On Sun, 03 Oct 2004 18:05:43 -0700, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
I personally believe that we could show a lot more courage in matters of
copyright. There is a great deal of material out there that is
technically protected by copyright, but which could be republished with
impunity simply because there is no-one there to own the copyright.
This does not mean that we go ahead and willy-nilly republish anything
that strikes our fancy; that would be an act of stupidity. Some
criteria would need to be followed. Anything that we would so republish
(Wikisource being most affected) would need to state the possible
problems right up front, and to state that we would remove the material
if so requested by a person who establishes that he has the legal right
to make such a request. If no-one makes a request for three years, the
limitation period for civil copyright suits, the doctrine of laches may
be applicable.
This is a fascinating suggestion. I have often grumbled to myself about the
difficulties of identifying copyright status for untraceable or anonymous (but
not explicitly licensed) content... of course there are issues of
tagging / hiding
questionable content so that reusers (in print, for instance) don't get bitten
for using it.
--
+sj+