On 9/4/05, Fastfission <fastfission(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I wasn't referring to a copyright provision, I was
referring to their other
well-known restrictive laws. I'm not sure I buy the "ethical validity"
argument, in part because I'm not so sure I, in my heart of hearts, think
that copyright is about ethics much these days (and suspect that Iran's lack
of participation in foreign copyright agreements is done so more for their
own benefit -- not having to pay foreign copyright holders -- than it does
in inducing any loss-of-profit for the Iranian government or Iranian
citizens).
But anyway -- my response was just meant to say, "Well, I don't think we're
legally bound to follow Iranian laws on this or much anything else." Even if
that's *true* (I'm the first to admit I'm not very well versed in
international law), it doesn't *necessarily* imply any particular course of
action. The censorship example was just to illustrate that if we tried to
follow every country's individual content laws about everything, we'd have
no encyclopedia.
This is something that has been thrashed out many times, including
well before the advent of the Internet. Just because a copy of (say)
The Washington Post might be sent to Iran doesn't mean that TWP has to
follow Iranian laws. It's up to Iran to enforce their own laws in
their own country and nobody is saying otherwise.
But just because we can legally steal images owned by Iranians doesn't
mean we should. For one thing, they might change their copyright law.
But to my mind it's just plain wrong, especially when we have so many
other avenues available, such as fair use, to illustrate our
encyclopaedia.
--
Peter in Canberra