Licensing of wiki content vs software

#1

I am personally keen on the most open licencing approach and considering all public contributions in the forum as fair game.

However I am assisting one community member with a wiki with performance issues. It contains his own intellectual property not so much the code but the data. It is in fact the code which I am reviewing, It is clear to me I have no right to post his wiki or his data because we have done disclosure agreement.

No withstanding all of the above perhaps we need a way to sandbox peoples data from the open licence agreement, what If I spend hard earned cash to acquire a sophisticated database and someone just takes it from my tiddlywiki and distributes it?

To combat the complexity when data is spread throughout the wiki perhaps we can have a standard that says data in tiddlers or plugins of a certain nomenclature are not open and may have a related licence.

eg; $:/plugins/licenced/railroad-data/* or $:/licenced/data/railroad-data

Whenever you make a rule you should always have a provision for its exception.

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Reviewing CLA policy
#2

Right.

Legally, normally, the “fair game” rule was only meant to be for excerption. Because of the net a vast complexity has arisen. Technically, legally, an “author’s work” is theirs for a long time–automatically. Though complexities arise on social media as the “terms of use” of a service may often have clauses (in “small print”) that totally obviate that principal. So Check your forum!

Anyway, without getting too technical, it is absolutely true that much of what WE are into is based on implicit goodwill and mostly issues do not arise co-sharing.

Where all this begins to breakdown practically is on idea there is a definitive answer if a conflict arose. Note: There are legal bedrocks. In practice, the issue comes back to the simple question of who was the first author, when? But, because the net is not so forensically detailed, author’s can, often, find themselves left without a paddle to steer their own boat.

Just FYI, of the very few things that I consider “my invention” I do print them and register-mail them back to myself (left unopened) as a legal bedrock. And there are many online services offering the same via “snapshots to preserve my magnum-opus”.

In practice (i.e. data munching [AKA stealing content]) I very much doubt that would end up being anything but symbolic. Who the hell knows what you and I do on our local computer? Interesting, maybe, if there is republishing of snatched stuff, are the astute algorithms that, for instance, Google’s YouTube uses to match patterns in sound or images in videos to detect online infringements of authorial rights .

So there are proven methods for spotting infringements. However, a much used mechanism to avoid being caught on YouTube is simply to flip left-to-right in videos so the patterns in the file won’t match the trawl net agenda. (In other places, if it was just text or code, you’d just change a few words.)

But @TW_Tones, that is the issue with “content”. Why sweat over something that a serious infringer could not care less about? :slight_smile:

Basically, I’m not convinced that worrying about license agreements, beyond what we have already, is gonna change anything.

FWIW, in the other thread, on CLA, I thought @jeremyruston pretty much on the ball on what can be practically done that honours donors of either code or content.

But I did enjoy your post. You do like to probe! And always useful and fun to read.

My two cents
TT

((P.S. — I do have to declare an interest. Being the grandchild & son of the founders of one of the most vibrant law firms in the UK. At breakfast we’d adumbrate these kind of issues :rofl:))

#3

This…

This…

And this…

Oh, and this (me too)…

Bang on.

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#4

I’m confused what the issue is here. You seem to be suggesting that anything put into a TW file is covered by the CLA. That’s like suggesting anything that is printed as a PDF belongs to Adobe.

The CLA only covers material submitted to TiddlyWiki.com , not the contents of some particular TW file. If you want to protect your own material, you need to append a copyright statement somewhere prominent. But realistically, only people with deep pockets can protect their ownership. That’s why we see so many rubber-stamped websites all over the net.

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#5

IANAL but…

No. You don’t.

In the unlikely event that a dispute should arise sometime in the future, having a means to prove that, on a specified date, you were in possession of the material where such proof cannot be countered by anyone else with proof of a prior date in their possession, you may have grounds to hold up a claim that you own the copyright in that material. This is what @TiddlyTweeter was getting at here:

Writing “Copyright me 2021” prominently anywhere doesn’t prove anything – it’s merely a claim, which proves nothing.

Aside: I am paid on copyrighted material and mechanical rights by BMI. I’ve never written a copyright claim anywhere – I wouldn’t know where to write it.

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#6

Putting a claim down shows people that it’s yours, preventing confusion in the first place. I’ve never heard of anything published that someone wanted protection without a copyright notice.

But this wasn’t the important part. The important part is that your private material has nothing to do with the CLA of TiddlyWiki.

