[Wikipedia-l] Re: Two issues here: what is legal to have on the server and what is legal in the user's nation

Thu May 15 22:09:25 UTC 2003

> (Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu>):

>> 1) What is legal for any one user to do in the nation they are
>>    submitting from.
>> 2) What is legal to have on our server in California (this applies
>>    to everything we all submit; all text/media must be legal under
>>    California/US law).

> I don't think that we-as-a-group (Wikipedia as an institution)
> should concern ourselves (in our policies) with issue #1.
> We should not, for example, declare it a bannable offence
> or against Wikipetiquette to violate local laws when submitting.

Indeed, I would consider it heroic to violate local laws to post
useful information on Wikipedia, such as first-hand descriptions of
the acts of despotic governments, or information about how to
defeat net access restrictions.

A more tricky issue is postings that are legal elsewhere but not
legal in California, such as the posting of information that is
public domain in places whose legislature isn't owned by Disney.
We probably have to supress such information, which is a shame.

-- 
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee at piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC