as of 16:52, 23 March 2007 by imported>Larry Sanger (It's a question of requesting, not requesting.)
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The issue

In addition to making their work available to Citizendium under the chosen license terms, should contributors also share copyright for their original contributions with Citizendium?

It needs to be stressed that this is not a request for copyright transfer. Authors retain copyright themselves but agree to grant it to the Citizendium Foundation as well.

Some relevant points:

  • Contributors can only share copyright for their own original contributions, not material sourced from third parties such as (but not limited to) Wikipedia.
  • Copyright is valuable, and authors are usually given something (not necessarily money) in return for sharing it, or granting lesser rights.
  • Sharing copyright grants a lot of power to the Citizendium Foundation, which can be used in both positive and negative ways.


Affirmative: require copyright sharing

Argument: copyright sharing makes relicensing of content significantly easier

A copyright holder can release their material under any terms they wish. If at some point in the future it becomes desirable to switch licenses or release material under a different license, the Citizendium Foundation will be able to implement this decision instantly for the majority of content.

An example of why this is important can be seen in the Free Software community with the impending release of version 3 of the GNU General Public License. Various projects, in order to be certain of the licensing under which they will operate, have chosen to release their code strictly under GPL version 2, without the optional term that allows licensees to use software under the terms of later versions [1]. Unless there is a single individual or organisation holding copyright for the whole codebase, these projects will have to get the permission of all contributors in order to upgrade, and rewrite parts of the code whose authors did not grant such permission. The Linux kernel is the primary example of a project facing this dilemma as it licenses strictly under GPL v2 while copyright remains in the hands of individual contributors.

We cannot assume that one license will remain perpetually appropriate for Citizendium's purposes, nor can we assume that later upgrades of existing licenses will always meet the project's needs. Therefore, the project needs copyright to be shared to ensure it can fulfil its aims effectively in future.

Reply: The power to relicense can be used against the interests of the community

Reply: The inclusion of material sourced from third parties renders this impractical

Argument: copyright sharing makes it easier to defend license violations

Negative: do not require copyright sharing

Argument: copyright remaining with individual contributors protects the community

Reply: within an appropriate framework of guarantees to accompany copyright sharing, the community's rights can be maintained

Argument: contributors should not be expected to share copyright without getting something in return

Reply: copyright can be shared in return for certain commitments on the part of the Citizendium Foundation

Argument: people are wary of giving copyright to others even for money, requesting it will reduce the number of willing contributors

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