User:AnonEMouse/EU

Subject: Your copy right request

Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 09:57:41 +0200

From: "AUGUSTIN Christian" <caugustin@europarl.eu.int>

To: ----@-----

CC: "DOURDIL-DINIZ Julio" <jdourdil@europarl.eu.int>

Dear Mr ----,

The images of the Members of teh European Parliament as published on our Website might be used for publication in Wikipedia in particular as this is a non profit making organisation. Each item published should make a clear reference to the copy right as indicated in our disclaimer. Any copy of this material by third parties from Wikipedia are alloweed only under the same conditions, i.e. with a reference to our copy rights.

Just for clarification, what do you mean by "miodification" in your point #2?

Best regards,

Christian Augustin

Unité Europarl

SCH 02A020

Tel 22440

Dear Mr. Augustin and Mr. Dourdil-Diniz:

Thank you for your response. Basically, I'm asking for more details about the European Parliament copyright than the 2 sentences that are on the web site, so that we can more freely use the content on the Wikipedia, http://www.wikipedia.org.

Here is what a more knowledgeable Wikipedian wrote to me when I asked about the European Parliament license:

'There are three things needed for a license to be considered "free":

      1. It needs to permit distribution
      2. It needs to permit modification and incorporation into larger works 
         (the creation of derivative works)
      3. It needs to permit distibution of derivative works

This license permits #1, but does not permit #2 (which is what permits using the image in a Wikipedia article), and does not permit #3 (which is what permits us to distribute Wikipedia, and what permits people to re-use Wikipedia content). ... The basic copyright statement (ie, "Copyright 2004 Joe Bloggs") forbids everything except a few specific uses: giving away the one copy you have, and certain limited forms of copying as permitted under fair use or fair dealing. Any license is a modification on that to permit specific additional things, such as copying for educational purposes, or incorporation into larger works. Since the license does not say anything about modification or derivative works, those are forbidden. ... "Make a derivative work" is a legal term meaning "modify" or "create a work using parts of this work".'

That's what I'm asking about, and that's the context of the "modification" question.

There is a standard copyright license that seems to get at what the few sentences ("Reproduction is authorised, provided the source is acknowledged, save where otherwise stated.")on the European Parliament web site say, which is called the "Creative Commons Attribution (or By) License", version 2.5. This is given in full here:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/

Wikipedia happily uses Creative Commons Attribution licensed content, but we are not sure if the European Parliament license is the same or similar to that license. That's what I'm writing to ask:

Does the European Parliament web site allow its content to be redistributed, incorporated into larger works, and distribution of derivative works, as long as the source is properly acknowledged?

Or, more simply:

May we consider the European Parliament license essentially similar to the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license?

Thank you,

----