EU freedom of panorama; Nehru outrage; BBC apology

A week now remains until the vote, expected on 9 July, when the European Parliament will express either its approval, disapproval, or lack of opinion on the question of freedom of panorama in the European Union, and battle lines are being drawn. (See earlier Signpost article "Three weeks to save freedom of panorama in Europe", and review of initial press coverage last week).

Following approval at Wikipedia talk:Freedom of Panorama 2015, sitenotice banners have now been activated above articles, warning readers of the over 40,000 images currently on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons of modern buildings and public art that depend on the Freedom of Panorama copyright exception (drawing coverage including from BBC World Service Spanish, as well as an acerbic piece in The Register by frequent Wikipedia critic Andrew Orlowski); while a petition at Change.org supporting freedom of panorama has been steadily growing and (as of 1 July) is now approaching 200,000 signatures.

On 2 July, the French MEP Jean-Marie Cavada, who had proposed the text effectively calling for an end to commercial freedom of panorama in the EU, announced that he would no longer be supporting this proposal, and would now be calling on all MEPs to delete it. With the direct threat averted, Dimitar Dimitrov (dimi_z), Wikipedia's person on the spot in Brussels, called for the banner campaign to be stood down.

Earlier in the week, Cavada, whose text, adopted by the legal affairs committee, proposed that

"the commercial use of photographs, video footage or other images of works which are permanently located in physical public places should always be subject to prior authorisation from the authors or any proxy acting for them",

had slammed defenders of freedom of panorama as acting "under the guise of defending free access to works on behalf of users", when their fight was "actually one conducted primarily to allow US monopolies such as Facebook or Wikimedia to escape the payment of fees to the creators".

Cavada's position closely reflects that of the French copyright collecting society ADAGP, the Society of Authors in the Graphic and Plastic Arts. For ADAGP, the "cultural patrimony" of its members is at stake: their rights to be in control of the commercial utilisation of their works, and to refuse to see them modified, misrepresented, or used in the advertising of products or causes of which they disapprove. ADAGP has strongly been pushing a line of "no reuse without remuneration" in the Parliament, and a key current objective of the society is to negotiate an agreement with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest, Picasa and others similar to the arrangements that Google has with music labels, to acknowledge and pay out for copyrights in user-taken images of buildings and sculptures uploaded to the sites. The society retains approximately 25% of the gross of copyright licenses that it administers. According to ADAGP, it believes that between 10–20% of image rights, currently generating net payments of between 3 and 6 million euros per year, relate to sculptures or buildings in France that would be affected by freedom of panorama. This would also represent a loss of income to ADAGP itself of between about 1 and 2 million euros per year. The society has been circulating a Q&A flyer on the "Panorama Exception" to MEPs, to which the Wikimedia Brussels team has prepared a rebuttal. Some of the maps used by ADAGP have also been called into question.

According to Cavada, Wikipedia's insistence on providing images "in high definition format, open for editing, with the ability for use for commercial purposes" was "a deliberate attempt to avoid paying rights to authors, heirs or collecting societies", and contended that MEP Julia Reda's original proposals "especially for the benefit of those service providers" would "do nothing more for consumers, but would formalize the pursuit of their activities with impunity to the detriment of the entire European cultural and creative sector". (26 June)

In a rejoinder posted on 1 July, Wikimédia France hit back that the bracketing with Facebook showed that Cavada "completely misses the collaborative movement and the commons", and added that

We understand why rightsholders like to have their works on Wikipedia. Without the possibility of commercial reuse, we are a great free advertising brochure, so long as Wikipedia changes the rules that have made ​​it the world cultural site by accepting [non-reusable] non-free content, according to the wishes of these private companies.

The stakes are clear enough. Freedom of panorama can lose some income to certain authors or assigns, which is fairly easy to calculate. But it can also generate economic activity, by removing obstacles, including for the transformation of works and "unforeseen" reuse. The impact is more difficult to assess because all the possibilities and therefore earnings are not known at the time the decision to open the valves is taken. Gains are not only economic, but also societal. The free dissemination of knowledge is not just about money. The possibility of commercial re-use and economic innovation that may result are for us a way to reach our true goal: improving the well-being of all, through better dissemination of knowledge.

