
MIT Economist: Here's How Copyright Laws Impoverish Wikipedia - iProject
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/mit-economist-heres-how-copyright-laws-impoverish-wikipedia/259970/
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john_horton
A conceptually similar paper by another MIT economist looked at how the IP
protection afforded to different genes at the time of sequencing affected
follow-on research. Genens that were immediately in the public domain
stimulated about about 20-30% more research/product development than
comparable Celera-sequence genes that had IP protection. The paper is here:
<http://economics.mit.edu/files/6803>

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_delirium
Another source of imbalance here is countries being stingy with their
government-created works. You end up with a larger percentage of Wikipedia
articles, and therefore also anything that draws from Wikipedia as a source,
being illustrated by US-government-sourced photos than should otherwise be the
case, since U.S. federal govt works are public domain. It's _slowly_ changing
in a few cases, though, with initiatives like:
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Bundesarchiv>

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tommorris
Another example at the moment is the UK government are slowly opening up with
the Open Government License.

<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:OGL>

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SagelyGuru
It is an obvious foregone conclusion that a copyrighted image is going to be
used less than one that is in the public domain.

Given the administrative hassles of getting a permission, not to mention
having to make royalties payments, all ensure that this is the case. Surely,
to stop people using the image or whatever is the very purpose of copyright in
the first place?

Where is the utility and novelty in 'research' like this?

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SilasX
What's more, you can't fairly assess the full effect unless you account for
the usable content that exists out there and would not exist but for copyright
laws.

I know it's popular on sites like this one to act like copyright laws are
strictly bad, that no work's creation ever depends on IP laws, etc., but an
honest assessment would be that _some_ works require IP to exist, while some
do not.

So, after creation, copyright hurts Wikipedia's ability to incorporate a work,
while some works would not exist but for copyright. Which effect is more
significant, and is that a net positive or negative for Wikipedia?

Well, that would take real research.

You know, the kind this economist didn't do.

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true_religion
Saying something is a negative doesn't mean that it is in all counts bad.

A common argument is that more creativity is restricted by copyright than is
enabled by it.

That makes copyright a poor trade off.

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SilasX
How does that disagree with or add to what I just said?

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true_religion
I agree with you.

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Dylan16807
This isn't about copyright, really. Wikipedia has a faction that dislikes
fair-use non-free images. This faction is largely political in nature. It's
not about the actual laws.

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chris_wot
It is about the laws. Fair use is a very restrictive use for copyrighted
images - you can only use the if you transform them significantly in some way,
reduce the image quality so that you don't reduce the value for the original
owner, or use the in a not for profit medium as fair use tends to be more
friendly to this sort of thing.

None of these things are really viable for Wikipedia. Fair use is a necessary
evil, but when they can replaced with a free image then that is what is done!

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Dylan16807
The problem is when images are replaced with nothing or with far inferior
images. I agree that free should be prioritized when the two images are in the
same ballpark of quality.

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chris_wot
It is indeed a problem, however the project has as one of it's five pillars
that it is free content that anyone can access, use, modify or distribute.

This means that if the image is restricted in such a way that others can't
modify or distribute it, then it can't be used. Fair use is a legal doctrine
that limits the rights of copyright holders, but it is very narrow.

Essentially, to be "fair use", the usage must consider the purpose of the
work, the nature of the work, the amount used and the effect using the work
has on the market for the work.

In essence, while fair use allows for free distribution, it also severely
limits it. Fair use is thus controversial on Wikipedia, and while allowed is
severely frowned upon.

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Dylan16807
Most images in an encyclopedia don't need modification. Fair use takes care of
access and distribution pretty well.

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chris_wot
As I stated before, one of the primary tenets of Wikipedia is that it is "free
content that anyone can access, use, modify or distribute."

If you can't modify something that is part of the project, then this is
defying the essential _raison de être_ of the project. Fair use allows it, but
it's so problematic that many would just like to get rid of it. I'm not one of
those people, but it should only be used judiciously.

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gmrple
"But Nagaraj found was that the availability of public domain material
dramatically improved the article's images. Before the digitization, players
from between '44 and '64 had an average of .183 pictures on their articles.
The '64 to '84 group had about .158 pictures. But after digitization, those
numbers dramatically changed: there were 1.15 pictures on each of the older
group's articles -- but only .667 in the new group. More recent players,
covered by privately-owned parts of Baseball Digest, had half as many images
on their pages as did old-timers."

Should that be 0.0667?

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lubujackson
So for one specific example where there was one data source partially
copywritten, the open content was used and the copywritten information wasn't.
Thus, sweeping conclusion about copyright law.

And this is why economists are useless.

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rhizome
It's also why generalizations are awesome!

