Discussion:Copyrights/Archive

As you know, when you submit content on wikiHow / eHow you retain the copyright for all your submissions. This is the copyright policy eHow has used since it started in 1999. When Josh and I bought eHow off the bankrupt dot com scrap pile, we decided to keep using the same licensing policy mainly because that was the policy that had been in place for thousands of community contributions over several years. After we launched wikiHow in January 2005, we began to realize that the traditional copyright policy might not be the best one for wikiHow. In February 2005, I posted this notice on our copyrights page:

eHow has operated this free resource of How To information since 1999 using the traditional copyright system. Inspired by the magnificence of the Wikipedia, we launched wikiHow in January 2005. We recognize that the success of the Wikipedia has been in part due to its adoption of the Copyleft system as opposed to the traditional copyright system. In addition we share the goal of spreading knowledge about How to do things and making that information free for the people who need it. As a result, we are considering adopting a Copyleft licensing system for future contributions at WikiHow.We would like to know what system our authors and editors would prefer.

Over the past several months the feedback we received from community members was almost all in favor of the traditional copyright system. In fact several users asked me for additional assurances that they would retain their copyrights when they posted on wikiHow. The only exception was from Wikipedia / Wikimedia Board Member Angela. However in the last 2 weeks, we have received increasing feedback from bloggers and other people outside of the wikiHow community who believe that wikiHow would be better off with a different license. As a result of their feedback, I would like to re-spotlight this discussion in our community and open the discussion to people outside of the wikiHow community, who as potential readers and contributors of our how-to manual have a stake in our ultimate success.

So, let me now begin the discussion by sharing my personal views on the matter. I personally would like to add an open, share and share alike license at wikHow for several reasons:

• I believe wikiHow�s mission should be to help as many people as possible learn new skills. wikiHow is currently pursuing this mission by attempting to build the world�s largest how-to manual on a website that anyone can access for free. We can further advance this mission by allowing anyone to use the instructions we write in their own websites or documents. Schools, youth soccer coaches, community organizations, students, individuals, church groups will all be able to take our content, change it to meet their needs and publish it in any media they want. I know that I would be proud whenever I heard about someone using our instructions in that manner.
• I love the concept of �share and share-alike.� It is the basis of the GPL license used in most open source software programs. By making more ideas free and licensing them under the �share and share-alike� concept, the world will end up with more free ideas, which benefits everyone.
• Big brains such as Lawrence Lessig and Ross Mayfield have convinced me that aggressive intellectual property protection regulations are stifling innovation and creativity. As someone who co-owns eHow, a large website currently protected by the existing copyright system, I would personally like to take a small step towards a copyright system that works for the greater good, not just those of the right�s holders.

Sorry to beat you over the head with my opinions, but I think adopting a copyleft license at wikiHow is a very good idea. Now I also have some ideas about what type of open license we should use and how we should implement it:

• Author�s choice � Over the past several months it has become clear to me that many of our community members prefer the traditional copyright system. I don�t think that we should force those authors to place a copyleft license on their work if they don�t choose to. wikiHow should be as inclusive as possible and welcome any author that can share helpful how-to instructions, not just those willing to freely license their work. So I would like to implement this in a way where each author can choose for themselves if they want to use a traditional copyright or copyleft license. While I�m open to other ideas I�m imaging that this choice would be made at the point of new page creation. For example, a new page that is started with a copyleft license will always be copyleft regardless of the preferences of the editors that follow.
• Non-commercial license � A non-commercial license will allow anyone to use the content in any way as long as its purpose is non-commercial in nature. I prefer a non-commercial license for several reasons, especially the issue of search engine spamming. If we allow commercial republication of wikiHow, rip off websites & spamdexers will take our instructions put pop-up ads and banners all over it and then rank it above us in Google. While this will make a little money for those other websites, it will prevent wikiHow from growing into the world�s largest how-to manual. Like Wikipedia before us, wikiHow will need to ride the curve of inbound links and traffic from Google to achieve our ambitious goals. Allowing spammers to reprint the entire site and then tweak it to rank highly in Google will kill wikiHow before it even gets going. In addition, from my selfish perspective, as the person who is currently funding half of wikiHow�s costs out of his own pocket, I look forward to the day that wikiHow breaks even. I�m afraid that if spammers can republish all of wikiHow, the website will never be able to support its costs with unobtrusive advertising. (SEO nerds: Wikipedia did not face this problem when it started because the rip off republisher business models were barely active in 2001-2002. Today wikiHow is especially vulnerable to this sort of problem since it only has a Google Page Rank of 6, compared to Wikipedia�s 9.)

So if it were 100% up to me to choose I would prefer that we use a license similar to this Creative Commons license:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/

and do it in a way that allows authors to opt-in or opt-out at the point of new article creation if they prefer the traditional copyright license. But it's not totally open to me, as this is a decision that the entire wikiHow community must help make so please chime in. Should we :

• A) Allow authors to select an open, share alike license (My recommendation)
• B) Stick with the status quo and only allow the traditional copyright system
• C) Do something entirely different

This is an important decision, so please leave any comments here, at the village pump, or via email at wiki@ehow.com. If you leave a comment below please sign your name by writing --~~~~ after your writing.

I look forward to your feedback. --Jack H 21:51 PDT, 16 Jun 2005 (PDT)

Names and opinions / Please edit this page and enter your opinion here:

Obviously I support option A. --Jack H 21:51 PDT, 16 Jun 2005 (PDT)

I support A. I like that people can choose, when they write the article, whether to lock up the content with a copyright or not. I'm all for more choices. --EHowKrystle 17:15 PDT, 17 Jun 2005 (PDT)

Well I don't understand all the finer points of copyright law, and how they will affect wikiHow. Personally I think all work submitted to wikiHow should be done in a way that no one owns the work, and it can be used and reproduced in any non-commerical way. However you might be limiting yourself by turning away talented writers who want to choose for themselves how their work is copyrighted. I think those writers should allow their work to be free, but in the end I think it should be their choice.

-Sean