#7

Me neither. This point you’re making turns on being published. This has nothing to do with claiming copyright ownership of a “work”.

Claiming copyright turns on having a robust means of proving you own the rights to the work. Copyright statements don’t provide that proof. They are just a claim. And in published works, are, as you intimated, a means of announcing that claim.

I stick by what I told you earlier – I don’t have “Copyright me” statements anywhere on the materials for which I receive royalties. Nor do I “need” to add them – I wouldn’t know where.

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#8

Just a sidenote on living in Italy. We have here in Italy the posta elettronica certificata (PEC) as a standard accountable method for communication that is likely as reliable as registered physical mail. No other European country yet has something as solid. Mostly here you use it for health or for lawyer issues. But you could use it as a simple, reliable, way to register authorship of code or content.

But what does it mean that it is “solid”? It means it is legal requirement that any service provider of “posta elettronica certificata” in Italy needs to prove compliance and they are audited by the state.

In practice it is used as an affordable (10 euro a year) method to deposit or send documents that are “certified”. For instance I sent my doctor (and my two witnesses) a statement about how to deal with me if I ever got so ill I could no longer represent myself.

This is merely a footnote. Though maybe not so far off the broader point about ‘who do you trust?’ nowadays.

Best wishes
TT

#9

Right. But the legal situation is clear. Copyright exists as soon as you create something. Declaring it is kinda a window-show that has gone ballistic on the net because the sheer scale of rip-offs got so busy. But when push comes to shove you need objective data to prove authorship. The words “Copyright NotoThingy, 2020” won’t save you.

As I was trying to explain to @TW_Tones, for OUR purposes, for the vast TW project, I’m not even sure it is even an issue though???

#10

Even if the legalese is a rats nest.

… anywhere, by any means, in/on any medium (except the grey matter in your head - last I heard, there is still no “copyright of ideas”).

I meant to point out to @Mark_S earlier, there is one thing that is copyright-able and that’s “the work”. The published (whatever that means) material (whatever that might be) is not the work. Depending on the material, it can be very difficult to nail down “what the work actually is”. Is it this document file on my disk? The original manuscript (whatever that means)? What about the five paranoid backups I keep? Is it the one I sent to a publisher? Ten publishers? Serialised in the Sunday Times? Answer: none of them. The work is “the work”, no one copy of the work is “the work”. Every copy represents the work. (AIUI).

So TT (since you’re the closest we have to a legal mind hereabouts)… do I understand it? :wink:

Perhaps a blanket statement that poster agrees poster’s words can be used license/rights free (though the exact wording I am not qualified to set out). But I agree, I’m not sure we need any of this stuff.

Q: What if in poster’s post, (s)he quotes text that is itself copyrighted?

A: I think that’s covered by “fair use” – @TiddlyTweeter ?

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#11

But not having the words might suggest that you consider it public material. But I am thinking of material that you post some place public, and not documents that you share with individuals.

But once again, none of this has anything at all to do with the CLA of TW.

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#12

Right. Quoting is most acceptable.

As I just did you.

There are some kinda rules on it.

Maybe the issue is most obvious on movies where it would be wrong to play the whole of GOYA EN BURDEOS, by piracy, but a reasonable short bit of GOYA EN BURDEOS is not theft, it is appreciation of a masterpiece that would be enjoyed by many and get more people to watch the brilliant films of Carlos Saura.

Short (corto) bits of things are largely how we know to go deeper.

Just saying
TT

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#13

I think that is a very important point.

The net gave rise to the weird idea that just because you didn’t mark something as ©️ it is free game.

It isn’t.

BUT it is true that the net at word/code level has been very exploitative of people’s work. That is mainly because the internet business doesn’t care about you.
But this isn’t the full truth.

The final legal situation would simply be about proving if are you the author and can prove it already?

Just a comment
TT

#14

That keeps lawyers busy spending OUR money :moneybag: :moneybag: :moneybag:

In practice copyright ultimately relates to stuff that exists physically (including typing). But just because I know in my head that @Mark_S is a fluffy sweet bunny doesn’t mean any statement like that could be copyright until I wrote it down. Though I just did that. :slight_smile:

Regarding your personal saga going a bit loop on “what the work actually is” … That is the whole Roman problem

TT

#15

Unlike my head, which is merely a contrivance we both happen to agree exists.

