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Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

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Re: Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

#61

Post by theamk »

willcipriano wrote: post #56
theamk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are trying to claim that Google goes further than DVD or netflix, but this analogy is really not working for you. DVDs have technological protection as well -- the CSS[0] system. So yes, if you don't want your movie to be pirated you need to explicitly enable this. This was probably harder than creating robots.txt too, there were NDAs and stuff involved. The netflix requires logging in to access the conte…

The point is it doesn't matter how hard or how easy it is, Google has no entitlement to anyone else's labor or content and if they post content to their website in violation of copyright I don't think "he didn't say the magic word that stops us from stealing content" is a defence any reasonable judge should entertain.

> in violation of copyright ... defence any reasonable judge should entertain.

Now we are talking specifics! Are you implying that Google is violating the law? Given that the snippet showing has been going for a long time and no one has sued Google for it yet, it does not seem to. Plus, there is the whole Fair Use laws [0].

I personally love that I can take snippets from the random websites on the net, quote them in my posts, and not worry about copyright infringement. And if I can do this, why can't Google?

[0] https://ammori.org/2012/05/08/copyright-misunderstandings-an...

Re: Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

#62

Post by oefrha »

hkai wrote: post #50
ROARosen wrote: post #44

With all due respect to Wikipedia for what it is, I believe their success is partly because of the 'altruistic' nature of their model. Sure, they should seek donations from huge companies like Google - which make tons of money off of their data - for the services they provide, but I feel like locking down the 'better' api to the public is not the way to go about it. It's just too often that a commercial offering just…

The altruistic model seems to be doing not that well. The number of editors peaked in 2007 and has been going down since. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians#Number_o...

Have you ever looked at funding statistics?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising_statisti...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

Re: Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

#63

Post by jessriedel »

oefrha wrote: post #62
hkai wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The altruistic model seems to be doing not that well. The number of editors peaked in 2007 and has been going down since. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians#Number_o...

Have you ever looked at funding statistics? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising_statisti... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

I can't quite follow your point. Yes, donations continue to grow. Are you trying to rebut him?

Re: Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

#64

Post by ThinkBeat »

I hope this is not the first step into a worrisome future.

It appears now that they are offering "read-only" access to existing data structured and packaged in a more convenient way.

How long before paying enterprises would like to be able to "update" content on a more efficient basis?

Perhaps Sony would like to add articles about movies that will be released soon, or as they are released? That is a pretty benign example.

Creating alerts that enterprises can subscribe to so that they will be informed if anyone adds any negative content would also be valuable.

These systems already exist in some manner, it would just make it more efficient and more common.

Re: Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

#65

Post by oefrha »

jessriedel wrote: post #63
oefrha wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever looked at funding statistics? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising_statisti... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

I can't quite follow your point. Yes, donations continue to grow. Are you trying to rebut him?

This thread (or rather, this whole topic) is more about funding/business model than anything else, yet gp points to the slight decline in the number of active editors that is quite easily explained by other factors (see other replies) as evidence that Wikipedia is “not doing that well” (cerntainly not financially, so in what way exactly and how is that relevant?). Now that’s something hard to follow.

Re: Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

#66

Post by ROARosen »

anaganisk wrote: post #59
ROARosen wrote: post #44

With all due respect to Wikipedia for what it is, I believe their success is partly because of the 'altruistic' nature of their model. Sure, they should seek donations from huge companies like Google - which make tons of money off of their data - for the services they provide, but I feel like locking down the 'better' api to the public is not the way to go about it. It's just too often that a commercial offering just…

> The new API is an opt-in product, meaning that everyone (including those companies) can continue to use the current publicly-available tools at no cost and no restriction. The ability to freely access the knowledge across all Wikimedia projects remains unaffected–it is core to our mission. Not sure what you have to worry about.

>Not sure what you have to worry about.

>From op: It's just too often that a commercial offering just disincentives bettering the 'free' product.

Instead of the public foundation focusing on bettering and modernizing the public option, they are -and will continue to be - putting their efforts to create a better api to be used solely for private purposes (albeit with good intentions).

Sure, it's opt-in to use the 'better' api. But that comes at the expense of this better api not being available publicly. So going forward by default the public is always going to be getting the inferior api, saving the 'better' ones for commercial use. That doesn't seem very opt-in-like to me...

Re: Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

#67

Post by ROARosen »

cush wrote: post #55
patmorgan23 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't loom at the details, but a free usage tier with relatively low limits so hobbiest can use it would be acceptable. If you're pulling a lot of data out of a project like wikipedia you would at least be paying to keep the servers running.

The point is that's not an option. Everyone should get the public tier. And if you tried to pull a lot of data, you'd get throttled.

Totally, and if a big company like Google does not want to be throttled or they feel a need for a more advanced api, they can donate to Wikimedia for the purpose of creating such an api which will be available to everyone publicly.

Re: Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

#69

Post by slightwinder »

willcipriano wrote: post #19
theamk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google scraping your sites is a bad thing, you want to set "nosnippet" tags on your page [0]. If Google scraping your sites is a good thing, then why are you complaining? I hope Google never starts paying for the links. Once there is a precedent, this becomes an effective blocker for the new search engines, visualizers, and other exciting web search startups. A new search engine startup is not going to be able to…

I similarly require that producers of motion pictures say "nosteal" at some point in the opening credits otherwise I assume I am free to make copies of the film to share with the internet.

Movies are not public accessable. And they come with usage-rights. If you don't publish your content for all, then define the usage properly.

Re: Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

#70

Post by zo1 »

theamk wrote: post #61
willcipriano wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is it doesn't matter how hard or how easy it is, Google has no entitlement to anyone else's labor or content and if they post content to their website in violation of copyright I don't think "he didn't say the magic word that stops us from stealing content" is a defence any reasonable judge should entertain.

> in violation of copyright ... defence any reasonable judge should entertain. Now we are talking specifics! Are you implying that Google is violating the law? Given that the snippet showing has been going for a long time and no one has sued Google for it yet, it does not seem to. Plus, there is the whole Fair Use laws [0]. I personally love that I can take snippets from the random websites on the net, quote them in…

I would argue that the snippet is the thing of value being potentially abused, not the page.

So if I search for e.g. "specific breakdown of something something, in a unique breakdown format that only this website has", then the website owner has worked on, created unique/copyrighted material, and posted it on a page on their site, and Google just extracts that piece, then they might as well have "acquired" the right to host that piece of info on their search results "page".

Google "extracting" that crucial bit of info and essentially "hosting" it on their search results page could definitely be argued to be some sort of abuse of fair-use (and at this point - who is willing or big enough to take on Google on this to set a precedent? The EU, maybe? ). It's not like they're quoting a piece of a large text, they actively find the specific piece of juicy info that relates to your query and host it on their page instead of yours.

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