For herself, Reda, writing in a blog-post (1 July), considered that the Cavada proposal should not be seen as the product of an evil lobby, but rather was symptomatic of a general approach by the MEPs on the legal committee,

[extending] the same attitude and convictions they apply to all copyright reform issues ... siding entirely with existing art, made by the few lucky enough to profit from yesterday’s business models, at the expense of the new and independent, which modern technology and connectivity enables the many to create and share.

She also condemned a tendency of much of the media that she considered had jumped on this as an opportunity to "bash the European Union":

Don't blame the EU for your MEPs: ... I want to make it very clear: This [horrible] idea was hatched by representatives elected by the people, and passed (so far) by representatives elected by the people. No shadowy bureaucrats were involved. If you want to prevent situations like this one, elect better representatives – and stay involved.

Contending views of freedom of panorama were presented by Wikimedia's Dimitrov and ADAGP, together with five other witnesses, on the morning of 2 July (agenda) at a hearing of the working group on intellectual property rights and copyright reform of the legal affairs committee of the European Parliament, with Jean-Marie Cavada in the chair. Unfortunately it would seem that the meeting was not covered by broadcast streaming or recording, although some slide-packs may be available after the event.

Meanwhile, with the deadline for amendments (1 July) having passed, it is now confirmed that the Parliament will be faced with a three-way choice in the vote itself next week:

• to "recognise" Freedom of Panorama (proposed by the Dutch liberal MEP Marietje Schaake along with other members of the Liberals and Democrats group (Cavada's own group) from Germany, the Netherlands, and Estonia, and some other MEPs);
• to delete all mention of Freedom of Panorama (proposed by a number of groups);
• or, if both the previous amendments should fail, to leave the text as it currently stands, recommending that "commercial use... should always be subject to authorisation".

With the apparent collapse of support for the Cavada text, Wikimedians are still encouraging editors to contact their MEPs to confirm the MEPs' support for its deletion; as well as to suggest individual support for the Schaake amendment, on the basis that (for example) freedom of panorama encourages greater cultural sharing and vibrancy across Europe (and more complete Wikipedia articles!), whereas the present patchwork of laws is unhelpful and creates confusion, whether for photographers, for websites, or for small publishers trying to operate in multiple countries. However, due to various procedural deals that have been made across the report as a whole, it is likely that group lines (in particular that of the centre-left S&D group) will be for deletion only, without addition of new text. The advice from Dimitrov is not to push this, as at this early stage of the legislative process winning goodwill is more important than trying to win a vote that will be essentially symbolic—the essential thing was to show the depth of resistance to the Cavada text, to stop that in its tracks, which with luck it appears we will have achieved. Moving forward, the priority ahead will be to try to build up relationships that may be valuable when the detailed copyright reform dossier comes into the parliament, some time in the next 12 months. J

June 26 edits regarding Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India and a widely admired figure in India and around the world, sparked outrage in that country. The edits, which were quickly reverted, made a number of disparaging and inaccurate claims about Nehru's background and career in the articles on Nehru, his father Motilal Nehru, and his grandfather Gangadhar Nehru. The IP address responsible for those edits, 164.100.41.28, belongs to the National Informatics Centre, a government agency responsible for its information and communications technology.

The edits claimed that Nehru was born in a "red light area", was "more interested in political power and women", that his grandfather was born Muslim and later changed his name and became a Hindu, and that Nehru had been sexually blackmailed by Lady Edwina Mountbatten, the wife of the last British Governor-General of India, Lord Mountbatten. The first claim seems to originate from the fact that Nehru's birthplace Meergunj is now a red-light district. The blackmail claim is based on the alleged love affair between Nehru and Lady Mountbatten, attested by Mountbatten's daughters, who insisted that it was unconsummated. The claim that the Nehrus were Muslims stems from a conspiracy theory popular among certain Hindu nationalists, who accuse the Nehru–Gandhi family and their Indian National Congress of being pseudo-secular and anti-Hindu. According to this theory, Gangadhar was a Muslim who adopted a fake Hindu identity to avoid an arrest during the British Raj.

The edits were brought to widespread attention via the Twitter bot AnonGoIWPEdits, which tweets links to edits from IP addresses belonging to the Indian government. AnonGoIWPEdits was created by Pranesh Prakash, policy director of the Centre for Internet and Society. It is one of many similar Twitter bots created beginning last August to monitor Wikipedia edits from government entities and other organizations (see previous Signpost coverage). Prakash told The Times of India that "I think it is interesting to see what government people are editing anonymously...Most edits are inane. A great number merely introduce spelling errors." In this particular case, he noted "These changes were reverted in minutes, in one case in one minute."

