Still valid, but completely unrelated to AFTv5.

Isn't this a problem specific to the Vector skin?

No, this also happens when appending ?useskin=monobook to the URL.

This is a problem specific to English Wikipedia and whoever else copied the format of the footer at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyright

(e.g. Spanish Wikipedia also has this problem, Catalan Wikipedia hasn't).

Reported at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Wikimedia-copyright#Bug_37516_-_Empty_Creative_Commons_license_link_.28.29_in_footer

Resolving as INVALID here, only because this is not a MediaWiki software bug. The issue itself must be discussed and decided by the Wikipedia editors with permissions to edit that footer.

Copying an answer from that thread:

eh it's display none... what the hell are those screenreaders doing looking at it... Can someone test if wrapping it in a span with display none would work ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 1:48 am, Today (UTC−7)

fwiw:

"It makes CC content engines able to detect the CC license. Note the "rel=license" part. See also http://creativecommons.org/choose/ and all our image copyright templates which use similar constructs to enable engines to pick up CC licensed content. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:30 am, Yesterday (UTC−7)"