Baidupedia copyvio collections

[Titan Deng]

Hi,

We Chinese Wikipedians are now collecting Baidupedia articles which were
copied from Chinese Wikipedia.
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E7%99%BE%E5%BA%A6%E7%99%BE%E7%A7%91%E5%B0%8D%E7%B6%AD%E5%9F%BA%E7%99%BE%E7%A7%91%E7%9A%84%E4%BE%B5%E6%AC%8A
You may click the link above to see how many they are. (We put "Featured
articles", "Good articles", "DYK and other general articles" in groups.)
Baidupedia users not only copied from zh.wp, but also from ja.wp and en.wp.
I think we could now do the evidence collection works first, and I hope the
list could be useful if one day the WMF takes some action to Baidu.

Regards,
Titan
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[Effe iets anders]

Just a weird question maybe, but has it been tried to just write them
a letter and ask to remove the content? Please note that WMF is nto
the author of the content, and does not own the content. individual
authors such as yourself could of course. Therefore i doubt she could
enforce the GFDL requirements. Or are you suggestion rather press/pr
action?

Best regards,

Lodewijk

2008/6/11 Titan Deng <[hidden email]>:

> Hi,
>
> We Chinese Wikipedians are now collecting Baidupedia articles which were
> copied from Chinese Wikipedia.
> http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E7%99%BE%E5%BA%A6%E7%99%BE%E7%A7%91%E5%B0%8D%E7%B6%AD%E5%9F%BA%E7%99%BE%E7%A7%91%E7%9A%84%E4%BE%B5%E6%AC%8A
> You may click the link above to see how many they are. (We put "Featured
> articles", "Good articles", "DYK and other general articles" in groups.)
> Baidupedia users not only copied from zh.wp, but also from ja.wp and en.wp.
> I think we could now do the evidence collection works first, and I hope the
> list could be useful if one day the WMF takes some action to Baidu.
>
> Regards,
> Titan
> --
> Support the Wikimedia Foundation: http://donate.wikimedia.org
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> [hidden email]
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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[Ting Chen-2]

Baidupedia is an issue since it came to live. We have tried many times to contact them for this issue.

It is not an issue of the individuals, but indeed a foundation issue, because Baidupedia is in a very big scope copyviolating and they don't care, and not only zh-wp is a victim of them.

yours
Ting Chen

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:41:00 +0200
> Von: "effe iets anders" <[hidden email]>
> An: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <[hidden email]>
> Betreff: Re: [Foundation-l] Baidupedia copyvio collections

> Just a weird question maybe, but has it been tried to just write them
> a letter and ask to remove the content? Please note that WMF is nto
> the author of the content, and does not own the content. individual
> authors such as yourself could of course. Therefore i doubt she could
> enforce the GFDL requirements. Or are you suggestion rather press/pr
> action?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Lodewijk
>
> 2008/6/11 Titan Deng <[hidden email]>:
> > Hi,
> >
> > We Chinese Wikipedians are now collecting Baidupedia articles which were
> > copied from Chinese Wikipedia.
> >
> http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E7%99%BE%E5%BA%A6%E7%99%BE%E7%A7%91%E5%B0%8D%E7%B6%AD%E5%9F%BA%E7%99%BE%E7%A7%91%E7%9A%84%E4%BE%B5%E6%AC%8A
> > You may click the link above to see how many they are. (We put "Featured
> > articles", "Good articles", "DYK and other general articles" in groups.)
> > Baidupedia users not only copied from zh.wp, but also from ja.wp and
> en.wp.
> > I think we could now do the evidence collection works first, and I hope
> the
> > list could be useful if one day the WMF takes some action to Baidu.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Titan
> > --
> > Support the Wikimedia Foundation: http://donate.wikimedia.org
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > [hidden email]
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
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[Andre Engels]

2008/6/11 Ting Chen <[hidden email]>:
> Baidupedia is an issue since it came to live. We have tried many times to contact them for this issue.
>
> It is not an issue of the individuals, but indeed a foundation issue, because Baidupedia is in a very big scope copyviolating and they don't care, and not only zh-wp is a victim of them.

