Talk:Terms of use/Creative Commons 4.0/Archives/2016-11

Amhnews

I think right now time to migrate from CC3.0 copyright license to Creative Commons 4.0 i18N. Every human right in this world will being accept because were the version about language readiness. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Amhnews (talk) 12:40, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Voidhoser

Knowledge should be owned by everyone, not the select few who say how we can use the information they give us. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Voidhoser (talk)

+1 TheJJJunk (talk) 01:42, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Hundii

I think the new version is good with the importance of maintaining the new revised content without any copyrights and be available to everyone, whether copying or quotation to Maximize the utilize for public. Hundii (talk) 04:32, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Backward compatibility

It is generally the case that licenses include terms to describe what happens when versions change or are not specified. For instance, GPL contains clauses in this vein. CC, however, does not (currently). I have come across multiple cases where the version was not specified, and thus the entire license was rendered invalid. This is, frankly, dumb. Moreover, as the changes being made are not to the underlying concepts, but to the language of those concepts, some sort of automatic upgrade to the latest (as in GPL) seems extremely useful.

I suggested changes along these lines to the CC committee some time ago, but have seen nothing about it since. I would suggest that this is a fairly serious matter, and we should at least consider making adoption of 4.0 contingent on such language. The last thing we need is multiple versions of an already dense language being maintained, when, in fact, they all really say the same thing.

11/4 (talk) 17:56, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Herramienta de educación

Siendo la cultura y la información una herramienta de educación y formación humana, considero que la publicación de libros debe tener todas las facilidades del caso,ahora que se ve el peligro de una juventud que no lee, por lo tanto, su opinión tendrá límites. Apoyamos toda forma de promoción de libros- Cordialmente Orlando Contreras Osorio Orlando contreras osorio (talk) 01:47, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

68.96.201.18

The main thing holding me back from becoming a major supporter of Wikimedia, is your scrutinizing of proposed new subjects to your pages....I believe that an individual should be able to represent themselves, in proposing a page to post their bio and life accomplishments! Your attitude, up to now, has been, YOU can't speak of yourself...someone else must write and corroborate it! — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.96.201.18 (talk) 17:52, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

The waiving of moral rights is a good thing!

According to Creative Commons "copyright laws . . . grant creators 'moral rights' in addition to the economic or commercial right . . . [which include] the right to the integrity of the work. The moral right of integrity may provide creators with a source for redress if an adaptation represents derogatory treatment of their work." This presents a problem because what constitutes derogatory is a matter of opinion. If someone chooses to remix a work and use it in a political campaign, the author can arbitrarily claim that this is immoral. That's just an example, but basically anyone for any reason can claim some remixes are immoral while others are not. This amounts to censorship and is against the very nature of Creative Commons. If a creator chooses to allow their work to be remixed, I believe they waive to right to pass judgement on the remixed work. If anyone is that concerned about their work being adapted they shouldn't be choosing this license in the first place. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.238.131.90 (talk)

CC-BY-SA-4.0 explicitly allows a author to request that they not be attributed in an adaptation that they disapprove of. I think this is better. Revent (talk) 09:50, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

True but freedom of speech trumps that anyway (at least in the US). If it's factually true, it's ok to name the creator of the source material. This license may claim that revokes your right to use the work (and thus is a copyright violation) but until anything anywhere close to that scenario gets tested in courts, I willing to place my money on actual laws (bill of rights, copyright, contractual law, etc.) winning in the end. Ridiculous EULAs are the perfect example of something I don't see being upheld in court. CC, GDFL and friends aren't ridiculous (they best we have) but they're in the same boat. Uncharted territory. 2601:243:C203:2220:2C8C:6248:6BF0:D20E 14:15, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Additionally, if someone truly wants to prevent their works from being remixed, used, or otherwise utilized in any way, they shouldn't put them on the internet. Speaking of web design in general, I always think it's funny when web designers put copyright notices on their (publicly accessible) sites regarding CSS, images, client-side scripts, etc.. Sure, you can claim copyright infringement or what have you on these items, but against whom? Your claim will not, does not, and cannot prevent users from viewing, downloading, and then reproducing/altering those styles, scripts, and images once you serve them. In most cases, those resources can be copied without the owner of the website even knowing. The same can be said for written works published to the internet. You are not entitled to privacy or exclusivity to your published items when you publish them to a public platform! Again, sure, you can cry legal foul, but employing these irrelevant, bypassable agreements and licenses is, for the most part, fun for the legal folks and laughable for the rest of us. TheJJJunk (talk) 01:39, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

