Who owns Wikipedia?, I am not a lawyer Options

[Peter Damian]

I've heard claims here occasionally that Wikipedia could be sold off. Is that possible? Who actually owns it? What is it they actually own? Could anyone get their hands on it and make a ton of money from ? What would they be getting their hands on?

[Ottava]

I've heard claims here occasionally that Wikipedia could be sold off. Is that possible?

Why would anyone want to buy it? It is already CC-BY-SA-3.0. That means anyone can take the stuff, repackage it, and make money.

It is like marrying the town slut who promises to do anything sexual for anyone at any time. Would you really want to marry her? Maybe someone is crazy enough, but I am sure they are prepared for the diseases that will surely come with it.

[radek]

I've heard claims here occasionally that Wikipedia could be sold off. Is that possible?

Why would anyone want to buy it? It is already CC-BY-SA-3.0. That means anyone can take the stuff, repackage it, and make money.

It is like marrying the town slut who promises to do anything sexual for anyone at any time. Would you really want to marry her? Maybe someone is crazy enough, but I am sure they are prepared for the diseases that will surely come with it.

As the others said it's the brand name. And even though that's "intangible" it can be worth quite a lot of money - consider that people who purchase fast-food restaurant franchises pay A LOT of dough simply to be able to use the logo/brand name, and that buying a fast food franchise, making a hefty upfront payment and then coughing up a good portion of your monthly revenue to the "parent company" STILL is a safer and probably a higher return investment (details depend on the local market), on average, then starting your own restaurant under a brand name of your choosing.

You might not like it, but Wikipedia's worth a buttload of money, despite the fact that all its content is "free" and reproducible.

[TungstenCarbide]

As the others said it's the brand name... You might not like it, but Wikipedia's worth a buttload of money, despite the fact that all its content is "free" and reproducible.

No, it's not the brand name. It's the traffic's potential add revenue. There isn't much else of value. Nobody cares about the brand-name, it's value is negligible compared to potential revenue of Wikipedia's traffic.

This post has been edited by TungstenCarbide:

[radek]

As the others said it's the brand name... You might not like it, but Wikipedia's worth a buttload of money, despite the fact that all its content is "free" and reproducible.

No, it's not the brand name. It's the traffic's potential add revenue. There isn't much else of value. Nobody cares about the brand-name, it's value is negligible compared to potential revenue of Wikipedia's traffic.

Cause and effect. It's the brand name. That is the value. No brand name no traffic, even with all the google support and all that. Traffic is the RESULT of the brand name.

[thekohser]

Cause and effect. It's the brand name. That is the value. No brand name no traffic, even with all the google support and all that. Traffic is the RESULT of the brand name.

No, it is not.

If Google decided tomorrow to copy Wikipedia's content to a new site called "Sergeypedia.com", and Google elected to remove Wikipedia domains from search results and to replace them with Sergeypedia links, I guarantee you and would be willing to bet you $100 (while there would be some significant outcry from the tech press about "Google being evil") that Sergeypedia (for at least a month, even if left absolutely unimproved by any Google gimmicks) would be a Top 20 website and Wikipedia would fall out of the Top 20.

Radek, if you can find some support for your logic, I would be amused to see it.

This post has been edited by thekohser:

[anthony]

If Google decided tomorrow to copy Wikipedia's content to a new site called "Sergeypedia.com", and Google elected to remove Wikipedia domains from search results and to replace them with Sergeypedia links, I guarantee you and would be willing to bet you $100 (while there would be some significant outcry from the tech press about "Google being evil") that Sergeypedia (for at least a month, even if left absolutely unimproved by any Google gimmicks) would be a Top 20 website and Wikipedia would fall out of the Top 20.

The problem with that argument is that Google wouldn't do that. And in fact, people use Google because it wouldn't do that.

[dogbiscuit]

If Google decided tomorrow to copy Wikipedia's content to a new site called "Sergeypedia.com", and Google elected to remove Wikipedia domains from search results and to replace them with Sergeypedia links, I guarantee you and would be willing to bet you $100 (while there would be some significant outcry from the tech press about "Google being evil") that Sergeypedia (for at least a month, even if left absolutely unimproved by any Google gimmicks) would be a Top 20 website and Wikipedia would fall out of the Top 20.

The problem with that argument is that Google wouldn't do that. And in fact, people use Google because it wouldn't do that.

Says who? Google will strip people out of search results if they think that they have been gaming the system, they will change the formula they use, and they would also come up with a plausible "do no evil" reason why the substitution was appropriate (like all the content is the same, but is no longer managed by teenage male IT geeks with too much time and too little ambition, but instead by experts of all genders).