It is an issue of the individuals, because they are the ones whose
rights have been breached.


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[Waerth]

The Chinese government official will take your letter. Translate it for
his colleagues and they will have a big laugh over it in the Karaoke
joint later that night. Having dealt with officials in that country and
the whole region here. They couldn't care less about it.

Waerth

> Just a weird question maybe, but has it been tried to just write them
> a letter and ask to remove the content? Please note that WMF is nto
> the author of the content, and does not own the content. individual
> authors such as yourself could of course. Therefore i doubt she could
> enforce the GFDL requirements. Or are you suggestion rather press/pr
> action?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Lodewijk
>
> 2008/6/11 Titan Deng <[hidden email]>:
>  
>> Hi,
>>
>> We Chinese Wikipedians are now collecting Baidupedia articles which were
>> copied from Chinese Wikipedia.
>> http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E7%99%BE%E5%BA%A6%E7%99%BE%E7%A7%91%E5%B0%8D%E7%B6%AD%E5%9F%BA%E7%99%BE%E7%A7%91%E7%9A%84%E4%BE%B5%E6%AC%8A
>> You may click the link above to see how many they are. (We put "Featured
>> articles", "Good articles", "DYK and other general articles" in groups.)
>> Baidupedia users not only copied from zh.wp, but also from ja.wp and en.wp.
>> I think we could now do the evidence collection works first, and I hope the
>> list could be useful if one day the WMF takes some action to Baidu.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Titan
>> --
>> Support the Wikimedia Foundation: http://donate.wikimedia.org
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>>    
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> [hidden email]
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>  

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[Ray Saintonge]

Andre Engels wrote:

> 2008/6/11 Ting Chen <[hidden email]>:
>  
>> Baidupedia is an issue since it came to live. We have tried many times to contact them for this issue.
>>
>> It is not an issue of the individuals, but indeed a foundation issue, because Baidupedia is in a very big scope copyviolating and they don't care, and not only zh-wp is a victim of them.
>>    
> It is an issue of the individuals, because they are the ones whose
> rights have been breached.
>
>
>  

Indeed.  That is one of the big failings of our current licensing
scheme.  Any one individual's contributions may not be worth the bother
of a copyright infringement suit, which is always more difficult for the
plaintiff since he has the burden of proof.  When articles have multiple
authors the defendant can probably pick the claim apart by pointing out
that particular sentences were written by persons other than the plaintiff.

Having the licence include an appointment of WMF as a non-exclusive
agent for the purpose of prosecuting violations could give WMF standing
to go after the most egregious violators.

Ec

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[Milos Rancic-2]

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 6:25 PM, Ray Saintonge <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Andre Engels wrote:
>> 2008/6/11 Ting Chen <[hidden email]>:
>>
>>> Baidupedia is an issue since it came to live. We have tried many times to contact them for this issue.
>>>
>>> It is not an issue of the individuals, but indeed a foundation issue, because Baidupedia is in a very big scope copyviolating and they don't care, and not only zh-wp is a victim of them.
>>>
>> It is an issue of the individuals, because they are the ones whose
>> rights have been breached.
>>
>>
>>
> Indeed.  That is one of the big failings of our current licensing
> scheme.  Any one individual's contributions may not be worth the bother
> of a copyright infringement suit, which is always more difficult for the
> plaintiff since he has the burden of proof.  When articles have multiple
> authors the defendant can probably pick the claim apart by pointing out
> that particular sentences were written by persons other than the plaintiff.
>
> Having the licence include an appointment of WMF as a non-exclusive
> agent for the purpose of prosecuting violations could give WMF standing
> to go after the most egregious violators.

I think that I understand what Ting wants to say: It is copyvio of the
scale which threats to the whole project. Because of that WMF should
find some way how to act. Not in the sense of authorship, but in the
sense of protecting the project. I don't know how, maybe Mike has some
answer :)

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[Ting Chen-2]

> It is an issue of the individuals, because they are the ones whose
> rights have been breached.

This is not that easy. If I contribute for the GNU projects and a company comes and takes the part of code I contributed, builds it in its own software and claim it to be its own property. It is my right that is breached, yes. But the FSF would take the intrest of the project and sue the company.

