[Foundation-l] "Terms of use" : Anglo-saxon copyright law and Anglo-saxon lawyers : a disgrace for Continental Europeans

Mon Dec 12 20:54:07 UTC 2011

I suppose we could add a disclaimer saying that the Terms of Use do not 
affect the editor's moral rights, although this would be a bit redundant 
since the CC-BY-SA license already states this.

Ryan Kaldari

On 12/12/11 12:42 PM, Maggie Dennis wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 11:14 AM, Teofilo<teofilowiki at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> Le 11 décembre 2011 19:02, MZMcBride<z at mzmcbride.com>  a écrit :
>>> Hi.
>>>
>>> The "Terms of use" rewrite is starting to wind down. The current draft is
>>> here:<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use>.
>>  From the point of view of Continental Europe, where creators enjoy
>> advanced copyright laws which protect their attribution right, I think
>> this implementation of the - creator belittling - US copyright law on
>> Wikimedia projects is a disgrace. What the licensing section of this
>> draft terms of use is saying is that the WMF simply disregards the
>> attribution rights which are granted by law in their countries. It is
>> humiliating.
>>
>> By the clever use of attribution licenses, there was a way to
>> conciliate continental European laws and US or British laws. The WMF
>> decides not to do so, and to stubbornly push the US-copyright law
>> point of view. It is a pity.
>>
>> Perhaps the WMF should not have relied on a US lawyer alone. Perhaps a
>> team associating a US lawyer with a continental Europe lawyer would
>> have been better.
>>
>>
> I just noticed that Geoff sent this a while back in response to the digest,
> forgetting to include the specific subject line. Don't want it overlooked,
> so I'm pasting it in here. Apologies to those who may wind up reading it
> twice. :)
>
> @Teofilo.  Thanks for your comments.   The licensing and attribution
>
> requirements in the proposed Terms of
>
> use<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use#7._Licensing_of_Content>are
>
> intended to be exactly the same as the current Terms
>
> of use<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_use>.   If you don't
>
> believe that is the case, it would be most helpful if you could include
>
> your comments on the discussion
>
> page<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terms_of_use>,
>
> so we can correct this.   If it provides any comfort, I have lived 10 years
>
> in Europe while working extensively with European legal issues.   Indeed, I
>
> was awarded the honor of Chevalier de l'ordre national du Merite by the
>
> French government because of my abilities to bridge the differences between
>
> U.S. and French law.   And I also enjoyed studying European and
>
> international law at the University of Strasbourg.   That said, I'm always
>
> open to suggestions to better improve my understanding of other cultures
>
> and laws, and, for that reason, your participation on the discussion page
>
> would be most welcome.
>