[Foundation-l] GFDL publisher credit

Tue Jul 11 20:26:23 UTC 2006

Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>Erik Moeller wrote:
>  
>
>>On 7/4/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>It would also be nice
>>>to once and for all answer the question as to whether or not Wikimedia
>>>claims to be the "publisher" as the term is used in the GFDL.
>>>      
>>>
>Under US Law, Wikimedia is the "publisher" because they create 
>"collections" of works of the
>Wikipedia site and "publish" them to the world as XML dumps. 
>
Viewed by itself this is not a meaningful statement.  Different parts of 
US law (even only with reference to federal law) can define "publisher" 
in entirely different and often contradictory ways.  Any definition that 
can be used for copyright purposes could be quite different from that 
which is applicable to libel.

>Whether electronic or in book form, they
>are publishing. This being said, given the nebulous and undefined state 
>of internet IP law,
>whether they are a publisher or not, there's no legal precedence to 
>determine liability, so at present
>they are operating in an area of experimental law on the frontiers of 
>human knowledge.
>
Of course.

Ec