Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:45, 26 July 2003

Is your jpg really smaller than my png? Ericd

Not by much, surprizingly, but enough that old modem users would still prefer it. It's almost always the case, though, that PNG is not efficient for photographic images--and wasn't intended to be. I'm the person who invented the adaptive-prefiltering compression technique that PNG uses, and it was optimized for iconic drawings (altough we tried to make sure it wasn't too bad for photos either). JPEG is almost always the best format for photographs.

My picture was 64 gray levels to optimize size I believed ther will be no reel difference.

That's why the saving wasn't as dramatic, then. But it still went from over 40k down to 16k, and that's not insignificant.

Lee - what do we do when people are obviously ignoring our image use policy and not responding to requests for copyright information? --mav

I haven't seen any major problems yet, but if you can't figure out any way to reach someone, deleting an image or two usually gets their attention. BTW, it's quite likely that unknown uploaders are Polish/German/French wikipedians (I found Aioneko at fr, for example) so that might be another place to look. Who are you worried about? -- Lee

user:Dwhitney just uploaded an image of a engine block with no copyright info that looks like it is a scan from a cars manual. user:Isis is uploading many images -- none of which seem to have copyright info (including videotape covers). I'm also wary about the overuse of fair use -- our previous image use policy was to only accept public domain images and those covered by an acceptable open content license. This allowed somebody to copy the text and the article by using similar licenses. Now we have sound clips. If anything we need to have a very clear statement that the text of Misplaced Pages is covered by the GNU FDL but any images or other files may be owned by others who have not placed their work under an open content license. We are probably OK because we are using this stuff for educational purposes -- but others copying our material and trying to abide by our license may want to sell this stuff. --mav

Dwhitney was only a few ours ago. I just contacted him (he has a valid e=mail address), so give him some time to respond. Isis is a special case. She has a valid e-mail address as well, and has been very cooperative when contacted (Jimbo and I have been talking to her about helping form the non-profit). She is also a lawyer with IP experience, so she knows what she's talking about. I agree that we would certainly prefer images in the PD or licensed under appropriate terms rather than ones used under "fair use"--as you say, it means that people copying Misplaced Pages articles won't necessarily be able to copy the images that accompany them unless they too follow fair use guidelines, whereas our text has no such restrictions. Most of Kay's stuff is old enough to have fallen out of copyright, but obviously the videotape covers and such haven't.

I think the "fair use" material is so valuable to some of the articles, though, that it would be a shame to get rid of it, so I think you're right that a stronger statement should be made on the copyright pages that only our text is covered by the GFDL, and images might have different terms. I just can't imagine any reasonable coverage of the white album, for example, without letting readers hear the amazing diversity of arrangements and subjects for themselves.

In a way, including such material actually helps our cause a bit: for example, we would like for other non-profit educational sites to use our material. They would have an equal fair use claim to us, so they could take our material in toto. But a for-profit site that we might not want to use our material might not qualify for the same fair use exception, and so could only use our text.

In any case, I think you're right that a more detailed statement is needed, probably both on wikipedia:copyrights and wikipedia:image use policy.

Maybe I'm just thick-headed, but how, legally, are images different from ASCII-encoded text as far as our license goes? --Brion 17:29 Aug 31, 2002 (PDT)

LDC - I really like your rewrite of the Social Darwinism article. It reads much better now, the flow of ideas is much more streamlined, and the differences with and confusion with sociobiology are well highlighted. Kudos! -- April

Odd question. Under the Berne Convention, anything is copyright once it's in a fixed medium. Under the DMCA, if you bypass encryption to access a copyrighted file, you break the law. I write you an email using GPG, you decrypt it, you violate the DMCA (the email is copyright me, unless I explicitly disclaim copyright--J.D. Salinger set a precedent on this one in re: personal letters he'd sent a friend, who gave them to an author who wanted to publish them in a book on Salinger). Therefore the DMCA explodes either itself or copyright--nothing copyright can be decrypted without violating the DMCA, or encryption itself is illegal (including for DVDs). I must be missing something. --KQ 03:37 Sep 20, 2002 (UTC)

Yes, the contents of mail is copyrighted by the sender, but the very act of mailing should be an obvious expression of intent that the recipient read it--that's the whole purpose. The DMCA only outlaws "bypassing access controls" for unintended accesses; it certainly doesn't apply to playing a legally-bought DVD on a legally-bought DVD player, or reading your own mail, both of which require decryption as the copyright holder intended. It would be illegal for me to read your mail, or even for me to sell a program that allowed some third party to read your mail.

Hm, I knew that seemed too easy. So if I understand it correctly, the DMCA just ... uh ... doesn't make much sense. You could be prosecuted for breaking rot13 on a message? --KQ

Lee, I and 128.whoever went back and forth on the vandalism in progress page also, but of us changing unattributed comments about 128's actions and motives (at the first bullet about him), so that may be what he's thinking of. At one point I removed the "he is otherwise rational" bit and the part about his comment to Brion, thinking that might calm him down. In retrospect I probably shouldn't have--it may not have been signed, but it was still someone else's comment. I've also reverted tarquin's comment at the second bullet after 128 changed it. --KQ 18:30 Oct 2, 2002 (UTC)

Fair enough. I should have signed the comment, and maybe it was ruder than necessary. And removing a comment (or even editing one for grammar, putting *** over profanity, or other kinds of edits) is far, far, different from changing it to something else. --LDC

I wonder if you have been keeping an eye on the Aria Giovanni talk webpage. The situation there is out of control.