Politicians with the Indian National Congress expressed their outrage, directing it towards their principal rival, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, which has close links to Hindu nationalist organizations. The Hindu reported that Abhishek Manu Singhvi claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party was responsible in an effort to influence upcoming elections in Bihar. He demanded an investigation and said that "Prime Minister Modi and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad should tell us what action they are taking on the editing on Wikipedia pages by a government agency."

In a related article, Scroll.in discusses what kinds of edits Indian government employees have been making over the last year. G, U

British political blogger "Guido Fawkes" writing for The Sun reports (June 28) that the BBC has apologised to UK Conservative politician Grant Shapps for giving much pre-election airtime to damaging allegations that Shapps had edited his own Wikipedia biography as well as those of other politicians, while giving comparatively little coverage to the fact that a subsequent Wikipedia arbitration case found that the allegations could not be substantiated and were in violation of Wikipedia policy (see previous Signpost coverage: 1, 2, 3, 4).

ConservativeHome comments that reporting by the BBC and some newspapers reflected a lack of familiarity with Wikipedia:

Shapps has reproduced the letter he received from the BBC on his website. The story has also been picked up by The Independent (June 29) and The Register (June 30), with the Press Gazette, a UK media trade magazine, also weighing in on June 30 with an article titled "BBC's James Harding says 'sorry' to Grant Shapps over scant coverage of Wikipedia story 'correction'". AK

• Reality show sparks Wikipedia vandalism: Huffington Post UK reports on the Wikipedia vandalism following the mention of the encyclopedia on July 1 episode of the reality show Big Brother 16. During a row with housemate Marc O'Neill, Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace said "You can check my Wikipedia page...I've got a Wikipedia page and you don’t." Her Wikipedia article was subsequently vandalized dozens of times before it was semi-protected. The incident also became a trending topic on Twitter. G
• Public domain images worth $246 million per year: Fortune reports on a study in an upcoming issue of the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology which puts the value of Wikipedia's public domain photographs at $246 million a year. The study was covered in the April edition of our Recent Research. (June 29). G
• Nashik getting ready for Kumbh Mela: The Times of India reports on efforts to bring Wikipedia's coverage of Nashik, a major city in Maharashtra, western India, up to scratch in time for the Kumbh Mela festival due to begin later this month. The festival only comes to Nashik once every twelve years. (June 27) AK
• Bill Cosby: BetaNews wonders why the lead of the Bill Cosby biography makes no reference to widely publicised (though untested in court) sexual abuse allegations. (June 27) AK
• Wikimedian profiled: The New Indian Express profiles Wikimedian Dr. Netha Hussain. (June 26) G
• The dangers of consulting Wikipedia: The BVI Beacon reports that a Nigerian journalist was incorrectly informed that she needed a visa to enter St. Kitts and Nevis by a LIAT agent who consulted Wikipedia. It was not reported which article was consulted, but the article Visa requirements for Nigerian citizens states that a visa is required, while the article Visa policy of Saint Kitts and Nevis and a number of government websites belonging to St. Kitts and Nevis state that a visa is not required. (June 25) G
• More article complaints: On the June 25 episode of The Peter Schiff Show, Peter Schiff complained that his Wikipedia article depicts "a liberal fantasy version of me". On one of his webpages, he has listed "a few things that should be added to the page", asking his listeners to make the additions, since they are "unrelated to the subject."G

2015-07-01

Technical updates and improvements

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By Wikimedia tech ambassadors

The following content has been republished as-is from the Tech News weekly report.

