In a press release this afternoon, the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, announced that they will be partnering with Orange, of France Telecom, in order to make Wikipedia more easily available to Orange mobile customers throughout Africa and the Middle East. Hailed as the “first partnership of its kind” – that being the world’s first mobile and Internet partnership – the two companies will provide more than 70 million Orange customers with mobile access to Wikipedia without incurring any data usage charges.

This new partnership will be gradually launched throughout 2012 across 20 African and Middle Eastern countries where Orange operates, with the first markets launching early in the year. The initiative is part of the Wikimedia Foundation’s mobile strategy that aims to reach the billions of people around the world who access the internet solely through mobile devices.

Any customer with an Orange SIM and mobile internet enabled phone will be able to access the Wikipedia site either through their browser or an Orange widget. They can access the Wikipedia encyclopedia services for as many times as they like at no extra charge as long as they stay within Wikipedia’s pages.

Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, said, “”Wikipedia is an important service, a public good – and so we want people to be able to access it for free, regardless of what device they’re using.” She continued, “This partnership with Orange will enable millions of people to read Wikipedia, who previously couldn’t. We’re thrilled to be Orange’s partner in this important endeavor.”

Orange posted a video on their website extolling the value of a freely accessibly Wikipedia to their customers that is now viewable on their website.

Marc Rennard, Group Executive Vice President, Africa, Middle-East and Asia at Orange, commented, “In countries where access to information is not always readily available, we are making it simple and easy for our customers to use the world’s most comprehensive online encyclopedia. It is the first partnership of this kind in the world where we are enabling customers to access Wikipedia without incurring any data charges; and shows Orange’s ability, once again, to innovate in Africa and the Middle East, and bring more value to our customers.”

The timing to announce the merger one day ahead of the the one-year anniversary of Egypt’s January 25th Revolution (although it continues to go on even today), which could be considered the first domino to fall in the Arab Spring’s chain of protests throughout the past year, is peculiar. It may be unintentional, but I’d like to think that this reaffirms Wikimedia and Wales’ commitment to providing a worldwide network of free information whenever someone needs it.

It appears those big banners at the top of Wikipedia, which have been ridiculed a few times, have been a success.

The ridicule was mostly over the layout, where a user could look at a page for something like “bitch” or “rapist” and see the word appear right under a big photo of co-founder Jimmy Wales or various volunteers. It became something of a meme, though some were much more light-hearted.

“Our model is working fantastically well,” said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. “Ordinary people use Wikipedia and they like it, so they chip in some cash so it will continue to thrive. That maintains our independence and lets us focus solely on providing a useful public service. I am so grateful to our donors for making that possible. I promise them we will use their money carefully and well.”

The campaign has indeed been Wikimedia’s most successful ever. On top of that, it’s part of a streak that has seen donations rise every year since campaigns began in 2003. Since 2008, the number of donors has increased ten-fold, and the total dollar amount raised in the campaign has risen to over $20 million from $4.5 million.

Wikimedia’s sites attract over 470 million people each month, and is the only major site supported by donations rather than ads, the foundation says.

The money from this campaign will go to servers and other hardware, development of new site functionality, expansion of mobile services, legal defense, and support for volunteers (there aree over 100,000 of them).

The foundation’s total 2011-12 planned spending is $28.3 million.

Wikipedia itself has over 20 million articles in 282 languages. It will celebrate its 11th anniversary on January 15.

The post in questions, titled, “How SOPA will hurt the free web and Wikipedia” goes way beyond the reactive, blanking of Wikipedia measures discussed by Wales. Like a good law firm, the media arm of Wikipedia laid down their position in detailed fashion, explaining why the idea of SOPA goes against the open principles on which the Internet was founded. An example:

We cannot battle, however, one wrong while inflicting another. SOPA represents the flawed proposition that censorship is an acceptable tool to protect rights owners’ private interests in particular media. That is, SOPA would block entire foreign websites in the United States as a response to remove from sight select infringing material. This is so even when other programs like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act have found better balances without the use of such a bludgeon. For this reason, we applaud the excellent work of a number of like-minded organizations that are leading the charge against this legislation…

It continues on for some length, comprehensively laying out their ideas opposing SOPA. There’s also a section that deals with the legal ramifications of such a bill passing, and these, too, are addressed in the post. In fact, Lamar Smith’s amendments are also addressed, showing just how up to date Wikimedia’s reaction is.

