[Foundation-l] Help requested on Commons copyright woes

Tue Jul 25 01:44:46 UTC 2006

Brianna Laugher wrote:

>On 22/07/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>  
>
>>WMF would probably do best to distance itself from these issues.  It has
>>too much to lose from a wrong decision.  The fundamental premise should
>>be that the uploader of material has the primary responsibility for
>>establishing the copyright status of what he provides.  At the same time
>>it needs to safeguard its founding principle that it is providing an
>>free access resource.  I certainly have ideas for attempting to
>>reconcile these concepts, but I'll save them for another time.
>>    
>>
>Well, the thing is, a huge part of Commons' role is to play Media
>Copyright Police. And as this thread has shown it is really, really,
>hard. 
>
I agree.  The unfortunate danger with playing any kind of police is in 
developing a police mentality.

>The same issues keep coming up again and again, no satisfactory
>results, it's like arguing with windmills. Having the same debates
>again and again is very weary-making. 
>
Absolutely, but it's also unavoidable.  There are always new people who 
have never participated in these debates before.  How do we let them 
know that their opinions matter.

>It's easy enough to upload at
>Commons then forget about it, but each project is only as strong as
>its weakest link, and then it comes to copyright, that could well be
>Commons. 
>
I see no difficulty in having each project develop its own policies 
about copyright, and how much it will allow.  The important thing is 
that there remain an essential respect for the rights of the copyright 
owners.

>So this thread is me asking for help. Is it not the WMF's
>role to support and help its projects?
>
I can sympathize with your position.  The answer to your question is 
clearly "Yes."  But that help should not extend to making the decisions 
that each project should be making for itself.

Ec