5 ms·

Wikitravel does not have any copyrights to anything, so I would hope not. It's all contributor-created content licensed under CC-by-SA which is free to copy und

Wikitravel does not have any copyrights to anything, so I would hope not. It's all contributor-created content licensed under CC-by-SA which is free to copy under certain terms. More importantly, Wikitravel is basically a dead man walking, and Wikivoyage is a living project.

tw04 5y ago
> Wikitravel does not have any copyrights to anything, so I would hope not. I guess I’d ask what authority you’re speaking from, because a quick perusal of their terms of use directly contradicts your claim. When you post content you sign over all ownership to them, and they do not allow scraping it. https://www.internetbrands.com/ibterms https://www.internetbrands.com/ibterms > You automatically grant and assign to us, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant and assign to us, a perpetual, irrevocable, unlimited, fully paid, fully sub-licensable (through multiple tiers), worldwide license to copy, perform, display, distribute, prepare derivative works from (including, without limitation, incorporating into other works) and otherwise use any content that you post. You also expressly grant and assign to us all rights and causes of action to prohibit and enforce against any unauthorized copying, performance, display, distribution, use or exploitation of, or creation of derivative works from, any content that you post (including but not limited to any unauthorized downloading, extraction, harvesting, collection or aggregation of content that you post). >Any copying, aggregation, display, distribution, performance or derivative use of our sites and services or any content posted on our sites and services whether done directly or through intermediaries (including but not limited to by means of spiders, robots, crawlers, scrapers, framing, iframes or RSS feeds) is prohibited.
- easton 5y ago
  https://wikitravel.org/shared/Copyleft https://wikitravel.org/shared/Copyleft seems to imply that you're allowed to share the content as long as you attribute it, which I'm almost certain wikivoyage is.
  - tw04 5y ago
    Wikitravel shared is a different site and different license than the main wikitravel site.
    - easton 5y ago
      From the bottom of https://wikitravel.org/en/Nepal https://wikitravel.org/en/Nepal: "Text is available under [http://wikitravel.org/shared/Copyleft http://wikitravel.org/shared/Copyleft Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0] images are available under [http://wikitravel.org/shared/How_to_re-use_Wikitravel_guides http://wikitravel.org/shared/How_to_re-use_Wikitravel_guides various licenses], see each image for details. This site is owned, operated, and maintained by MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. Copyright © 2018 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. " which implies the licensing details are hosted on the shared site, but they apply to the content on wikitravel.org.
- dustintrex 5y ago
  The footer on every page of the site states: Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 unless otherwise noted.
- cjensen 5y ago
  For authority: I hold copyright which I've never assigned to a "few" pages. Wikitravel is using my content under the CC-bySA license. The license they are using my content under does not permit them to forbid someone from copying the content.
  - nwiswell 5y ago
    Is this the case for ALL of the content which was copied by Wikivoyage? It doesn't matter if just 1% of the content was copied unlawfully - that's infringement.
    - cjensen 5y ago
      Yes. The footer of every page on Wikitravel makes that clear.
    - LukeShu 5y ago
      You are in abstract correct; but the "-SA" in the license that the parent post mentioned stands for "share-alike"; the same thing as "copyleft". Wikitravel cannot forbid someone from copying other parts of the page without violating their license to the parent poster's content.
- paulgb 5y ago
  The schism mentioned in the original post was a result of IB taking over Wikitravel; the content that was forked over on Wikivoyage mostly would have preexisted IB’s ownership of Wikitravel. So the terms that mention IB would not be the same terms the content in question was submitted under.
- kragen 5y ago
  Having someone assign a license to you doesn't normally grant you standing to sue for copyright infringement and definitely doesn't allow you to file a DMCA takedown notice, which requires you to affirm that you are the copyright holder, not a licensee. Copyright trolls have been smacked down pretty hard in US courts.
- diggernet 5y ago
  > a perpetual, irrevocable, unlimited, fully paid, fully sub-licensable (through multiple tiers), worldwide license So cjensen is right... They do not have any copyrights. They only have a license to use your copyrighted works themselves. But you notice it doesn't say it's an exclusive license. Then they claim you've given them the right to "prohibit and enforce against any unauthorized copying". Which might be true, but I don't see how they have any right to define "unauthorized", since it's not their copyright, and their license isn't exclusive.
ghostly_s 5y ago
Did you bother inquiring with the maintainers of this site, or just go straight to blogging about it?
- cjensen 5y ago
  As a former moderator at both sites who frequently explained this policy to contributors, no I didn't ask the maintainers, who once sued a moderator over the schism, any questions.
8kundv3 5y ago
Legalities come later. If a valid complaint is made, a platform must take action on the infringing content. Valid complaint does not mean honest or accurate complaint. Only that all information legally required to file a complaint is supplied.
- dang 5y ago
  Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=community%20identity%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
shp0ngle 5y ago
Wikitravel and Wikivoyage articles are usually functionally identical. There are sometimes information that are in one and not the other, or vice versa. However, when I look at actual edit history, wikivoyage seems indeed more active. So you got a point there. I usually check both.

