Copyright issues

[Barry]

A hairy debate this one, and one that I have been thinking about a lot.

The question: do we allow for copyrighted stuff to be featured at the wiki. That is: magazine interviews, magazine articles, quotes from books, pictures, cover art, lyrics.

Must admit I've been swaying back and forth on this one; thinking at one point it's dangerous to put copyrighted material on there, then at the next moment thinking "who gives a shit anyway, we're doing this for all the right reasons".

In the end, I do not think we should keep "copyrighted material" out of the wiki. My reasoning is:
- ever looked at any given FZ fansite (KUR included)? It's literally riddled with copyrighted stuff. No action has ever been undertaken against these sites by the ZFT (or any other copyright-holder).
- the wiki is a strictly non-commercial endeavour, undertaken by people who just happen to share a love for the music of Frank Zappa. If anything, we are helping to promote this and keep it alive. Who in their right mind could be against this? (Please don't mention Project/Object )
- we are small, non-commercial fish, after all. It's in no way rewarding to sue us for copyright infringement as there is no money to be had in these parts (I'm talking about my bank account here). Furthermore, there is a disclaimer up on the wiki that states we will remove any material that is deemed to be in violation of anyone's copyrights. Meaning, if anyone has a problem with what we put up there, well hey, we simply remove it from the wiki.

There's my thoughts. Your take is much appreciated...

[Dunk]

Agreed.  But... we should not use this as an excuse to cut and paste articles just because they mention FZ.  Just because some hack cobbled together an article about FZ to earn some money does not mean the article is interesting and/or accurate.  Do we really need them all?  Do they add anything to the Wiki that we cannot cover elsewhere ourselves?

Why not write our own wiki articles - we can always precis the original article and quote from it;  our articles will be far superior to the original.

Remember:
Copying from one article is plagiarism.
Copying from two articles is a comparative study.
Copying from three articles is original research

[Bálint]

You're right, but the discussion in quoting original text by original authors - not because they "mention FZ" but because they belong HERE.

Hey, I dont think you could write "Edgard Varese, Idol of my Youth"!!!!...

Or could you? Maybe first you should try one called "Confession of a Metalhead". ;-)

B

[Barry]

Agreed.  But... we should not use this as an excuse to cut and paste articles just because they mention FZ.

Dunk: agreed, but the issue you raise there has nothing to do with copyright stuff...

... wait... a smiley!

[Dunk]

Hey, I dont think you could write "Edgard Varese, Idol of my Youth"!!!!...

Absolutely not as this is pivotal to the whole thing (well this and El Monte Legion Stadium) in my opinion - and as such is covered by my...

Do they add anything to the Wiki that we cannot cover elsewhere ourselves?

In this case - Yes it does add to the value of the Wiki - which is why I have worked on it so lovingly

[Dunk]

Dunk: agreed, but the issue you raise there has nothing to do with copyright stuff...

... wait... a smiley!

I thought it had everything to do with the copyright stuff - as this constitutes an increasingly large volume of the wiki content.

It is a brilliant move to get the user to affirm that the copyright holder of this picture file agrees to license it under the terms of the Zappa Wiki Jawaka copyright...  when those terms are a blank page: who could possibly disagree?

Why are we in Uncle Beat?

[Barry]

Why are we in Uncle Beat?

We're not!

[Dunk]

Now we know why Barry has run off to South America

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4508158.stm

[maroual]

Hello guys,

I am questionning myself whether we should point to URLs such as YouTube videos.

This post:

Added  June 10, 2006
Frank Zappa and his band, December 11, 1 Frank Zappa and his band, December 11, 1976 on ***, *** TV.
I won't write what show this is from, because some bastards removed another Zappa video from the same show I had uploaded (Rollo) due to "copyright infingement".
Yeah, sure, we would gladly buy this shit, but the problem is that no one is going to release it on DVD.

And the sad fate of the Chrome Dinette make me think that we could face two disadvantages:
(1) The links might not work forever due to potential complaints from the copyright holders
(2) A website referencing too many of these links might also get into trouble

I know this is very tempting because a lot of this material is not available for sales but unfortunately these guys from the majors do not seem to feel like negociating.

Cheers

[Barry]

Hi Maroual,

I wouldn't worry about copyright-infringments too much.

Because:
1) any video being present on YouTube is YouTube's responsibility, not ours, and so our linking to it cannot be considered a liable act.
2) Warner Music and YouTube recently struck a licensing deal allowing Warner's catalogue of music (which includes most of FZ's) to be used in YouTube clips. There is of course the grey area of clips of live shows and such; but even in cases like that, it is YouTube's responsibility to determine whether or not there's a copyright issue.

So my take on this: link to YouTube movies by all means. Perhaps do a check every so often to see if that clip is still available. Whaddayathink?

Barry

[Dunk]

1) any video being present on YouTube is YouTube's responsibility, not ours, and so our linking to it cannot be considered a liable act.
2) Warner Music and YouTube recently struck a licensing deal allowing Warner's catalogue of music (which includes most of FZ's) to be used in YouTube clips. There is of course the grey area of clips of live shows and such; but even in cases like that, it is YouTube's responsibility to determine whether or not there's a copyright issue.

and

3) There is a Fair Usage consideration.

[maroual]

Mmmh... I dunno really.

The P2P indexing servers the majors are closing everyday do not contain any copyrighted material.

Some videos like the Zappa appearances in the Saturday Night Live are owned by Universal, they remain in YouTube as long as they are not found.

I could actually point to hundreds of videos if I was sure it was safe and not too much maintenance.

Compared to this, the questions about the covert art look easier.

I dunno exactly how the Fair Use is considered in courts nowadays but you might be right Dunk...

[Barry]

Some videos like the Zappa appearances in the Saturday Night Live are owned by Universal, they remain in YouTube as long as they are not found.

Exactly my point: it's up to YouTube's legal dept. to find unauthorized clips and delete them (and YouTube is not some obscure little P2P server; they are a very high profile company that attempts to respect copyright). As someone with a website, I can legally trust YouTube to provide me with content that is not compromized copyright-wise. Therefor it's perfectly okay for me to link to that content. If a copyright conflict arises, YouTube will get a knock on the door, not me...