User talk:Waldzazi

Question
''Hi How do I get an official ruling as to whether links to free content on Napster.com are OK?

The content is free and very broad and I think would make a useful addition to the external links section on an artists page and to the discography It is a commercial site and the content is supported by advertising but as the content is so useful and free I think it should be considered in the same way as links to IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, All Music Guide etc

Thanks Waldzazi


 * Hi there, well I couldn't find any guidelines on it. However as far as my legal knowledge goes (and that is not very far), it is absolutely not a copyright infringement because wikipedia is not responsible for the content on those pages. Indeed napster has its own wikipedia article, and the link to napster is on napster, so I believe it is fine to create that link. Wikipedia is not responsible for it, wikipedia can't be prosecuted for its content, the link is simply to provide further information about the website and to show a source for the article. However I wouldn't go on an article and say that you can download such and such's music for free here, as that would be a copyright infringement. I hope that I have cleared up any confusion. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. And one last thing, please sign off messages with four tildes ~ . Benjaminstewart05 19:29, 12 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Nice of you to think that I was an admin, I will take it as a compliment! Benjaminstewart05 19:31, 12 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Ben
 * There should be no problem as the content is perfectly legal.
 * Napster was able to cajole the RIIA into offering free content for a portion of the ad revenues.
 * This will probably come up again as an admin blocked me for spamming, his reason being that Napster was a commercial site.
 * I pointed out that there are many links to commercial sites on the Wiki including thousands of links to Amazon.com and stated my opinion that they have been and should be judged by their usefullness.
 * He seemed concerned that Napster not be favored over the Itunes Store and as Itunes offers no free content I found this argument kind of weak.
 * He was also of the opinion that the Napster links were of no value.
 * I pointed out to him as an example that Napster has over 71 albums by Bob Dylan that are free and that a link in an encylopedia entry for Bob Dylan would certainly be enhanced by a link to practically his entire recorded output which can then be listened to by the song, the entire album or even in its entirety for free.
 * He didnt agree and since I feel the point is kind of obvious I suspect he has a bias towards the Itunes store.
 * Oh well, I imagine this will get kicked around until there is some official decision on it.
 * Thanks for the response
 * Sorry if there are mistakes in my edits Im just learning the HTML now
 * Waldzazi 22:10, 12 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi there, I have looked a bit more into it, and I agree with you, these links can be added because wikipedia is not responsible for any outside content, and the links at the bottom of the pages are simply suggestions. The fact that the site is perfectly legal makes it even more fine. Your edit on the page was fine - we are all learning:)Benjaminstewart05 07:05, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Napster spam
We don't want links to commercial sites that will never serve as references for our articles. See External links. We also don't want to be abused by a marketing campaign, such as this one. Please don't add Napster links to our articles. Jkelly 21:21, 18 May 2006 (UTC)


 * You could start a conversation at Wikipedia talk:External links, or if you really want something more formal, you can open a Requests for comment. I don't understand what you would need an "advocate" for, but it is always good to discuss changes with as many people as possible.  Jkelly 03:41, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
 * You may want to see WP:AN first, before getting too optimistic about changing a lot of people's minds, however. Jkelly 03:52, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I encourage you to read the welcome links posted above. There is a lot of useful information there about how Wikipedia works, including, I imagine who "owns this joint".  Jkelly 04:46, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, if you really want to put it in my userspace, you can. Click User:Jkelly/Napster conversation and begin pasting.  If it needs to be in userpsace, I have a slight preference for you putting it at User:Waldzazi/Napster conversation, though.  If I were you, I'd start a new conversation at Wikipedia talk:External links, and link to the already-existsing conversations from there.  Wikipedians are very accomplished at following links, and it will attract more editors.  It's not really me alone that you have to convince.  Even if I were to come around to thinking that our articles are really lacking without links to Napster's content, I'd just get reverted when someone else saw me putting them in.  Jkelly 05:10, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

You can indent by starting a line with a colon : before typing. Jkelly 16:53, 20 May 2006 (UTC)