I’ve been asked for a legal opinion. And, I will tell you, in my view, the new version of SOPA remains a serious threat to freedom of expression on the Internet.

• The new version continues to undermine the DMCA and federal jurisprudence that have promoted the Internet as well as cooperation between copyright holders and service providers. In doing so, SOPA creates a regime where the first step is federal litigation to block an entire site wholesale: it is a far cry from a less costly legal notice under the DMCA protocol to selectively take down specified infringing material. The crime is the link, not the copyright violation. The cost is litigation, not a simple notice.
• The expenses of such litigation could well force non-profit or low-budget sites, such as those in our free knowledge movement, to simply give up on contesting orders to remove their links. (Secs. 102(c)(3); 103(c)(2)) The international sites under attack may not have the resources to challenge extra-territorial judicial proceedings in the United States, even if the charges are false.
  The new version of SOPA reflects a regime where rights owners may seek to terminate advertising and payment services, such as PayPal, for an alleged “Internet site dedicated to theft of U.S. property.” (Sec. 103(c)(2)) A rights owner must seek a court order (unlike the previous version) (Sec. 103(b)(5)). Most rights owners are well intentioned, but many are not.[2] We cannot assume that litigious actions to block small sites abroad will always be motivated in good faith, especially when the ability to defend is difficult.

Read more at Wikimedia’s post. As for the inclusion of Smith’s amendments, the feeling is, while an improvement, they don’t adequately fix what SOPA potentially breaks:

In short, though there have been some improvements with the new version, SOPA remains far from acceptable. Its definitions remain too loose, and its structural approach is flawed to the core. It hurts the Internet, taking a wholesale approach to block entire international sites, and this is most troubling for sites in the open knowledge movement who probably have the least ability to defend themselves overseas.

Aside from the Protect Innovation consortium, there aren’t many publications that so thoroughly discuss the implications of SOPA with such a level head. Not only is the discussion an important one, there’s also emotion involved. Thankfully, the Wikimedia post purposely eschews emotion for a factual, level-headed approach.

Lead image courtesy.

The grant came from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, was appropriately appreciative.  In a statement, she said, "The Hewlett Foundation’s support comes at a critical time."

Gardner then continued, "We’ve just begun the planning that will help us identify how to maximize our impact around the world.  This support will help us to execute our priorities for the current year, and enable us to plan for the future."

So some interesting sort of overhaul or expansion might go forward as a result of the grant.  That would help explain why the Hewlett Foundation was interested in Wikimedia the first place, since the Foundation’s supposed to "solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world."

Meanwhile, Google Knol, which might be viewed as a better-funded-but-less-popular competitor, is still putting along, having received a sort of nod from the chairman and cofounder of the Public Library of Science just yesterday.

The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) has proposed that the copyright licensing terms on the wikis operated by the WMF — including Wikipedia — be changed to include the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) license in addition to the current GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). This will affect all text and rich media (images, sound, video, etc.) currently licensed under "GFDL 1.2 or later versions".

Jolie O’Dell at ReadWriteWeb notes, "The change in licensing was made possible in November 2008 when the Free Software Foundation updated its most recent of the GFDL, adding language specifically to accommodate the WMF’s desire to switch to Creative Commons licensing."

Of those who voted on the change, over 13,000 voted in favor, while only under 2,000 voted against it, and just over 2,000 voted to not have an opinion on the matter. If "no opinion" votes had not been included, the Yes/No percentage becomes 87.9%/12.1%.

The licensing update poll took place over a period of three weeks. Anybody who had a registered account on a WMF project with at least 25 edits prior to March 15th was eligible to participate (apart from those who had been blocked or flagged).