@2601:243:C203:2220:2C8C:6248:6BF0:D20E: Off topic, but that is a (not uncommon) misunderstanding of 'freedom of speech'. Under US law, the right of 'freedom of speech' is purely related to the government interfering with your free expression. It has nothing to do with restrictions imposed by a non-governmental party. For instance, you have the 'right' to call me an asshole, but if you do it here I have no doubt that the meta admins will interfere with your 'free speech'. When you adapt CC-BY-SA-4.0 material, you are explicitly (in a legally binding manner) agreeing to not attribute the original author if they ask you not to, and if you do so you are violating the license (and, if you do not correct it upon request, committing a copyright violation). Revent (talk) 05:56, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Rdee55

will the changes mean an expense to the user Rdee55 (talk) 16:34, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

@Rdee55: Which user do you mean? The author, or the reuser of the content? Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 19:23, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

In either case, it's still free to reuse and free to license, so there wouldn't be an expense. The correction period for mistakes might even spare a little expense from a reuser who doesn't get the attribution right but fixes it when they find out there's a problem. -Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 03:29, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Some questions on how to identify the licence of modified content

Looking at the CC-BY-SA 3.0 licence, I'm having some trouble figuring out when content would be relicensed and to what extent content would be relicensed, should this be implemented. According to 4 b in CC-BY-SA 3.0,

You may Distribute or Publicly Perform an Adaptation only under the terms of: [...] (ii) a later version of this License with the same License Elements as this License;

This means that you need to find out if you have created an adaptation, and if so, what part of the content this adaptation consists of. An 'Adaptation' is defined in 1 a of the licence:

"Adaptation" means a work based upon the Work, or upon the Work and other pre-existing works, such as a translation, adaptation, derivative work, arrangement of music or other alterations of a literary or artistic work, or phonogram or performance and includes cinematographic adaptations or any other form in which the Work may be recast, transformed, or adapted including in any form recognizably derived from the original, except that a work that constitutes a Collection will not be considered an Adaptation for the purpose of this License. For the avoidance of doubt, where the Work is a musical work, performance or phonogram, the synchronization of the Work in timed-relation with a moving image ("synching") will be considered an Adaptation for the purpose of this License.

Now consider some example edits to a page:

• A user looks at a page and identifies the latest edit as vandalism. Accordingly, the editor hits the rollback button, and the page returns to an earlier revision. It is clear from the licence that an adaptation is something new. In this case, nothing new has been created; the page has merely been reverted to an earlier state. The user who hit the rollback button therefore didn't create an adaptation of the page, and thus hitting the rollback button didn't affect the licensing status of the page.
• A user looks at a page and discovers a spelling error. The user clicks on the edit button and corrects the spelling error but makes no other changes to the page. The definition of an adaptation states that the new content must be a work. This edit does not meet the threshold of originality and is therefore not a work. Accordingly, the user did not create an adaptation of the work by making this edit. A typical bot edit doesn't meet the threshold of originality either and therefore won't constitute an adaptation.
• A user removes a portion of the text on the page. Depending on what else the user or other users do, an adaptation may have been created on the page, but the removed content is not a part of the adaptation as it is no longer a part of the page. In other words, people who are researching the history of Wikipedia pages need to be very careful as historical content may be subject to different licensing criteria.
• Me adding this post to this talk page. I'm contributing a brand new work which is not part of or based on any existing work on this page. This page contains multiple works (talk page comments by multiple users) and seems to meet the definition of a 'collection' as used in the definition of an 'adaptation'. As a 'collection' is not considered to be an 'adaptation', I have not created an adaptation by adding this post to this page. In other words, my edit would only have the effect of licensing this single comment, while other works on the page remain licensed under their respective licences, which may be a mixture of CC-BY-SA 3.0 and CC-BY-SA 4.0. A user who wants to use the entire page therefore needs to comply with both CC-BY-SA 3.0 and with CC-BY-SA 4.0. [Don't mix up the words 'work' and 'page'. Back in 2013, there was a long discussion on Commons (see c:Commons:Village pump/Copyright/Archive/2014/06#File:Trabalhos.jpg) after a deletion request where User:Jameslwoodward correctly noted that a 'work' is not the same thing as a 'file' on Commons. The same distinction applies to the words 'work' and 'page' on a typical wikiproject. Any typical talk page or noticeboard with multiple discussion normally counts as a 'collection' within the meaning of CC-BY-SA 3.0.]
• An editor creates an adaptation by editing the section w:United States#History. Is the article w:United States considered a 'collection'; in other words, is the section w:United States#Demographics considered to be part of the same work as the section w:United States#History, or are the sections considered to be different works within a collection of works? It is not clear to me whether a complex article like English Wikipedia's article about the United States would be seen as one work or as several works. In the former case, the creation of the adaptation would relicense both sections. In the latter case, only the History section (or a portion thereof) would be relicensed, while the Demographics section would remain under the old licence. Copyright law is not really designed to require people to count the number of works used, but only to determine if copyrighted content is used unlawfully or not.

