On 24 February 2010 13:49, Bod Notbod <bodnotbod(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 1:25 PM, Carcharoth
<carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com> wrote:
Does this case have implications for Wikipedia or
the Wikimedia Foundation?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8533695.stm
Google employees were convicted by a court for allowing a video of a
teenager with Down's Syndrome being bullied to be posted online. It
seems most of the internet is up in arms about this, as it shifts the
location where liability can be placed, though I doubt anything like
this would ever appear in the USA.
It does indeed pose a big question to anyone that uploads video
showing persons who haven't signed a form giving consent for, I
suppose, "broadcast".
Similarly there's a bill going through the British Parliament at the
moment saying that you can't photograph people in public places. So if
I wanted to take a picture of a statue and happen to catch someone
walking past in the frame I would be liable.
Link?
One hopes that we British will be shown to be such
other legislatory
idiots that nobody will take it seriously.
Mr Godwin has already said he wouldn't fly over here to defend
Wikimedia in a libel case because it would be "too risky". We are set
to become an utter laughing stock.
Unfortunately not. Too many companies have London branches just to
laugh and the UK's somewhat insane libel laws. Fixing them however is
beyond wikipedia's ability other than as a source of "this is what you
are missing" for the general public.
--
geni