[Wikipedia-l] Copyright concerns (was Wikipedia spanks Encarta, Brockhaus)

Mon Oct 4 02:43:43 UTC 2004

On Sun, 03 Oct 2004 18:05:43 -0700, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at 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+