As many pages rarely are edited, there will always be plenty of pages where the edits made between one date and a later date do not meet the threshold of originality. Therefore, it seems that a user who wishes to use an entire page needs to determine if the edits made from the relicensing date up until the date of the revision the user is using meet the threshold of originality or not. The threshold of originality differs from country to country (see c:COM:TOO) and also appears to be somewhat irregular. As it is complex to determine if something meets the threshold of originality or not, the question sometimes has to be determined by supreme court judges, and even then, it seems that the outcome sometimes depends on which judge you happen to get. The user who is using the page needs to fetch a large number of pages automatically and therefore needs an automated computer program which makes a water-proof verification of the edit(s) to determine if an adaptation has been created. How can this computer program be written?

According to the page c:COM:TOO, the threshold of originality is a lot higher in the United States than in the United Kingdom. In other words, an edit to a page may meet the threshold of originality of the United States but not the threshold of originality of the United Kingdom. Does this mean that an adaptation has been created within the meaning of British law but that no adaptation has been created within the meaning of American law? Also, does this mean that content users in the United Kingdom need to comply with the terms of CC-BY-SA 4.0 when using the modified content, while content users in the United States need to comply with the terms of CC-BY-SA 3.0 when using the same content? And should you comply with both licences when the content is used internationally (for example on the Internet), with a complete list of all 'CC-BY-SA 3.0 countries' and 'CC-BY-SA 4.0 countries'? If so, how can such country lists easily be generated?

Also, the 'definitions' part of CC-BY-SA 3.0 appears to contain a definition of the word 'work'. The definition seems similar to those which you find in copyright laws which essentially mean that a work is anything which meets the threshold of originality. Does this mean that you should use a specific 'CC-BY-SA-only' threshold of originality for the purpose of determining if an adaptation has been created instead of using the normal country-dependent definitions from copyright laws?

If you use a page which is a collection of works (such as this talk page), and the collected works are available under a variety of different licences, then I get the impression that you need to specify which of the works you are using under CC-BY-SA 3.0 and which of them you are using under CC-BY-SA 4.0. How specific does a list like this need to be? Does such a list need to contain a list of section headers per licence, or is it enough to write that 'some content is under version 3.0 and other content is under version 4.0' without being more specific?

Does the proposed change mean that it will be virtually impossible for a content user to determine which Creative Commons licence to use for which parts of a page and that content users therefore effectively will be forced to rely on the content being available under the GFDL? --Stefan2 (talk) 00:56, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

@Stefan2: This is a pretty complex question, let me see if I can help. First off, old versions of an article remain in history and would remain under 3.0. Second, in practice, there's no particular difference: attributing an article by linking back to it on Wikipedia satisfies both 4.0 and 3.0, so a reuser who follows the attribution specified in the terms of use is fine. Third, the licenses don't require the detailed level of division that you're looking at here. Just like a book can be licensed under a particular license, even though the book is hundreds of pages and could even have chapters contributed by different authors, so too a Wikipedia article can be licensed as one work with multiple contributors. As we noted in the legal note "After the Terms of Use are modified to use version 4.0, an article may be used under the 4.0 version of the license according to the attribution requirements in the Wikimedia Terms of Use." Yes, this does leave some niche cases like if you pull an old edit out of the history, it will only be under 3.0. But the work as a whole can be under 4.0 and if you follow the attribution requirements, you'll satisfy both licenses and not have to worry about the distinction. -Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 03:50, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

@Jrogers (WMF): @Stefan2: Not that you are wrong, but to clarify.... any work that is 'under 3.0' is also available under 4.0, by the terms of the 3.0 license. This issue can be essentially avoided by 'only' saying that content is under 4.0, and simply not mentioning that some 'old' content might also be available under 3.0. It might be worth mentioning on the other page here that everything on Wikipedia is already usable (or reusable) under a 4.0 license. Revent (talk) 06:02, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Just to clarify what I mean, here, for the tendentious... when I say that text is already under 4.0. The 'WMF websites' are, themselves, offered to the public 'as a whole' under 3.0, as 'works' of collective authorship in and of themselves... an 'online encyclopedia'. Any modification of that collective work, even if it is to extract solely the contributions of a specific contributor, is a 'modification' of the work offered under 3.0, and thus under 4.0. I do not think that the definitions of 'work' and 'adaptation' in the 3.0 license themselves incorporate the concept of the threshold of originality.... the definition of 'work' includes "without limitation any production in the literary, scientific and artistic domain"... a selected excerpt of a Work is itself a Work.