Matters have deteriorated to a highly abusive level over a website link. Of special concern is the general conduct and attitude of someone called NetEsq, who claims in his details to be a lawyer.

He has repeatedly abused anyone who opposed the idea of the website link with such tactics and traits as net misettiquete ( eg the use of the word 'you' in capitals and bold to emphasise shouting), a poor grasp of history, the unrepentant use of such provocative terms as 'Nazi' (which I hope is an example of his poor grasp of history) , out of context quotes and attempted alienation ("only YOU opppose it"). He writes of defending freedom of expression, yet cannot tolerate it from others when they give an opinion he does not like. So far three persons have been under fire by him, with the treatment of one of them especially deplorable.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of his beliefs, it is very advisable to bring this most unruly and arrogant person into line.

Given that your name is on the list of persons who can ban users (you banned an IP address a while ago, so I assume you're a wikipedia person), I thought it highly advisable to bring this to your attention, before it leads to persons leaving the wikipedia - something likely to stroke Netesq's already aggressive ego.

Lee, could you kindly take a look at User talk:Isis? Also, did you ever get a reply from the CIA about using their original artwork for the flag images? Thanks. Scipius 22:22 Oct 11, 2002 (UTC)

You seem like you're knowledgeable about such things. I understand video and book covers can be uploaded as fair use, does the same thing apply to album covers? It seems logical to me, but I thought I should ask you first. Tokerboy 23:04 Oct 21, 2002 (UTC)

Album covers should indeed be no different under "fair use" doctrine than the video and book covers already here, but the RIAA is a lot nastier about threatening to sue over such things. But they haven't made any noise about our sound clips yet, so either we're still below their radar or else they realize how futile such a suit would be (my guess is the former--the latter would presume some intelligence on their part).

I can create text files, MySQL databases, excel spreadsheets, word documents, or whatever else you might need to add articles Misplaced Pages. It would also be grand if you had some way to change the wiki software to accomodate as discussed in the Village Pump. Whatever the case, just get back to me on what to do. I was discussing with Maverick various things on my talk page and you might find some of that interesting as well. I'm not going to run the bot at one article per minute at this point because it is too slow to be practical (see the discussion on my talk page). -- Ram-Man

Clicking on what links to United States Census Bureau? took 1 minute 20 seconds before any output, and was still rendering three minutes later when I killed it. This looks like a very expensive link to click. The Anome 08:35 Oct 25, 2002 (UTC)

Other links that I expect to have similar behavior will be the corresponding ones for 2000, African American, Native American, km², and any other pages linked by thousands of Ram-Man's articles. This isn't Ram-Man's fault: the software should be able to cope better with this: perhaps some use of LIMIT in the SQL queries would be useful? The Anome

Yes, it takes a long time to render a page with a lot of links, so a "what links here" page with hundreds of entries will be expensive. You're probably right that it might be worth writing some special-case code for that. --LDC

I'm suspicious of the validity of adding work to Misplaced Pages that's not coverable by the GFDL (as described in Misplaced Pages:copyrights). Isn't this a basic problem? -The Cunctator

Text would definitely be a problem, and I think we're pretty clear that we don't want text that isn't free. But images really are a different case; I think "fair use" images are OK, because it's an easy distinction to make, the utility of Misplaced Pages would suffer greatly if we couldn't use such images, and using such images does not detract from the goal of creating our own text.

I don't know that it would suffer greatly; there are a bunch of public domain images out there, and Misplaced Pages is a great opportunity to encourage people to generate more. But I can see both sides of the argument.

On the other hand, I'm extremely uncomfortable about contaminating the Misplaced Pages feed with content that can't be used by downstream licensees. If we didn't use any GFDL content ourselves, then we wouldn't be limited by the GFDL conditions, but we do (or at least would like to be able to).

Whatever the case, it's certainly not in the spirit of the GFDL to include non-free (the RMS def.) images.

I certainly think that it's crazy to imagine a legal setup in which image use as we do would be forbidden, but we live in a crazy world, with DRM around the corner.

Finally, "fair use" is, unfortunately, a defense. If someone challenges the use of their images, we would have to prove "fair use" in court, after the injunction. The fair use defense is sadly weak. --The Cunctator

In practice, if the copyright holder of an image complained, we would have to remove the image rather than attempt to defend our fair use rights. Just as it would be a very bad idea to have non-free text, I think it would be a bad idea to have articles that depend on non-free images, and if you find such an article, it would be appropriate to call attention to that problem. An image that's just an illustration to an otherwise complete article (like the video and album covers, for example) shouldn't be a problem, although you're right that it could be a problem for downstream use (although most such downstream uses will have the same fair use rights we do).

