Gingerbread Man on 29/3/2005 at 19:51

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Encyclopedia and other anthologies already have coverage under the Berne Convention on digital media copyright. There's some debate to be had over whether TTLG, the page creators individually, or the incidental conglomeration of the wiki posters as a group hold this right.

Article 2 (5) of the Berne Convention:

"Collections of literary or artistic works such as encyclopaedias and anthologies which, by reason of the selection and arrangement of their contents, constitute intellectual creations shall be protected as such, without prejudice to the copyright in each of the works forming part of such collections."

Basically, that says that while content contributors may hold rights to their content (and by virtue of publication have secured these rights), the wiki itself, as a collection, is protected as well. Plus (obviously) the software is protected under GPL.

I suppose technically it all remains under the larger umbrella of TTLG's content copyright. Which is really more of a convenient way to allow us to protect the contributed content of sites and the forums so that individual members have a stick to shake at people if they need it. That stick being me.