If you are obtaining the contribution of a specific contributor from Wikipedia, from the WMF, you are not obtaining the 'work' of that contributor from it's author, you are obtaining a 'collective work' from the WMF, under 3.0.... the WMF is offering you, and you are obtaining from the WMF, a work under 3.0, and modifying it. That modification allows you to use the material under 4.0. Revent (talk) 06:36, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

A question on licence compatibility

I have a question about the use of the CC-BY-SA 4.0 content. Section 3 b 3 of CC-BY-SA 4.0 states:

You may not offer or impose any additional or different terms or conditions on, or apply any Effective Technological Measures to, Adapted Material that restrict exercise of the rights granted under the Adapter's License You apply.

In other words, anyone who creates adaptations of CC-BY-SA 4.0 content may not impose an additional requirement to link to, or include a copy of, the text of CC-BY-SA 4.0. However, section 4 b of CC-BY-SA 3.0 states:

If you license the Adaptation under the terms of any of the licenses mentioned in (i), (ii) or (iii) (the "Applicable License"), you must comply with the terms of the Applicable License generally and the following provisions: (I) You must include a copy of, or the URI for, the Applicable License with every copy of each Adaptation You Distribute or Publicly Perform;

In other words, it seems that CC-BY-SA 3.0 content can't be used together with content licensed under a different licence, if the other licence doesn't allow you to require all reusers to include a copy of, or link to, a licence. Does this mean that CC-BY-SA 3.0 and CC-BY-SA 4.0 in fact are incompatible with each other and that anyone wishing to combine CC-BY-SA 3.0 content with CC-BY-SA 4.0 content needs to obtain explicit permission from all of the copyright holders of the CC-BY-SA 4.0 content that it is permitted to impose a restriction on adaptations saying that users are required to include a URL or a copy of a long legal text? Note that CC-BY-SA 3.0 is not a licence with 'this version or later' (as written in Section 3 b of CC-BY-SA 4.0) but a licence with 'this version or earlier'.

All pages I've seen on the Internet only seem to discuss compatibility issues with the content under the lower version number but not with compatibility issues with the content under the higher version number. --Stefan2 (talk) 01:01, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Stefan2, you said: Note that CC-BY-SA 3.0 is not a licence with 'this version or later' (as written in Section 3 b of CC-BY-SA 4.0) but a licence with 'this version or earlier'. This seems to me to be mistaken. The wording of CC BY-SA 3.0 is here. It says:

You may Distribute or Publicly Perform an Adaptation only under the terms of: (i) this License; (ii) a later version of this License with the same License Elements as this License; (iii) a Creative Commons jurisdiction license (either this or a later license version) that contains the same License Elements as this License (e.g., Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 US)); (iv) a Creative Commons Compatible License.

Have I misunderstood your concern, or does that alleviate it? Zazpot (talk) 16:50, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

92.97.98.9

Please do not change wikipedia this is the only source that is open and free to everyone ..... keep it free and open and stand behind the promise of freedom and no copyrights. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 92.97.98.9 (talk) 21:12, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

You appear not to understand that Wikipedia already has Terms of Use. Those terms invoke copyleft licenses. Those licenses rest on copyright law, but they do so in a way that makes Wikipedia a [freedomdefined.org Free Cultural Work]. Zazpot (talk) 23:51, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

The problem with waiving attribution requirements for database rights

Waiving attribution requirements for database rights is not necessary under CC BY-SA 4.0. The proposed new terms introduce such a waiver in addition to the terms of 4.0.: "Where you own Sui Generis Database Rights covered by CC BY-SA 4.0, you waive these rights. As an example, this means facts you contribute to the projects may be reused freely without attribution."

This is problematic in several respects:

• It creates a crayon license that will be confusing for licensors and licensees alike: "If I re-use this data, do I need to comply with the terms of CC BY-SA 4.0?" "Yes! Er, actually, no. Er, well, some of them, but not all of them. It's complicated!"