Claims that the domain violated Wikimedia’s trademark and the ensuing legal back and forth have renewed the debate over fair use and free speech, and to an extent, what constitutes art. There’s even a bit of a debate over what constitutes “a threat.”

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales characterizes the project as “an alleged bit of performance art,” and the project creators, Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern, as “trolls” “dedicated to vandalizing Wikipedia as a publicity stunt.” [His full statement is available as an update to an earlier article, linked below.]

The project originally took place on the Wikipedia site itself, but was quickly deleted by Wikipedia editors. Though there was some debate over whether a collaborative art project had a place in an online encyclopedia, the final agreement was that the project—also thought to be critical of Wikipedia itself—was a form of vandalism.

After the entry was deleted, Kildal and Stern registered wikipediaart.org and moved the project there. For more background on the project itself, and a discussion of art and fair use, please read “Wikipedia Art Pushes the Elastic Boundaries of Fair Use,” from earlier in the week.

On March 23, Douglas Isenberg, representing Wikimedia, sent a letter to Kildall explaining Wikimedia’s ownership of the trademark WIKIPEDIA, the company’s obligation “to enforce its legal rights” and the company’s concern there may be some confusion about Kildall’s website’s affiliation with Wikipedia itself.

Isenberg says in the letter Wikimedia asked him to investigate whether Kildall was in violation of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), the US Federal Trademark Dilution Act, state and common law trademark and unfair competition statutes, and the Uniform Domain Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP).

Afterward, Isenberg asks Kildall to transfer wikipediaart.org to Wikimedia, “cease using the Wikipedia trademark,” and that Wikimedia “reserves all rights and remedies of any kind or nature in connection with this matter.”

Wikipediaart.org has posted that letter, along with others, at the site, except for a series of correspondences from Mike Godwin, Wikimedia’s general counsel.

Although Isenberg’s letter sounded enough like a threat to Kildall to seek legal counsel, and his counsel seems to have agreed it sounded like a threat, and a lawyers from PublicCitizen and the EFF thought it sounded like a threat, both Isenberg in a later letter, and Wales himself, in a statement to WebProNews, say it was not actually a threat.

“The reporting on the situation was widely in error, mostly due to the EFF’s erroneous blog posting,” said Wales. “There was never a legal threat, no action of any kind, and there is no intention to take action of any kind.  We asked them politely to put up a legal notice distinguishing themselves from Wikipedia, and they did. 
 
”A group of trolls managed to manufacture for the media a publicity stunt. It’s disappointing how easy it was for them to pull it off.”

A disclaimer distancing the project from Wikipedia is mentioned as already in existence in the letter posted at Wikipedia Art by James Martin, original counsel for Kildall, in his original response to Isenberg on April 3, along with expressed willingness to agree on a new one.

Though Godwin’s correspondences are not posted, Public Citizen’s Paul Levy’s letters are, the final one indicating Wikipedia Art would go to court first for declaratory judgment that use of the domain constitutes fair use. This, it appears, the last correspondence.

"I originally joined the [Wikipedia Art's Facebook] group because I assumed – based on the name – that it was a sincere group of Wikipedians interested in improving entries about art.  I only later was told that it was a group dedicated to vandalizing Wikipedia as a publicity stunt as an alleged bit of performance art, and of course I don’t support anyone vandalizing Wikipedia.

"You wrote: ‘Wikimedia founder Jimmy Wales, who did not return request for comment, seems rather conflicted at this point. Wales was signed up as a member of the Wikipedia Art Facebook group until things got legally dicey.’

"That’s ridiculous.  I am not at all conflicted, nothing ever got legally dicey in the least.  I join and leave all kinds of facebook groups all the time, for all kinds of reasons, just like any other ordinary person, and I don’t appreciate people reading tea leaves when I’m so easily accessible for a comment.

"The reporting on the situation was widely in error, mostly due to the EFF’s erroneous blog posting.  There was never a legal threat, no action of any kind, and there is no intention to take action of any kind.  We asked them politely to put up a legal notice distinguishing themselves from Wikipedia, and they did.  Show’s over, nothing to get excited about.