In this case it is not just a hobby website take our content for his small website. It is a company who purposefully take large quantity of contents from our projects and claim it to be theirs. The quantity of authors that is in this case breached is enomous. It is the duty of the foundation to protect the interest of our community.

Baidu is also sued by the music industry in America because of mp3 issues.

In this case an individual do not have the resource to make the lawsuite, and for an individual from China or Taiwan, whose right is breached, it is almost impossible. If the foundation don't care this matter, it is a shame.

Yours
Ting Chen
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[Michael Bimmler]

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 8:12 PM, Ting Chen <[hidden email]> wrote:

> > It is an issue of the individuals, because they are the ones whose
> > rights have been breached.
>
> This is not that easy. If I contribute for the GNU projects and a company
> comes and takes the part of code I contributed, builds it in its own
> software and claim it to be its own property. It is my right that is
> breached, yes. But the FSF would take the intrest of the project and sue the
> company.
>
>

IANAL, but how exactly can they sue them if they don't own the copyright
(resp. patent rights or whatever) to the software?
Are you suggesting that the WMF takes 'mandates' from individual WM
contributors to sue on behalf of them? This would probably mean that a
fund/endowment for 'the legal defense of the moral rights of Wikimedia
contributors" would need to be created...

Michael



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[geni]

2008/6/11 Milos Rancic <[hidden email]>:
> I think that I understand what Ting wants to say: It is copyvio of the
> scale which threats to the whole project. Because of that WMF should
> find some way how to act. Not in the sense of authorship, but in the
> sense of protecting the project. I don't know how, maybe Mike has some
> answer :)

Worse than that. As long as china continues to block zh.wikipedia we
are not even in a position to compete.



--
geni

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[Ray Saintonge]

Ting Chen wrote:
> In this case it is not just a hobby website take our content for his small website. It is a company who purposefully take large quantity of contents from our projects and claim it to be theirs. The quantity of authors that is in this case breached is enomous. It is the duty of the foundation to protect the interest of our community.
>
> Baidu is also sued by the music industry in America because of mp3 issues.
>  

That would be a strange ally!
> In this case an individual do not have the resource to make the lawsuite, and for an individual from China or Taiwan, whose right is breached, it is almost impossible. If the foundation don't care this matter, it is a shame.

I have long felt that the difficulties when our collective copyrights
are breached would be greater than any problem we would face in trying
to abide by the rights of others.  We have any number of layers to
protect us from legal liabilities from copyvios, but there is very
little effort to deal with being on the other side of the dispute.  This
is definitely a point that I would raise before the Board if elected.

Ec



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[Ray Saintonge]

geni wrote:

> 2008/6/11 Milos Rancic <[hidden email]>:
>  
>> I think that I understand what Ting wants to say: It is copyvio of the
>> scale which threats to the whole project. Because of that WMF should
>> find some way how to act. Not in the sense of authorship, but in the
>> sense of protecting the project. I don't know how, maybe Mike has some
>> answer :)
>>    
> Worse than that. As long as china continues to block zh.wikipedia we
> are not even in a position to compete.
>
>
>  

IIRC, Baidu does have a US Corporation, and that would strengthen the
jurisdiction of the US courts.  We really need to take a more
imaginative approach to this problem.

Ec

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[Robert Rohde]

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 12:54 PM, Ray Saintonge <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Ting Chen wrote:
> > In this case it is not just a hobby website take our content for his
> small website. It is a company who purposefully take large quantity of
> contents from our projects and claim it to be theirs. The quantity of
> authors that is in this case breached is enomous. It is the duty of the
> foundation to protect the interest of our community.
> >
> > Baidu is also sued by the music industry in America because of mp3
> issues.
> >
>
> That would be a strange ally!

<snip>

Actually the music industry lost their first suit against Baidu, despite
their claims that Baidu facillitates something like 40% of all music piracy
in China.