In my expert opinion, Cunctator's assumption that "we would have to prove 'fair use' in court, after the injunction" is mistaken: The three elements a movant has to show to get a preliminary injunction are probability of success on the merits, threat of irreparable harm, and equity (or the balancing of the harms) favors the movant. The movant bears the burden on all three elements and, before the court gets to them, bears the burden of showing there is no adequate remedy at law, or injunction will not lie. Since someone complaining of copyright infringement could not make any one of those showings (let alone all four of them), they're never going to get an injunction to start with. -- isis 07:25 Oct 30, 2002 (UTC)

We should probably move this debate to another page... I think it's vital that "fair use" images are marked as such. For example, if we later produce a paper snapshot of Misplaced Pages (the idea cropped up on the mailing list a while ago), we'd need to know which images we must omit. -- Tarquin

I don't understand the concept of "'fair use' image," either by itself or in the context it's used in here. The images we use under what we call the "fair use" doctrine are not copyrighted. Here's what Black's Law Dictionary (4th ed.) says, and see if this makes what I'm saying clearer (italics added for emphasis & citation omitted):

FAIR USAGE. The doctrine of "fair usage" means that the matter which was under copyright was neither copied nor adopted, but that the uncopyrightable underlying idea was used, since a theme or idea is not copyrightable.

What I don't understand is what "which images we must omit" is about -- I can't think of any situation in which any image in the 'pedia should be "omitted." Would someone please enlighten me? -- isis 11:26 Oct 30, 2002 (UTC)

I was thinking of album cover thumbnails & sound clips -- wouldn't a a CD or paper version of Misplaced Pages, even if sold at-cost, have to omit those? -- Tarquin

No, no way, never, huh-uh. -- isis 11:40 Oct 30, 2002 (UTC)

The only possible time such an image might have to be omitted is in a commercially sold reproduction of Misplaced Pages (that weakens our "fair use" position but probably wouldn't destroy it), and since we don't plan on ever doing that, it shouldn't be a problem. If we made a paper reproduction distributed in accordance with our educational purposes, the same fair use rights would apply to that.

With all due respect, I must dissent from that opinion: Under Fed.R.Evid. 1001, for example, any copy of the 'pedia is interchangeable with any other (and/or the "original" -- whatever that means in this context), so whether we charge for our efforts in producing a particular copy or not is immaterial.

I've just realized what's been bothering some Users about the videotape covers: They don't understand what a copyright on the packaging means. I should have caught on sooner and told them the fact they were missing to ease their minds: A copyright on a videotape cover design prohibits anyone else's making a videotape cover/box/package with that same (or too much like it) design, but it does not prohibit anyone's taking a picture of it to show to anyone (commercially or not) when talking about the content of the tape in that box. If it did, the copyright laws would be unconstitutional, and those statutes are intended to further the 1st Amendment, not violate it. -- isis 20:20 Oct 30, 2002 (UTC)

Sounds like the matter is resolved (but Isis, note that we're dealing internationally here -- 1st amendment is a local thing ;-) Misplaced Pages:Copyright issues seems to be a good spot to move this conversation to -- but boy does that page need a clean-up! Anyone feel like picking the information out of that huge discussion? -- Tarquin

I'm copying this great discussion over to m:Misplaced Pages and copyright issues. --mav

I just want to give you rousing cheers for your arguments in the talk on Naming conventions (anglicization). Gritchka

Please take a peak at User talk:Dewlaylomo/ban. I think an administrator should take some action. MB 02:35 May 15, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Lee. Brion said you have a test server which you have been known to hand out accounts to. Can I have one? To find out why I'm asking, see User talk:Tim Starling. In brief, Eloquence is pushing me to do less talk and more action when it comes to PHP code. -- Tim Starling 06:07 25 May 2003 (UTC)

Could a developer check to see if User:Eddie is loging in using User:Michael's ip range (i.e. 152.163.25x.xxx)? He has been reverting articles of User:Michael's back to user Michael's content in a sneaky way. I just want to make sure it is or isn't User:Michael. If it is him, please ban the account. Thanks. MB 17:41 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

User:Fuck is Michael, please ban and delete the account, or whatever is nessesary.

Michael is back as User:Weezer/NOFX, attempts to reason with him to E-mail Jimbo have come to nothing, usual mind-games, alas, please ban the account. The Anome 15:10 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

user:My Green Dice is also Michael-- Green Dice, with spaces, not MyRedDice, without. Anyway, he's moving Hephaestos' page to different places; could you block him please? Thanks. Koyaanis Qatsi 01:53 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

SARS poker. heh. Koyaanis Qatsi 22:28 9 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Dear Lee, could you possibly add User:The Anomebot to the list of registered bots? It's well debugged and non-controversial, and has been working without causing any fuss on and off for a couple of days. If it is registered, I intend to speed it up to one hit per minute, with an extra safety back-off feature (measure transaction time, take min of a multiple of this and the programmed delay) that will stop it from being a nuisance when the server is heavily loaded. -- The Anome 22:13 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Lee - since I'm already both a developer and a root sysadmin on both boxes, do you mind making me a sysop as well? Thanks! -- Marumari 20:45 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)