[Foundation-l] Re: Copyright issues...walking on thin ice

Sun Aug 8 03:13:50 UTC 2004

Angela:
> > The legal risk lies with the user who uploaded it
> and claimed it was
> > fair use, not with the Foundation.

That may be the letter of the law interpretation, but
for "the foundation" to make a policy of deflecting
all such responsibility to its contributors, would
only bode well for any competing project that chose to
show a little more philosophical and legal backbone.
Pioneering projects need to be pioneering, not
capitulating or betraying to their own supporters,
especially if the mistakes are honest ones in the
realm of intel property. In any case, the inclusion of
material is a community decision, and so the
foundation as a facilitator for the violation, (by an
implied community decision) is legally responsible.
Does going apenuts with compliance paranoia to a
particular legal system comply with the larger goals
of being globally accessible and philosophically
equitable? I.D.T.S...

What exactly constitutes a "community 'decision'" when
anything can be changed anytime, is wobbly.

S

--- Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Angela_ wrote:
> 
> >>Even if this is fair use, what's stopping the
> copyright holders from suing the wikimedia
> foundation, and incurring a great deal of legal
> fees? 
> > 
> > The legal risk lies with the user who uploaded it
> and claimed it was
> > fair use, not with the Foundation.
> 
> That's interesting. This is the first time I hear
> this (but I haven't 
> followed the discussion very much, either).  So what
> are you going to do 
> if the uploader is an anonymous IP address?
> 
> >>Is the foundation willing to pursue lawsuits
> against them for violating copyright law? 
> > 
> > If an image really is fair use, it is not
> violating copyright law.
> 
> At least not in the U.S.
> 
> > The German Wikipedia have a policy which disallows
> fair use completely.
> 
> Which is reasonable, seeing as most of the users of
> the German-language 
> content are going to be German, Swiss, Austrian or
> possibly 
> Luxembourgian, and those countries don't have a
> "fair use" law.
> 
> > We are protected to some extent by the [[Online
> Copyright Infringement
> > Liability Limitation Act]]. We would take the
> images down if someone
> > sent a valid takedown notice, so presumably we
> would avoid legal risk
> > that way.
> 
> Again, this is interesting.  I didn't know there was
> an extra Act for 
> this.  This begs the question would other countries
> have a similar law.
> 
> Timwi
> 
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