Wikipedia talk:Submission Standards/copyright compliance opt out application

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I'm opting out because I have and will release works under licenses other than the GFDL (CC-ShareAlike and others) which I have and will also license to the Wikipedia under the GFDL. It would be contrary to my licenses to those other parties to authorize the Wikipedia to act against them for infringements of the GFDL, which they aren't bound by, just because I've also granted the Wikipedia a license restricted to the GFDL terms. Jamesday 02:22, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Please note the Submission Standards states that you can apply to opt out and that it is up to the Board of Trustees to decide. Also the above statement is incoherent. Obviously since the only license granted to Wikipedia is the GFDL license it can only police compliance of GFDL licenses, all other uses of the author's copyright is not covered. Isn't that clear? The author retains the copyright of their work, the only copyright granted to Wikipedia is the GFDL license. — Alex756 [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Alex756 talk] 13:14, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

What happens when I grant you a CC-ShareAlike license and the Wikipedia takes legal action against you for GFDL infringement? That's what I'm trying to prevent with the opt out. Jamesday 06:58, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

There is a rule in property law that we learn in first year property that is a guiding principle even in the realm of intellectual property, you can only grant as much of an entitlement as you have. A corollary to this is the idea that when you have two partially overlapping rights your rights include all of the rights granted to you. Using this logic of entitlements you can see that if there are let us say, four entitlements to a CC license: {A, B, C, D} and three elements to a GFDL license: {A, E, F}, together one has six entitlements: {A,B,C,D,E,F}. If a CC license says you do not have to have notice when the GFDL does, well you have granted more rights in the CC license, so the licensee is covered, some intermediate GFDL user cannot point the finger at you, your license is greater than their license; as long as everything you do is within the ambit of some license you have you are not infringing on any of them. — Alex756 [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Alex756 talk] 07:53, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Yes, of course the Wikipedia will fail - the Wikipedia action would be completely meritless. That's not the problem - we agree that the Wikipedia can't possibly win a baseless action. Consider what you wrote about the scenario at Wikipedia talk:Submission Standards#Copyright Compliance. I can do without someone I've granted a non-GFDL license suing me because the Wikipedia takes GFDL infringement action against them using an agency permission I've granted the Wikipedia. I also want to protect the Wikipedia from that risk, by advising it of the risk and saying don't do that. Jamesday 02:25, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Once again if you grant someone a license greater than what you grant Wikipedia then they have that greater license to defend upon. No one would be going after some licensee in such a case so I don't know what your problem is. As I cannot understand what point you are trying to make, perhaps you can restate it in a clearly manner so an average person without a background in copyright will understand the problem. Thank you. — Alex756 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Alex756 talk] 22:30, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Alex, and don’t understand the problem. Wikipedia is trying to make sure that it will be able to take action against GFDL infringements — that makes sense. For example, this will enable Wikipedia to enforce the GFDL for articles written by authors who have since passed away. The FSF insists on complete copyright assignments for largely the same reasons: if they can act on behalf of all contributors to, e.g., GNU Emacs, then they may have a stronger case if and when they ever want to (or are forced to) go to court.

Let’s say Alice wants to use an article written by Jamesday in a way forbidden by the GFDL but allowed by CC-By-SA-2.0. That’s fine, because Jamesday agrees to license his contributions under CC-By-SA-2.0. Now, Jamesday appears to be worried that Wikipedia might try to sue Alice for GFDL infringement. But that would not make sense, because Alice has not agreed to the terms of the GFDL and thus is not bound by it. What Wikipedia could do in this case is act upon any violations of CC-By-SA-2.0 that Alice might make, which again makes sense.

Jamesday says, “It would be contrary to my licenses to those other parties to authorize the Wikipedia to act against them for infringements of the GFDL, which they aren't bound by.” That’s right — those other parties are not bound by the GFDL, so they would in no way by affected by your authorizing Wikipedia to act on your behalf against GFDL infringements. Well, I mean, I wouldn’t want, like, Johnnie Cochran to sue me for infringement of any kind, shape, or form, regardless of what grounds he had, but Wikipedia is not Johnnie Cochran and cannot afford to hire him.

— Daniel Brockman 14:11, 13 December 2005 (UTC)