"A group of trolls managed to manufacture for the media a publicity stunt.  It’s disappointing how easy it was for them to pull it off.eople reading tea leaves when I’m so easily accessible for a comment."

As illustrated in the comments below, we did attempt to contact Mr. Wales for comment and did not hear back.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:

The question of what constitutes art may not be as difficult to answer as what constitutes fair use. Though fair use isn’t a new legal concept, it’s never been as challenged as it in the Internet age.

We arrive at the latest conundrum regarding both art and fair use by way of Wikipedia as parent company Wikimedia attempts to enforce its trademark as gently as possible; a heavy hand in this case would belie the organization’s founding principles of openness and creative commons licensing.

The current debate begins in mid-February. A Wikipedia page titled “Wikipedia Art” survived just 15 hours of spirited debate before meeting swift and controversial deletion along with the deletion of the article’s debate history. The creators of the page—contemporary, mixed media/conceptual artists Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern—made no sustained objection to deletion, as deletion subsequently became a part of the evolving art piece itself, and moved the project to a new domain: wikipediaart.org.

A Wikipedia article itself being a work of art is now only the secondary debate. Editors debated this point in discussion, though the general contemporary consensus seems to be that something is art if one calls it art. The nature of the project, though, influenced the nature of the debate and informed the art itself: Would anonymous, collective authority allow such an injection into the Wikipedia reality?  

Some editors felt the subject at least deserved reasoned debate. Others objected to articles being self-referential, mirroring a debate long settled by postmodernists of previous eras, coming out in support of that very concept. Still others compared the intrusion to drawing in the margins of an encyclopedia or graffiti in the library while all of this debate unwittingly was absorbed by the art project itself, now a self-propagating and evolving exploration of authoritarian interventionism and shared hegemonies.

Which is probably why it was promptly (and perhaps ironically) deleted, reportedly along with the discussion history (since reposted), by a myopic 18-year-old, and subsequently endorsed by the rest. A reality with such porous and elastic boundaries is often as disturbing to the young products of structure as it is to the creators of structure; Wikipedia Art absorbs all that touches on it, probably this article included. By debating the art one becomes part of it, likewise by deleting it; it’s suddenly rather immortal in that sense.

Good art is infinitely debatable, and in that way it finds an unlikely relative in law. As mentioned earlier, the artists did not object to deletion as deletion became a part of the art of it. But Wikimedia is objecting to the use of its trademark in the domain wikipediaart.org, and as such even the demands by Wikimedia attorney Douglas Isenberg that the artists transfer ownership of the domain are now part of the project itself.

Wikimedia’s demands are straightforward and atypical of lawyer-crafted nasty-grams sent from other companies in that an amicable resolution is sought in the sole pursuit of trademark protection as the company is obligated to do. Threats were implied rather than expressed, but nonetheless attracted the attention of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a lawyer for which defended the artists’ fair use of the Wikipedia name and threatened to file for summary judgment if any further “threats” are made.

Uncharacteristically of these types of disputes, Isenberg took issue with the idea Wikimedia had made any threats whatsoever, only that he was asked to investigate the matter and try to reach an amicable solution. Obviously Wikimedia is in a tight spot; they don’t want to appear an enemy of art or fair use or collaborative projects—that’s a bit like tearing down its own principles.

Wikimedia founder Jimmy Wales, who did not return request for comment, seems rather conflicted at this point. Wales was signed up as a member of the Wikipedia Art Facebook group until things got legally dicey.

Whatever happens in this truly odd case—nothing, in all probability—the fair use debate rages on with even less clear-cut answers. While the Associated Press launches infringement claims against everyone from artists to Google to those who link to its content, other litigious organizations print off DMCA notices the way the government is currently printing money. Unlike an art debate, though, the fair use debate has major implications for the future of the Web. But, like the art and pornography debate of last century, the debate needs its day in court.

In an era of settlements and compromise, though, it’s hard to know if that will happen.