-Robert Rohde
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[Ray Saintonge]

Michael Bimmler wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 8:12 PM, Ting Chen <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>  
>>> It is an issue of the individuals, because they are the ones whose
>>> rights have been breached.
>>>      
>> This is not that easy. If I contribute for the GNU projects and a company
>> comes and takes the part of code I contributed, builds it in its own
>> software and claim it to be its own property. It is my right that is
>> breached, yes. But the FSF would take the intrest of the project and sue the
>> company.
>>    
> IANAL, but how exactly can they sue them if they don't own the copyright
> (resp. patent rights or whatever) to the software?
> Are you suggesting that the WMF takes 'mandates' from individual WM
> contributors to sue on behalf of them? This would probably mean that a
> fund/endowment for 'the legal defense of the moral rights of Wikimedia
> contributors" would need to be created...
>  

"Agent" or "mandate" would come to roughly the same thing.  I'm not a
big supporter of the idea of legal defence funds.  Ironically, I believe
that defending our view could be done more cheaply without it.  Donors
are likely to be more generous with a Foundation that has the guts to
exercise its rights when it doesn't have the money in the bank for it.

The moral rights argument would likely be very weak in the United
States.  While US copyright law does pay lip service to moral rights it
does not penalize violations of moral rights.  We might do better with
questions around who protects the rights of the public, or breach of
contract -- perhaps even in a class action suit.  A lot of this is
untrodden ground, so it's difficult to say where our most effective
argument would lie. A little imagination would help.

Ec

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[Dan Rosenthal]

> I have long felt that the difficulties when our collective copyrights
> are breached would be greater than any problem we would face in trying
> to abide by the rights of others.  We have any number of layers to
> protect us from legal liabilities from copyvios, but there is very
> little effort to deal with being on the other side of the dispute.  This
> is definitely a point that I would raise before the Board if elected.
>
> Ec
>
>
> Financially, I have been led to believe the WMF does not really have the

resources available to be spending on prosecuting intellectual property
violations other than what we can do by hoping people abide by C+D letters.
Which is a shame too, because I would very much like to see the foundation
more litigious in its defense of our licenses by pursuing sites that use our
contributors works without attribution, (as well as other violations of our
IPs).


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[George William Herbert]

To some degree this is silly ... we enable mirrors and encourage them,
if they are legit and do the right thing under GFDL.

Perhaps honey is a better approach than vinegar.

"We are glad to see that you're mirroring our contributors' content,
but we're confused about why you haven't put in the history and
credits info as the GFDL license requires.  How can we work with you
to try and get your site properly compliant and set up as a proper
Wikipedia mirror?  Thanks!"

On the other hand, bad faith or extended refusal to cooperate or
respond would shift to a more antagonistic model...


-george william herbert


On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 4:30 PM, Dan Rosenthal <[hidden email]> wrote:

>> I have long felt that the difficulties when our collective copyrights
>> are breached would be greater than any problem we would face in trying
>> to abide by the rights of others.  We have any number of layers to
>> protect us from legal liabilities from copyvios, but there is very
>> little effort to deal with being on the other side of the dispute.  This
>> is definitely a point that I would raise before the Board if elected.
>>
>> Ec
>>
>>
>> Financially, I have been led to believe the WMF does not really have the
> resources available to be spending on prosecuting intellectual property
> violations other than what we can do by hoping people abide by C+D letters.
> Which is a shame too, because I would very much like to see the foundation
> more litigious in its defense of our licenses by pursuing sites that use our
> contributors works without attribution, (as well as other violations of our
> IPs).
>
>
> --
> Dan Rosenthal
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
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>

--
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[Andre Engels]

2008/6/11 Michael Bimmler <[hidden email]>:

> IANAL, but how exactly can they sue them if they don't own the copyright
> (resp. patent rights or whatever) to the software?
> Are you suggesting that the WMF takes 'mandates' from individual WM
> contributors to sue on behalf of them?

It's something I have thought about more than once - making some kind
of contract between me and the WMF, granting them rights to replublish
the material  I created for the various projects, and authorizing them
to take action against copyright infringement on them on my behalf.

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[George William Herbert]

One could make an argument that the Foundation has a compilation
copyright on the contents of the encyclopedias, if one wanted to
launch some legal efforts based on the existing content before we get
a more explicit authorized-agent license in the legalese associated
with making a contribution.

