[Foundation-l] GFDL publisher credit

Wed Jul 12 00:42:52 UTC 2006

On 7/11/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Anthony wrote:
>
> >On 7/4/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> >
> >>Erik Moeller wrote:
> >>
> >>>On 7/4/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> >>>
>

"Having an
employee make ad-hoc, arbitrary and speculative pronouncements on the
law without a clear policy from the Board to back it up probably puts
the entire project into greater peril than the obvious silliness of the
more ignorant copyright violators."

For the record, Ray, Jeff, Eric and Anthony are not employees of the
Foundation.

I am, and I hope you do not have a problem with the idea of a paid general
counsel having as one of his primary responsibilities the generation of
'speculative pronouncements on the law.'  That is rather the point.  My
client, my ethical obligation, and the recipient of my professional legal
advice is the Board.  It's my bar card on the line.  It is not my job to wax
eloquent on the law for the sake of making people on a listserv have more to
rant about.

Thanks for including the word "probably" in the statement above, btw.  I'd
hate to think you were taking a position without leaving yourself rhetorical
wiggle room.  That would probably' be silly as well.

-- 
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf at gmail.com
727-231-0101