 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: HouseBlaster's contributions made before January 1, 2024 are in the public domain. Edits on or after that date are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 and the GFDL.[a] |
On April 26, 2020, while I was adding userboxes to my userpage, I made this edit. At first glance, it appears to be a standard "newbie Wikipedian one month into quarantine has just discovered userboxes" edit. However – without realizing what I had done – I had relicensed my contributions under "any CC BY license", removing the requirement to "ShareAlike" when changes are made to my contributions. I regret[b] that action; this is my attempt to set things right.
Why did you originally decide to dual-license your contributions?
editI don't recall actually saving the edit itself, but I do remember that I was looking at Wikipedia:Userboxes/Wikipedia/Views and thinking something along the lines of, "I already license my contributions under a Creative Commons license, right? Let's add this one!". Only later did I realize that adding this box had legally changed the status of my work.
Why is this a problem?
editMany people have written about this more eloquently than I could. In a sentence, "ShareAlike"[c] ensures that more creative content will remain free-as-in-speech in the future.
What have done to fix this?
editI hereby release all contributions I made to any Wikimedia project from any account[d] before January 1, 2024 into the public domain with the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication ("CC0"). This removes any and all barriers on reuse. For contributions on or after January 1, 2024, I release my nonminor edits[e] solely under the terms required by the Terms of Use (at the time of writing, CC BY-SA 4.0 International and the GFDL, unversioned). I release my minor edits – on any Wikimedia project, from any account, regardless of timing – into the public domain, again using CC0.
Why use CC0 for your old contributions, instead of keeping CC BY?
editI think that what is already a fairly complicated scheme can be simplified somewhat by relinquishing any rights I might have to my work. I also do not want to deal with the hypothetical exercise of whether my contributions could be used under a future CC BY license, so I am making it a moot point.
Why January 1, 2024?
editThree reasons:
- It is public domain day
- It is easy to remember
- It is the day Mickey Mouse will – finally – enter the public domain. Doing a very small bit to help the free-culture movement seems like a good way to celebrate a moment arriving 39 years late.[f]
Why are you releasing minor edits under CC0, even after January 1, 2024?
editFor one, in most countries anything I mark as minor would be too trivial for me to claim copyright. This is intended to aid reusers in exercising the right described in Section 7(g)(iii) of the Terms of Use (noting that when providing attribution for textual content, "any list of authors may be filtered to exclude very small or irrelevant contributions"
).
Notes
edit- For the avoidance of doubt, this applies solely to my textual contributions. Media I have uploaded are licensed as indicated in their respective descriptions.
- To be precise, anything before the Unix timestamp @1704085200 is in the public domain
Footnotes
edit- ^ This is a summary and thus is not legally binding
- ^ Okay, "regret" is a stronger term than what I feel. I wouldn't make the same choice today, but I am not really upset with the choice I made. I view it as a learning opportunity – like any other mistake I have made.
- ^ "ShareAlike" is Creative Commons' term for copyleft
- ^ I have four accounts:
- ^ That is, edits not marked as a minor edit
- ^ Yes, this is backwards reasoning.