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• Long lines in code blocks now look better. [1]
• You can now see graphs in VisualEditor. [2]
• When you read a page on the mobile site, you can now see a link to go to its talk page. [3]
• The code coloring tool has changed. You can now use many more languages. It now also works on mobile. [4] [5] [6]
• You can look at a new site to learn how to reuse data from Wikimedia sites. [7]

Problems

• JavaScript was broken on some wikis due to a code error. VisualEditor and other tools that use JavaScript were broken. [8]

Changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from June 30. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 1. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 2 (calendar).
• You can now use a tool in VisualEditor to add and edit code in color. [9]
• When you edit a sentence in the Translate tool, it can show you older translations. They help you save time if they look alike. The older translations should now work better. If you see problems, you should report them. [10]
• If you are an admin or have other special rights, you now need a strong password. [11]
• Bot and JavaScript coders: The old continuation mode of the API for action=query doesn't work any more. [12]

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on June 30 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future

• When you create a new account, it will also create one on Meta-Wiki and mediawiki.org. [13]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-07-01/Essay Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-07-01/Opinion

2015-07-01

Training the Trainers; VP of engineering leaves WMF

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By Resident Mario

Participants work on articles in the 2013 iteration of CIS-A2K's "Train the Trainers" event.

Train the trainer programs

The logo of the CIS-A2K program.

The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge Program has for a number of years been the Wikimedia Foundation's primary mover and shaker on the Indian subcontinent. This week they published a promotional blog post to the Wikimedia Blog highlighting the heritage of the center's creation of a train the trainer program. The program hosts a yearly event where the organization invites experienced editors from various distant places in the country and brings them to the center's location in Bangalore for several days' of community engagement and leadership training. The idea is that by training experienced Wikipedians in editor engagement and basic project management, the center can encourage a large population of supportive editors to organize and assist "first-generation" editors both locally and online, helping to extend the reach and the impact of the movement.

Signpost coverage of this years' event containing more information on its particularities can be found here. It is worth pointing out that this editor engagement model aligns well with the engagement paradigm currently being pursued by the WMF's, Funds Dissemination Committee and some affiliated chapters, and so the CIS-A2K event seems to have become an increasingly popular template for other events of the same type elsewhere around the world. The general comments published by the FDC this year ahead of community review of the second biannual funding round reflect this fact, containing a few words from the committee regard 'TTT' programs, reproduced below:

“

In this round, we noticed a focus on Train the Trainer (TTT) approaches, which builds on the interest from Round 1. With a TTT approach, organizations target and train a group of participants on specific topic areas so they may in turn train others. If designed and implemented well, this program approach may have potential to expand reach in the movement and improve relevant skills beyond an organization’s direct sphere of influence. This approach, which takes significant resources and organizational focus, requires more clearly articulated strategies, documented/centralized resources, and measurement and evaluation of the results. Most organizations are not yet evaluating skills developed, results of trainings after the original trainings, or attitudinal shifts, and so it is difficult to understand the impact of these programs. Furthermore, we are concerned not to see plans for sustaining engagement with these trainees after trainings. We encourage organizations to document results and resources invested in these programs. We also encourage organizations to develop engagement plans before new training programs are implemented. Finally, we also encourage organizations start small before making the decision to invest in programs more significantly.

”

In related news, the WMF Board of Trustees this week approved the FDC's recommendations for the second annual round of annual plan grants. Funds have now been disbursed to Wikimedia Armenia, Wikimedia Italy, Wikimedia Norway, Wikimedia France, and the Center for Internet and Society.

Vice president of engineering Damon Sicore leaves the Foundation

Suddenly outgoing vice president of engineering Damon Sicore.

The unusually widespread and high-level suspension of the accounts of Wikimedian vice president of engineering Damon Sicore in mid-June prompted discussion on the mailing list which at the time did not lead to anywhere in particular. Community advocate James Alexander explained at the time that "We adjust the rights of, or access to, staff accounts for many different reasons ... sometimes we can't disclose reasons prior to taking an action, or discuss them immediately." Community member Liam Wyatt clarified the issue by stating that the response he had received from several Foundation staffers was that "Damon is on two weeks leave", but also stated that this was an official statement given to all WMF staffers but were instructed not to state as such in print, only orally: "as a non-WMF employee who has asked WMF-employees for info, and have received the official response, I am sharing the official response here in writing because they are not allowed to: Damon is on two weeks leave." Although Alexander cited the account suspension as temporary, Wyatt correctly stated that per the block logs, WMF-wiki accounts are only ever permanently suspended when an employee leaves the Foundation; if they are rehired, the block is lifted as a part of the on-boarding.

Chief operating officer Terence Gibley, who will be given a part of Sicore's workload while a successor is found.

