[Foundation-l] Wikinews - Licensure straw poll

Wed Aug 31 23:18:13 UTC 2005

Kelly Martin wrote:
> One would think that all Wikipedias would be subject to the same set
> of copyright rules, since they're all operated out of Florida.  I've
> never understood why people think that the language content is written
> in has any impact on the law such content is required to comply
> with....

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but 
in practice there is.

At the Swedish (language) Wikipedia village pump, if people decide 
to meet up to discuss stories where they have received complaints 
for copyright violations, they are likely to meet in Stockholm and 
the complaints (if any) are likely to have originated from media 
companies in the same town.  Both the media companies and the 
wikipedians are subject to the laws of Sweden (with very few 
exceptions), and if a conflict should escalate they will meet in a 
court of law in Sweden.  It doesn't really matter if they use a 
computer made in Taiwan or a server hosted in Florida.  Courts 
sentence people, not servers.

Now, because the entire Wikipedia community is so prudent, this 
whole scenario is very unlikely.  Copyright violations of this 
kind are settled by removing the contents, and it is rare that any 
rights holder would go to court to win damages.

-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se