• It is harmful. Attribution is important for two key reasons: 1. credit, which helps ensure that the commons can be cherished rather than ruthlessly exploited; 2. provenance, which ensures that the sources of the data can be identified. Provenance is crucial if data are to be trustworthy, yet the proposed new terms completely overlook this fact.

• It is unnecessary: CC BY-SA 4.0 is a carefully worded license that has withstood extensive scrutiny, is cohesive, and is adequate by itself. Moreover, in relation to databases, as Luis Villa acknowledged (despite his later, unsound conclusion that we should all give up and use CC0 for databases, because people are lazy) there is already a much better solution, which is simply for licensors to apply copyleft licenses and for licensees to uphold them (or face legal consequences):

The least-bad “solution” here is to (1) tag every field (not just data source) with licensing information, and (2) have data-reading software create new, accurate attribution information every time a new view into the data is created. (I actually know of at least one company that does this internally!)

— Villa, Luis (14 September 2016). "Copyleft and data: databases as poor subject". Retrieved 8 November 2016. 

I therefore support the adoption of CC BY-SA 4.0 in place of CC BY-SA 3.0 within WMF projects, but wholeheartedly reject the inclusion of any additional licensing terms or waivers into the Terms of Use. Zazpot (talk) 15:55, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Not sure how feasible that is. Not all jurisdictions in the world accept sui generis database rights, most of them don't in fact. I don't think we should have copyright terms that are invalid in most of the world. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:04, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

The second sentence in your comment focuses on database rights, but the third sentence focuses on copyright. These are different things. What are you actually trying to say? Zazpot (talk) 16:22, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

They are oftentimes considered the same thing. For the purpose of the license, they can be. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:01, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps, but the additional waiver in the proposed Terms of Use addresses situations where they are not the same thing. So, I'm afraid I still don't see what your point is. Sorry. Zazpot (talk) 23:30, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Well, your argument looks like you want CC-BY-SA 4.0 conditions (attribution and share alike) to apply for database rights as well. I am arguing that it is not feasible for us to grant database rights at all, even if it's only attribution and share alike. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:28, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

"your argument looks like you want CC-BY-SA 4.0 conditions (attribution and share alike) to apply for database rights as well." Yes, as far as possible. And that's exactly what CC-BY-SA 4.0 is designed to provide.

"I am arguing that it is not feasible for us to grant database rights at all." That is a muddled objection. It is up to the licensor to choose which rights to grant (or not) in relation to any databases she has contributed to, as far as her jurisdiction allows. That is, it is entirely feasible for any licensor in a suitable jurisdiction to grant or withhold rights to the use of such work, as she wishes. It is, obviously, important that contributions to WMF projects should use licenses that are internationally valid. Again, CC-BY-SA 4.0 is designed to provide that, even though SGDRs are not recognised in all jurisdictions. I.e. CC BY-SA 4.0 allows SGDR protections to persist under BY-SA wherever such protection is available, thereby upholding the copyleft principles upon which Wikipedia was built. The objectionable additional waiver in the proposed Terms of Use, by contrast, unilaterally reduces such SGDR protections to the level of the lowest common denominator: no protection at all. Zazpot (talk) 01:56, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

So, you want to force people to observe SGDRs via the license even though they are invalid in most of the world? I don't think this is feasible either and sounds a bit like gaming the license. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:34, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

"you want to force people to observe SGDRs via the license even though they are invalid in most of the world?" That is not something I have said. My position is as stated earlier, i.e.: I support the adoption of CC BY-SA 4.0 in place of CC BY-SA 3.0 within WMF projects, but wholeheartedly reject the inclusion of any additional licensing terms or waivers into the Terms of Use. In other words, I want the CC BY-SA 4.0 license to be adopted in full, not just in part. "sounds a bit like gaming the license." Adopting it in full would be the exact opposite of "gaming the license". Zazpot (talk) 23:00, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Well, given that SGDRs are invalid in much (if not most) of the world, a "full adoption" of the license would be invalid as well, with only the copyright bits applying. I also wonder what is or is not covered by SGDR. So yeah, I still think asking people to comply with it is of dubious feasibility. I wonder if this may be a per-project issue, too - a Wikipedia in a language of a country without SGDR may have different considerations than say the German Wikipedia. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:03, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

"a 'full adoption' of the license would be invalid as well [and] asking people to comply with it is of dubious feasibility.". No, adoption of the license would not be "invalid", and no, there is nothing infeasible about asking people to comply with it. Please read the link I already provided. Zazpot (talk) 02:04, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

