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Comment by btown | Hacker News Reader

It also seems Wikimedia isn't trying to relicense the content in any way that strips its e.g. CC-SA status, but rather providing the licenses as context alongside each API call. https://helpcenter.enterprise.wikimedia.com/hc/en-us/article...

It's worth noting that https://creativecommons.org/faq/#artificial-intelligence-and... itself takes the general stance that "as a general matter text and data mining in the United States is considered a fair use and does not require permission under copyright."

But as a practical matter, I wouldn't be surprised if some Wikipedia editors balk at their volunteer work being actively marketed and reformatted for ease of LLM training by the very platform that solicited their volunteer services, regardless of their works' legal status and Wikimedia's technical respect of that legal status.

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> I wouldn't be surprised if some Wikipedia editors balk at their volunteer work being actively marketed and reformatted for ease of LLM training

As someone who avidly edited Wikipedia for 6-8 years, I am happy to see my volunteer work used for LLM training. I also agree some other editors likely aren't.

Given that all Wikipedia editors have explicitly consented to their content being released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License, they don't get a choice about their content being used for any purpose.

Redistribution of content is an entirely different matter, and the legal status of copyrighted material in relation to LLM training is an open issue that is currently the subject of litigation.

Wikimedia Foundation’s perspective on this [1]:

> "it is important to note that Creative Commons licenses allow for free reproduction and reuse, so AI programs like ChatGPT might copy text from a Wikipedia article or an image from Wikimedia Commons. However, it is not clear yet whether massively copying content from these sources may result in a violation of the Creative Commons license if attribution is not granted. Overall, it is more likely than not if current precedent holds that training systems on copyrighted data will be covered by fair use in the United States, but there is significant uncertainty at time of writing."

The new Wikimedia Enterprise APIs facilitate attribution. For example, the "api.enterprise.wikimedia.com/v2/structured-contents/{name}" response [2] includes an "editor" object in a "version" object. So the Wikipedia editor who most recently edited the article seems quite feasible to attribute. ML apps could incorporate such attribution in their offering, and help satisfy the "BY" clause in the underlying CC-BY-SA 4.0 license for Wikipedia content.

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1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/Copyright_Analysis...

2. https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/docs/on-demand/#article-str...

As another editor, I think they might be a vocal minority. :)

> But as a practical matter, I wouldn't be surprised if some Wikipedia editors balk at their volunteer work being actively marketed and reformatted for ease of LLM training by the very platform that solicited their volunteer services,

I think that will heavily depend on just what the money goes to.

A better user experience, tightening up the code behind things, fewer nag screens for donations? Justifiable.

Jimmy Wales going from decently-compensated to a bad case of Founder Syndrome? Not so justifiable.

Founder Syndrome: a psychological condition wherein a person who starts a venture believes the venture should earn them a net worth on the order of billions of dollars, regardless of its actual economic value, and is willing to seriously enshittify the venture's product or service in order to make this delusion come true, especially in preparation for an IPO. See also: /u/spez, SPAC, Facebook, Unity Engine

> Jimmy Wales going from decently-compensated to a bad case of Founder Syndrome? Not so justifiable.

Jimmy wales is not paid at all (he has a board seat, but that doesn't come with any money)

He of course has leveraged his fame from being "founder" quite extensively. I think most of his money comes from fandom which he is also one of the founders of.

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