Someone might fight back on that point, and might conceivably win, but
we'd probably make it to trial on that point.  Which is probably far
enough.


-george

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 5:10 PM, Andre Engels <[hidden email]> wrote:

> 2008/6/11 Michael Bimmler <[hidden email]>:
>
>> IANAL, but how exactly can they sue them if they don't own the copyright
>> (resp. patent rights or whatever) to the software?
>> Are you suggesting that the WMF takes 'mandates' from individual WM
>> contributors to sue on behalf of them?
>
> It's something I have thought about more than once - making some kind
> of contract between me and the WMF, granting them rights to replublish
> the material  I created for the various projects, and authorizing them
> to take action against copyright infringement on them on my behalf.
>
> --
> Andre Engels, [hidden email]
> ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
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>

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[M. Williamson]

The thing is, Baidu does not host a Wikipedia mirror, per se. They
host their own Wiki encyclopedia, but many articles are taken directly
from WP with no credit given.

Mark

2008/6/11 George Herbert <[hidden email]>:

> To some degree this is silly ... we enable mirrors and encourage them,
> if they are legit and do the right thing under GFDL.
>
> Perhaps honey is a better approach than vinegar.
>
> "We are glad to see that you're mirroring our contributors' content,
> but we're confused about why you haven't put in the history and
> credits info as the GFDL license requires.  How can we work with you
> to try and get your site properly compliant and set up as a proper
> Wikipedia mirror?  Thanks!"
>
> On the other hand, bad faith or extended refusal to cooperate or
> respond would shift to a more antagonistic model...
>
>
> -george william herbert
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 4:30 PM, Dan Rosenthal <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> I have long felt that the difficulties when our collective copyrights
>>> are breached would be greater than any problem we would face in trying
>>> to abide by the rights of others.  We have any number of layers to
>>> protect us from legal liabilities from copyvios, but there is very
>>> little effort to deal with being on the other side of the dispute.  This
>>> is definitely a point that I would raise before the Board if elected.
>>>
>>> Ec
>>>
>>>
>>> Financially, I have been led to believe the WMF does not really have the
>> resources available to be spending on prosecuting intellectual property
>> violations other than what we can do by hoping people abide by C+D letters.
>> Which is a shame too, because I would very much like to see the foundation
>> more litigious in its defense of our licenses by pursuing sites that use our
>> contributors works without attribution, (as well as other violations of our
>> IPs).
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dan Rosenthal
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> [hidden email]
>
> _______________________________________________
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[Ray Saintonge]

Dan Rosenthal wrote:

>> I have long felt that the difficulties when our collective copyrights
>> are breached would be greater than any problem we would face in trying
>> to abide by the rights of others.  We have any number of layers to
>> protect us from legal liabilities from copyvios, but there is very
>> little effort to deal with being on the other side of the dispute.  This
>> is definitely a point that I would raise before the Board if elected.
>>    
> Financially, I have been led to believe the WMF does not really have the
>  
> resources available to be spending on prosecuting intellectual property
> violations other than what we can do by hoping people abide by C+D letters.
> Which is a shame too, because I would very much like to see the foundation
> more litigious in its defense of our licenses by pursuing sites that use our
> contributors works without attribution, (as well as other violations of our
> IPs).
>
>
>  

Sometimes, a lack of finances can be an easy excuse.  Like anything else
if it's otherwise a good idea, it needs to be given room in the budget.  
Michael Bimmler's allusion to moral rights made me wonder whether a case
could be brought in another country that has strong moral rights
legislation.  We wouldn't be looking for money, though it would be nice
to recover the costs of the suit.  We want proper attribution.

The right of attribution is essential to maintaining the viral character
of copyleft.  Copyrights need to be vigorously defended, or they risk
being treated as abandoned. If we tacitly consent to Baidu's improper
use of our material it puts into doubt the use of the same material
further downstream.  There would be a presumption that they have a
copyright on what they publish, and that would put a chill on anyone
wanting to use their material.  Commercial publishers may very well ask
and easily receive permission to use "their" material.  Acknowledging in
public that it is used with Baidu's permission would then strengthen the
fiction that there is a real copyright.

Ec


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