"At Orange we are committed to giving people maximum access to the widest range of digital technologies and to simplifying the way people use these technologies to access information," says Orange‘s Paul-François Fournier. "By bringing our customers a new way to access content from Wikipedia, one of the world’s most recognised and popular internet brands, we are delivering on this commitment."

Some things that the partnership will specifically cater to include:

- creating specific Wikipedia channels on Orange mobile and web portals

- enriching sections of the Orange web and mobile portals with links to relevant Wikipedia information

- developing mobile and web-based widgets which enable customers to access Wikipedia content directly from their Orange mobile or web homepage

"The Wikimedia Foundation is dedicated to spreading knowledge to as many people as possible, in as many ways as possible," said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. "Orange’s leadership in mobile and focus on innovation makes them an ideal partner to help us extend our reach. The Foundation welcomes partnerships that help us carry out our mission and that respect the valuable contributions of the Wikimedia community"

A second phase of the partnership will involve Orange and Wikimedia creating a range of services. There’s no word yet on just what these services will be however. They will expand into the rest of Orange’s customer base around Europe though.

Wiki Answers is a site that has been around for a while, and previously went by the name FAQFarm, until changing its name in 2007. It’s run by the Answers.com people and so far it ranks higher in google for "Wikianswers":

Both sites are Q&A sites that, as Erick Schonfeld puts it, attempt to "create one true, consensus answer for each question, wiki style."

So what answer do you get when you ask "How is Wikianswers different than other answer sites?" You get a long explanation clearly from the people behind Wikanswers (it’s less clear whether or not the answer comes from Wales himself):

Wikia’s Q+A service is in keeping with the wiki-way and that’s what makes it different

We believe that a more open, freely licensed community will always do better than a corporate site that takes customers contributions and copyrights them in order to take rights away from the contributor…

The "answer" goes on to talk about how there is room for more than one of these answer sites, which is a good thing considering there are already quite a few. It also says that Wikianswers has indeed been around since 2004, and that "FAQFarm" never had permission to change their name to Wiki Answers.

I contacted FAQFarm founder Chris Whitten to get his thoughts on the subject. He is no longer actively involved with WikiAnswers other than volunteering and advising. He sold the site to Answers Corp. back in 2006.

"It’s perplexing to me that Jimmy and Gil would choose to relaunch their site as ‘Wikianswers,’" he told me. "Although it’s true that someone had started a Q&A Wikia years ago, that doesn’t mean they have any stronger claim to the name than WikiAnswers. I registered the WikiAnswers.com domain even earlier than that, in June 2004."

"At the time I sold the site to Answers Corp. and they chose to officially change the name from FAQ Farm to WikiAnswers it had hundreds of thousands of answers and millions of unique users while the Wikia Q&A site was still tiny," he continued. "’WikiAnswers’ can’t be trademarked because it’s considered too generic a term, but WikiAnswers has been making good use of it for years. It was the fastest growing large US website in both 2007 and 2008. I can understand why Jimmy and Gil would want to imitate its success — I was imitating the success of Wikipedia when I converted my Q&A site to a wiki in 2004 –but why imitate the WikiAnswers name?"

An interesting question. Unfortunately neither site offers an answer to that one (yet).

I don’t say point this out to imply there’s some shady ulterior motive in either case; instead, it’s just frustrating to have an incomplete picture.  Anyway, in reference to Wikimedia, Nick Gonzalez writes, “Most of their revenue comes from private individuals, with donations averaging around $25. . . .  The 10,000th one came from a contributor in Finland, who donated 10 Euros at 8:58 UTC (4.58 ET).”

The fundraising counter now sits at 14,540 donors, and Gonzalez adds, “[T]here’s still time for plenty more.  The drive runs all the way through December 22.”

Wikimedia and Wikipedia have both been in the news several times recently.  On a more positive note, a college professor actually had her students write articles for the online encyclopedia.  In a not-so-good development, fans of webcomics are protesting the deletion of many, many entries.

The fans’ cry to ignore Wikimedia’s fundraiser doesn’t seem to have done much good, though.  Assuming, of course, that 14,000 donations corresponds to a reasonable amount of money.