Rama Neko wrote:
Assuming the worst case for yourself and the best case
for your
adversary is a good way not to be surprised. It is safe.
Actually, it borders on
paranoia, as in copyright paranoia. What if the
"adversary" succeeds in getting both the GFDL and CC licenses ruled
invalid - there are plenty of companies who might like to profit from
that, maybe they'll make the investment in lawyers. What if a country
like Greece or Egypt retroactively extends copyright back 3,000 years,
and international law requires that everybody else follow suit, and
effectively abolish the public domain? Once paranoia has you in its
grip, then all manner of ridiculous things seem possible and even
likely. Lawyers know all this, and if you actually talk to one, it's
clear that the line of OK / not-OK is a very fluid one, changing on a
regular basis, and that's fine with them. While we can come up with a
set of rules for commons that seems generally workable at the moment,
it's simply not possible to come up with a set of rules that will work
in perpetuity no matter what, short of the previously-mentioned
repository emptying. :-)
Stan