I did read it. It's still not clear to me where what would be protected. Handling different copyright status per country for images is a pain and I am not looking forward to sort out the same thing for whatever will qualify as a database somewhere. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:05, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

I agree that handling different copyright status per country for images is a pain. But it would hardly be fair to blame the license for this! Creating a copyleft, global encyclopedia is not something we do because it is easy. We do it because it is worthwhile. The most responsible path forward is not to sacrifice the copyleft principle and give in to permissive licensing; but rather to adopt (within WMF wikis) the strongest, clearest, compatible free culture license available; and to lobby (outside of WMF wikis) for better and more harmonised "intellectual property" rights to be adopted in the countries where those wikis are used. Zazpot (talk) 18:18, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Comments about this process

• Archiving comments while the discussion is ongoing, when the conversion would be over within weeks, was/is not appropriate. The autoarchive settings are disruptive.
  • Legal should have decided what the change would entail before asking millions of people to !vote on it. --Elvey (talk) 15:42, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Agree, the archiving has made the discussion nonsensical. This page is not an appropriate record. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:23, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

• We shouldn't use the notice board for that, we are seeing a lot of comments from who do not understand the question... at least are this only visible for Autoconfirmed?? Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton ^m 09:19, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

  @R.T.Argenton: Per the Wikimedia Terms of use (section 16), this is necessary to inform our users of this proposed change and to allow for it to be debated in this sort of format. The Legal Team aims to answer some of the key questions and concerns people have. :) Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 20:48, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

  And regardless of any formal rules, we should allow any user who is autoconfirmed on any of the projects, even if they aren't here. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:42, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

• I think wikipedia should do a poll/vote popup. That way, a large number of people can give quick feedback without spending time on commenting. -Meg

• This discussion is nonsensical in terms of ALL Wikimedia content (it would make sense in specific Wikimedia projects). Note that some project used so far compatibility in licenses to import content, we can't therefore re-license any of those works by absentia (previous attempts have at best resulted in a dual licensing situation) that at later time if enough personal or economic motivation exist can come to bite back Wikimedia. --109.49.141.100 10:45, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Sinct this migration is explicitly permitted by the current license, we can do this for authors who oppose, let alone for those who don't express any opinion; and we want to ensure the free reusage content from any wiki on any other wiki, so they must all have compatable licenses. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:44, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

• Most people commenting here seem misinformed, not knowing a thing about what these licenses are about. Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)
  • Agree: The poor quality of the feedback is the result of the poor quality of the outreach. All our policies start with an 'in a nutshell' section. This one starts off saying the plan is "to use the latest version of the Creative Commons license". This is clearly confusing a large fraction of the people providing feedback, who think this is a bigger change than from 3.0 to 4.0 of the same basic license; better wording is needed. Maybe change that wording to: "to continue to use the latest version of the Creative Commons license by making these changes)". Likewise, the announcement page say, "We are considering upgrading the default copyright license for Wikimedia to Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0."; no mention of what we're moving from. I can see that legal tried - they made a FAQ, after all. But a bit more QA is needed when you know you're going to impact many, many people.--Elvey (talk) 16:12, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

• In my opinion, these licenses are good. They can really give some hopes and respects to our common writers who dedicated themselves into daily creations and identifications of knowledge in wiki-group, especially when facing some new-coming and new-forming knowledge of or accross multiple-discplinary knowledge, which haven't been assessed just as right or wrong. They have this kind of enthusiasms in creative writing. We need to leave more spaces for their professional expressions in their fields. And, some volunteers in system can together make their writings better. They believed in Wiki. This is our honour. Creative Commons License 4's coming, I think, should be an all-inclusive evolution - respecting the past, giving some portals connecting the past licences-channels systermatically and try to protect some original creative ideas in good usages. Creative commons can write down them in Wiki - that's our joyfulness, no matter what types if a little bit clear, we can try to help them, collect some new and modify them in a new system, rather than excluding them. Another thing, we can try to understand more 'special personilities and habits' of our diverse writers in different fields. They may have very different voices and some strong abilities than normal, and they are willing to be heard. If losing them, it's the lacks of oursleves. Open more doors, worlds will be much larger than we thought. That's my personal comment. Hoping fine! Jason M. C., Han (talk) 04:04, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

That's not a comment about this process. (And if it wasn't for the spelling errors, I'd think it was a machine translation.)--Elvey (talk) 15:42, 5 November 2016 (UTC)