tw04 5y ago

> Wikitravel does not have any copyrights to anything, so I would hope not. I guess I’d ask what authority you’re speaking from, because a quick perusal of their terms of use directly contradicts your claim. When you post content you sign over all ownership to them, and they do not allow scraping it. https://www.internetbrands.com/ibterms https://www.internetbrands.com/ibterms > You automatically grant and assign to us, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant and assign to us, a perpetual, irrevocable, unlimited, fully paid, fully sub-licensable (through multiple tiers), worldwide license to copy, perform, display, distribute, prepare derivative works from (including, without limitation, incorporating into other works) and otherwise use any content that you post. You also expressly grant and assign to us all rights and causes of action to prohibit and enforce against any unauthorized copying, performance, display, distribution, use or exploitation of, or creation of derivative works from, any content that you post (including but not limited to any unauthorized downloading, extraction, harvesting, collection or aggregation of content that you post). >Any copying, aggregation, display, distribution, performance or derivative use of our sites and services or any content posted on our sites and services whether done directly or through intermediaries (including but not limited to by means of spiders, robots, crawlers, scrapers, framing, iframes or RSS feeds) is prohibited.

easton 5y ago
https://wikitravel.org/shared/Copyleft https://wikitravel.org/shared/Copyleft seems to imply that you're allowed to share the content as long as you attribute it, which I'm almost certain wikivoyage is.
- tw04 5y ago
  Wikitravel shared is a different site and different license than the main wikitravel site.
  - easton 5y ago
    From the bottom of https://wikitravel.org/en/Nepal https://wikitravel.org/en/Nepal: "Text is available under [http://wikitravel.org/shared/Copyleft http://wikitravel.org/shared/Copyleft Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0] images are available under [http://wikitravel.org/shared/How_to_re-use_Wikitravel_guides http://wikitravel.org/shared/How_to_re-use_Wikitravel_guides various licenses], see each image for details. This site is owned, operated, and maintained by MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. Copyright © 2018 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. " which implies the licensing details are hosted on the shared site, but they apply to the content on wikitravel.org.
dustintrex 5y ago
The footer on every page of the site states: Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 unless otherwise noted.
cjensen 5y ago
For authority: I hold copyright which I've never assigned to a "few" pages. Wikitravel is using my content under the CC-bySA license. The license they are using my content under does not permit them to forbid someone from copying the content.
- nwiswell 5y ago
  Is this the case for ALL of the content which was copied by Wikivoyage? It doesn't matter if just 1% of the content was copied unlawfully - that's infringement.
  - cjensen 5y ago
    Yes. The footer of every page on Wikitravel makes that clear.
  - LukeShu 5y ago
    You are in abstract correct; but the "-SA" in the license that the parent post mentioned stands for "share-alike"; the same thing as "copyleft". Wikitravel cannot forbid someone from copying other parts of the page without violating their license to the parent poster's content.
paulgb 5y ago
The schism mentioned in the original post was a result of IB taking over Wikitravel; the content that was forked over on Wikivoyage mostly would have preexisted IB’s ownership of Wikitravel. So the terms that mention IB would not be the same terms the content in question was submitted under.
kragen 5y ago
Having someone assign a license to you doesn't normally grant you standing to sue for copyright infringement and definitely doesn't allow you to file a DMCA takedown notice, which requires you to affirm that you are the copyright holder, not a licensee. Copyright trolls have been smacked down pretty hard in US courts.
diggernet 5y ago
> a perpetual, irrevocable, unlimited, fully paid, fully sub-licensable (through multiple tiers), worldwide license So cjensen is right... They do not have any copyrights. They only have a license to use your copyrighted works themselves. But you notice it doesn't say it's an exclusive license. Then they claim you've given them the right to "prohibit and enforce against any unauthorized copying". Which might be true, but I don't see how they have any right to define "unauthorized", since it's not their copyright, and their license isn't exclusive.

ghostly_s 5y ago

Did you bother inquiring with the maintainers of this site, or just go straight to blogging about it?

cjensen 5y ago
As a former moderator at both sites who frequently explained this policy to contributors, no I didn't ask the maintainers, who once sued a moderator over the schism, any questions.

8kundv3 5y ago

Legalities come later. If a valid complaint is made, a platform must take action on the infringing content. Valid complaint does not mean honest or accurate complaint. Only that all information legally required to file a complaint is supplied.

dang 5y ago
Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=community%20identity%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

shp0ngle 5y ago

Wikitravel and Wikivoyage articles are usually functionally identical. There are sometimes information that are in one and not the other, or vice versa. However, when I look at actual edit history, wikivoyage seems indeed more active. So you got a point there. I usually check both.