Whatever the issue was at the time, the two weeks have now passed; executive director Lila Tretikov posted on the mailing list that Sicore is indeed leaving the Foundation. Not quite illuminating the reason for the sudden departure. Tretikov said: "Damon's departure is a personnel issue, so we are not able to comment on it." In the interim, teams will directly report to Tretikov and/or to chief operating officer Terence Gibley—Sicore was in charge of the engineering and product department, employing the lion's share of the WMF's funds, so this is a significant executive shortfall to fill.

The Foundation is thus now accepting applications for three new executive positions. Two were planned more in advance: the first position is the VP of staff experiences (a modern term for HR); the hiring form indicates the future creation of a new department called "Staff Experience". The WMF has not had a chief HR person since chief talent and cultural officer Gayle Karen Young left the organization in March; current (then incoming) COO Gilbey has already been overseeing those responsibilities in the meantime. The WMF also put out forms for a chief technology officer (a position that is, in fact, already set up but blank at the WMF's internal staff and contractors page). This hiring is consistent with a letter from executive director Lila Tretikov to the community posted on the mailing lists in April. A new vice president of engineering will now need to be hired, but only afterwards—Tretikov indicated that filling the CTO role would be the first priority.

Brief notes

• Discussion of interest: A discussion of interest occurred this week on the Wikimedia-l mailing list regarding the history of Wikimedian chapters and user organizations in the United States, and whether or not a regional chapter (Wikimedia US) can, could have, or should have occurred. Quoting Risker:

“

Ironically, ... the "decision" to not have a US chapter was made around 10 years ago at the strong urging of other chapters. The theory (as I understand it) was that the US was the home of the WMF itself, which in the view of the era, meant that the US didn't need the "protections" that came from a chapter; the WMF itself was perceived to speak for US Wikimedians. (Given the times, back when there were literally only enough employees to run the servers and sort of keep an eye on MediaWiki, this was perhaps an incorrect assessment.) Then US regions started to form chapters, first New York then DC; there are now a significant number of user groups. If there had been a US chapter formed back at that time, there would only be one US chapter; the rest would never be recognized at the chapter level. Instead, we now see the specter of what could come, since the US alone as a nation with a large number of Wikimedians does not have the opportunity for a single chapter: given a little bit more organization, and the ambition to do the paperwork to become a chapter, the US could have as many (or more) chapters than exist in all of Europe in a few years. One has to wonder if some other countries, especially those with a large number of Wikimedians or a massive geographic area, might wish they had gone with regional affiliates rather than a national one.

”

• Metrics and activities: This month's Metrics and activities meeting took place on July 2.
• Wikimedia Conference 2015 Follow-up: The Wikimedia Germany personnel who hosted the recently concluded Wikimedia Conference 2015 in Berlin are organizing a WMCON Follow-up Day to be hosted at the coming Wikimania 2015, to be held July 15–19 in Mexico City. The day is "designed to be a space for participants of the Wikimedia Conference and other interested people to discuss topics of the Wikimedia Conference and develop them further."
• Press release on Wikimania 2015: The WMF published a press release this week on the coming Wikimania 2015.
• API portal: A new portal is being constructed to teach developers the basics of the Wikimedia query options available. You can read more about it in a posting to wikitech-l explaining what the big deal is.
• Wikimedia Hackathon 2015 post-op: A Wikimedia France member posted a write-up of the outcomes of this year's headliner Wikimedia Hackathon 2015 in Lyon, France to the Wikimedia Blog.
• Africa: Wikipedian Ian Gilfillan this week made a post on his personal blog highlighting points of interest in the growth of African Wikipedias. "While the English Wikipedia makes the news due to the declining number of editors, and has a particularly bad reputation (as can be seen in the mailing lists) amongst African editors who’ve had experience with some of its trigger-happy bureaucrats, how are the African language Wikipedias themselves faring?" The results are troubling: as with the English Wikipedia growth rates are static or declining across the board.

In a separate and unrelated blog post Wikipedian Don Osborn (author of "African Languages in a Digital Age") published another post to his own blog, this one discussing "Wiktionary as a tool for African language learning". The recommendations have also gained some traction in a discussion on the mailing list.

• NSA lawsuit update: The WMF legal team published an update to the WM Blog as to the whereabouts of the Foundation's much-lofted lawsuit against the NSA. The first hearing is scheduled for September 25.
• June in Education: The June issue of This Month in Education has been published.
• New administrator: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrator, Ser Amantio di Nicolao.

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