GFDL 1.3: Wikipedia's exit permit [LWN.net]

GFDL 1.3: Wikipedia's exit permit

Posted Nov 10, 2008 7:59 UTC (Mon) by cantsin (guest, #4420)
In reply to: GFDL 1.3: Wikipedia's exit permit by Ze
Parent article: GFDL 1.3: Wikipedia's exit permit

An example: Germany's leading news site Spiegel Online once ran a "background article" on Iraq that turned out to be an edited and slightly extended version of the German Wikipedia article on the country, without crediting the source. If Wikipedia's content would be public domain, Spiegel would have got away with it. Thanks to the GFDL-copyleft, the site not only had to publish an excuse and credit the source, but had to put its own article under the GFDL so that Spiegel's improvements of the text could be put back into Wikipedia.

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GFDL 1.3: Wikipedia's exit permit

Posted Nov 10, 2008 17:55 UTC (Mon) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link]

That's a good example, but it's also crucial to know whether someone actually did copy Spiegel's slight extensions into Wikipedia; if not, the GFDL didn't help Wikipedia at all; it just allowed Wikipedia to be a dog in a manger.

Assuming someone did, then it's still just an example of Wikipedia made better by copyleft (as opposed to public domain), and still leaves me very skeptical that Wikipedia is made possible by copyleft. To believe that Wikipedia wouldn't exist, or would have substantially different character, if copyleft licensing didn't exist (which seems to be Lessig's claim), I'd have to believe that huge numbers of people who today contribute to Wikipedia would in the public domain case write for the likes of Spiegel instead. I can see that Spiegel could pay more if it had exclusive use of the work, but I don't see it being enough to have a noticeable effect.