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

Sun Aug 8 14:48:58 UTC 2004

--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I too thought that the response was peculiar. 
> Passing the buck onto 
> some naïve individual who may not understand
> copyright law at all evades 
> responsibility.  

Its understandable. Official positions not only must
remain uncolored, but also moderately defensive of the
institution. Any offical doctrine is going to draw a
sharp and non-intuitive line, unless dealing with
specific cases. Language is just codewords, and
paradoxically enough, private discussion can be more
open.

> Sometimes we need to say, "This material may still
> be copyright, but 
> it's 30 years old, the publisher went bankrupt 25
> years ago, and the 
> writer or photographer died 20 years ago without a
> family and without 
> mentioning copyrights in his will.  Maybe we should
> take a chance." 

I dont think that its remotely this conditional. Alex
made it clear that it's all pretty unclear as to how a
case could come down. The most touchy aspects are all
very general and current issues for law, not at all
particular to WP. To stick-neck-out or
not-stick-neck-out; that is the question. And this is
in degrees: the *degree of caution expressed (in
direct proportion to the number of nuts invested)
versus the degree to which such caution is
{{{understood}}} to stifle the goal of development.
The balanced and cautious community decision led to
the well understood and vigilant requirement for
attribution. This is good enough IMNSHO.

S

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