[WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project

Wed Jun 22 00:02:46 UTC 2005

> On 6/21/05, Sean Barrett <sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> > I am very much copyright-unparanoid, but in the absence of any
> > credible indication that the entity calling itself CoolCat wrote the
> > material, we must presume the opposite.  If CoolCat disagrees with
> > that presumption, the burden of proof is on she/he/it.
> 
> Whatever happened to "assume good faith"?

It was overruled by the DMCA.

To put it a little less tersely, what we have here is a user who is
presuming too much on our good faith.  CoolCat submitted material that
is also published elsewhere.  When questioned (politely, I assume),
CoolCat made the important claim of being the copyright owner, yet
refused to supply critical pieces of data to support that claim.

If I were to start uploading Encarta articles, and when challenged on
their copyright status, claim to be the sole owner of their copyright,
are you going to say "okay, I'm going to assume your claim is made in
good faith," or are you going to ask for more information supporting
my surprising claim, or are you going to copyvio the appropriate
articles and ban me so I'll stop?

As Jimbo so wonderfully put it, this is a game of Calvinball, and the
Wikipedia is Calvin.  The "assume good faith" rule only applies until
the Wikipedia starts losing.  Then we realize that Friday the
Thirteenth falls on Wednesday next month, which means that all
unauthenticated claims of copyright ownership have to leave the
playground.

-- 
 Sean Barrett     | Tee-Eye-Double-Guh-Er! That spells "Tigger"!
 sean at epoptic.com |  