Bogleheads talk:Copyrights

Is the ban on incorporating text from this project into "copyrighted" works intended to be an additional license restriction, or is it just a misinterpretation of the FDL? If the former, it's non-Free, and jeopardizes everyone's ability to legally post here existing material licensed under the FDL and similar licenses. --LH2004 12:30, 30 May 2008 (EDT)
 * I was hoping you'd help us hash out this type of issue. The passage in question is my doing. I based my understanding upon Wikipedia's "copyleft" discussion, as well as this statement in Section 2 of GFDL:


 * You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License.


 * Since traditional authors don't typically use GFDL, it would seem that copying from the wiki isn't allowed. (Well, technically the quoted passage is silent on the issue of copying the document without including GFDL, but I think the intent is pretty clear.)


 * Another angle on this issue: How do you think GFDL is different from simply releasing the wiki's contents into the public domain? Ken Schwartz 13:04, 30 May 2008 (EDT)


 * There are 2 separate issues: what the copyright owner can do, and what everybody else can do.


 * I own the copyright on everything that I write, other than as part of my job or where I otherwise agree (and nothing in the fine print here seems to indicate otherwise). I don't need anyone's permission to do whatever I want with that.


 * By the terms of use here, everything I post here is licensed to all takers under the GFDL. It says that other people can use what I write, as long as they comply with the FDL's terms (chiefly, that if they create "derivative works" -- modifications of what I write -- they have to also license those works under the FDL to anyone who wants to use them).


 * Nobody needs a license for some uses, such as minor quotation that constitutes fair use.


 * So, something that I write here can be used:


 * 1. By me, however I want;


 * 2. By anyone else, as long as any modifications are released under the FDL; and


 * 3. By anyone at all for permitted uses such as minor quotations.


 * I'm free to license the same content to more than one person, as long as the licenses aren't exclusive. So it's perfectly OK for me to take what I write here, put it in a commercial book, and not let them make copies of that book; my publisher might not like that, since people could come here to get the content here for free, but it still might be useful to me if the book included much more content, or longer versions of content or something.  But nobody other than me could do that, unless they got my permission.


 * It's like if I put up a sign on land that I own saying "Everyone is free to enter, on the condition you don't smoke here": that would give permission to everyone who wants to to come in but not smoke; but I could still smoke there, since I don't need permission; and I could still give separate permission to other people to come in and smoke, if I wanted to.


 * "Public domain" properly means content that isn't owned by anybody; anybody can do whatever they want with it, including incorporating it into commercial works and not making copies available to anyone. Closely related is a completely nonrestrictive license, where someone technically owns the copyright but allows anyone to use the content any way that they want.  If the content here were in the public domain (in either sense), anybody could make copies, add some content of their own, put it into a book, and not make that book freely available.  The FDL is designed to prevent that.  That prevention isn't hugely important to me, but it might be to others. --LH2004 15:45, 30 May 2008 (EDT)


 * Based on your explanation, I've removed the last paragraph of the main article. I do have one more concern, however. A wiki is unique in that any member can edit any article. It's rare to have a meaningful page with a single author. There may be one individual who writes most of it, but other folks usually come along with additions, deletions, wording changes, spelling corrections, formatting improvements, etc. (It is indeed possible to determine who did what via the page history.) How does murky authorship affect copyright issues? Ken Schwartz 16:08, 30 May 2008 (EDT)


 * Section 4B of the GFDL states that attribution should include at least five of the principal authors, or all of them if less than five, on the title page. For a non-print work, it is fairly common to see Section 4J implemented by simply providing a direct link back to the original article with the link making clear that's where the material came from and also clearly mentioning the GFDL. (IANAL, BTW) CyberBob 18:11, 30 May 2008 (EDT)

Bob, two issues:
 * 1) Do you concur with LH2004's opinion that if a wiki article is written by a single author, that author doesn't violate GFDL by republishing it in a traditionally copyrighted book?
 * 2) Let me give a concrete example regarding murky authorship. Let's say Larry Swedroe writes a wiki article, and then you, I, and LH2004 edit it. We add a few sentences, change some phrasing, and make additional minor improvements. All of our actions are traceable through page history. Larry then publishes the revised article in his next book. Did Larry violate GFDL? Would it matter if he mentioned us in the Acknowledgments? Ken Schwartz 18:46, 30 May 2008 (EDT)


 * The GFDL allows commercial sales of a book, as printing a book isn't cost-free, so you wouldn't have to change your book license from the GFDL. But if you did...hmmm, that question honestly threw me for a loop, as the whole purpose of GFDL-type licenses is to make info/data free and available. If a second person did that to someone else's work, yes, that would clearly be a violation. If the author does it himself...good question, which I unfortunately don't know the answer to. Copyright and copyleft have a differing view, to be sure. Copyright focuses on the author, while copyleft focuses on everyone else.
 * Larry wouldn't violate the GFDL as long as he follows the rules and passes along the GFDL licensing with that material and gives attribution to the original author(s). You can aggregate GFDL material and non as long as the copyright resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. And the GFDL would not apply to other parts of the compilation which were not derivatives of GFDL material.CyberBob 19:40, 30 May 2008 (EDT)

Bob, regarding #2, I agree with everything you wrote. However, the intent of my example was that poor abused Larry did not pass along GFDL, but rather asserted a traditional copyright.
 * In that case, yes, he would be violating the GFDL, as other authors contributed to the article with the understanding that it was covered under the GFDL. If you use something covered by the GFDL, you must pass that license on (at least for that part), as well as giving attribution of the original contributing authors (unless they release you from that requirement; see Section 4B). If Larry wrote the entire article himself and nobody else contributed to it, then I guess we're back to your #1 question. CyberBob 20:55, 30 May 2008 (EDT)
 * Yes, but with 2 important exceptions: (1) Truly minor edits (not necessarily defined the same way Wiki communities define "minor") have no copyright at all. If Larry posts an article, and I add a comma somewhere, he can take the modified article and do with it anything he could with the original (including publishing it commercially, if he owns, or has a permissive license to, the original).  That MIGHT even apply if a thousand editors each made a minor change, so that by the end the article was completely rewritten, as long as no single person made any non-minor edit.  (2) Any non-minor editors own the copyrights to their changes, and, just like the original author can license them multiple times to different people on different terms.  If Larry writes an article, and CyberBob and I make significant contributions and 50 other people make (legally) insignificant ones, Larry could make a deal with the two of us to license or sell our additions to him, in which case he could re-license the entire article outside the FDL. --LH2004 11:05, 31 May 2008 (EDT)

Thanks for your input, guys. As I mentioned earlier, I deleted that last paragraph from the associated page which stated: "A caution is in order for prospective authors of traditional financial publications. It is not acceptable to write an article on the Bogleheads Wiki and then incorporate it into a copyrighted work." This passage may very well be wrong, and it isn't really necessary in any case.

By the way, this topic is of practical interest. I could easily see an author writing a wiki article in order to get Boglehead feedback, and then republishing it (perhaps as part of a larger work) under a traditional copyright. Ken Schwartz 21:49, 30 May 2008 (EDT)