#16

One’s thoughts are a person’s reflexive self-ramble upon the private connubium they have within their own ego.
Copyright has nothing to do with it as Jack Smith can’t yet read your mind.

TT

(PS: FYI, the lingo in this thread likely broke 17 rules on “simple English” already :slight_smile: But I think some stuff you really can’t do a simple version of.)

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#17

@Mark_S … Right.

I do want to add the footnote to this thread that, yes, I kinda mushed up copyright & licensing. But, TBH, that is simply because the base issue is pretty much the same. The evolution on the net of “LICENSING”, in the vast way it is now used, has introduced some confusions. Basic ground (copy)rights matter still.

Most of my points were about establishing legal proprietary rights.

And licensing is, for TW, about being generous and giving your work away. A very nice aim, you generous person you.

I do think the issue matters and focus on “give away” needs, also, balancing guidance on “how to preserve me” in my TW.

Just a comment
TT

#18

Ok, CLA TLA (Three letter acronyms) aside, this thread was started “by me” when @boris split it from the CLA thread. I would like to clarify my idea if anyone cares;

  • When we submit code, solutions and data to the forum GG and talk.tiddlywiki.org it is somewhat assumed it enters the public domain.
  • When its published on tiddlywiki.com we assume it also becomes part of the general tiddlywiki licence.
  • If I publish a public wiki it is most likely that visitors will feel everything they see is also public domain and they can harvest components for reuse in their own wikis? In fact given the CLA and other parts of tiddlywiki this is a fair assumption.
  • My concern was if I decide to publish something containing code or data perhaps based on some special business logic or data for which I spent hours designing or harvesting and I wanted to licence or restrict its distribution.
    • Don’t get me wrong, I know people can steal it, but I should be able to start by distinguishing it from the rest of the content. I should be able to state my ownership and desire to restrict its use.
    • My suggestions was that we set a standard that says if data/plugins or other content is stored under a namespace which includes “licenced” or perhaps “copyright” then the site visitor is alerted to the fact that that part of the content is not published under the same permissive licence and any one wanting to take the content must comply with the licence documented there in.

Here is an example case;

Lets say I make a data tiddler/plugin containing a list of all archeological epochs, perhaps I obtained this under another licence, perhaps I paid someone for this or to build this data, perhaps I acquired it over years and hundreds of hours work. I believe I have the right to constrain it’s use or harvesting, legally if not by copy protection. With copyright I can state that it is my copyright and if I do so you have to seek permission before reuse. If you abuse this I have rights under law.

Remember I may have a wiki that only existed on my computer and someone hack and stole it, or it could be on a local network and a trusted user took a copy. I should be able to limit the use it is put to on the internet. What if it was removed without my knowledge then someone build a site with my copywritten material and made money from it without permission, attribution etc…

I think this is a matter that should be resolved and I believe it could be handled in the broader licencing so if nothing else there is a stated way to flag content that is not part of any free for all use, and may have a less permissive licence.

In many ways this is not about guaranteeing my copywrite is respected but at least about being able to assert it is my copywrite in the first place.

#19

If your content contains secrets that shouldn’t be shared, don’t publish it.

The CLA has nothing to do with the content that is published by users. (That’s why the topic has been moved)

Assumptions in the context with licensing can be expensive. It’s easy to solve this problem. Just add a link to your license at a prominent spot at the landing page.

Done!

There’s no confusion anymore. That’s exactly what licenses are made for. They document the intent of the author, how the content should be used.

#20

Copyright is “implicit”. If you create content that has its origin in your brain only, it is automatically considered to be your copyright. There is no need to mark it.

If your content is the result of paid work, in most jurisdictions it’s considered, that the owner is your employer and not you.

Theoretically you could add some license info as a license - field to every tiddler of your wiki. … BUT I think this would be overkill. … It’s much easier and less confusing for users to set 1 licence for the content on the landing page.

It seems there is some confusion between the term copyright and the term license. …

If you own the copyright, you have the right to license your work. It may be a “pay to use” or an “open source” license. That’s your decision.

If you don’t own the copyright, you can’t license the content so someone else. period!

EXCEPT. If the owner grants you a license to do so.

The TiddlyWiki CLA does not touch your copyright. See: 2.1 (a)

2.1 Copyright License

(a) You retain ownership of the Copyright in Your Contribution and have the same rights to use or license the Contribution which You would have had without entering into the Agreement.

I’m not a lawyer, so take it with a grain of salt.