Hi all,
The Wikimedia Foundation is working on comments to submit to the US
Copyright Office, which has asked for input on about the state of the
current legal system that protects online platforms (like us) from
liability for copyright infringement for content we host. That system
includes a notice-and-takedown process for copyright owners to request that
we remove content from the Wikimedia projects if it infringes their
copyrights. We participated in a first round of comments[1] and subsequent
roundtable discussions[2] earlier this year
In this second round of comments[3], the Copyright Office is particularly
interested in “empirical research studies” that would provide them with
more information to help them decide what changes to the law (if any) to
recommend. The deadline for submitting studies to the Copyright Office is
March 8.
We don’t have time to conduct an original research study between now and
the deadline, but we were hoping that the folks on this list may be able to
point us to relevant existing research. Anything recent that could in some
way relate to Wikimedia and copyright—including community-based mechanisms
for improving and removing content on Wikimedia projects generally—would be
good for us to know about.
On the off chance any of you are doing relevant research currently, please
get in touch with me. We’d be happy to support your research if we can, and
we may want to let the Copyright Office know about it even if it won’t be
published by March 8.
Thanks, everyone, and please let me know if you have any questions about
this issue.
Best,
Charles
[1]
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/04/06/save-safe-harbors-open-web/
[2]
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/06/16/copyright-law/
[3]
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-11-08/pdf/2016-26904.pdf
==
Charles M. Roslof
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
croslof(a)wikimedia.org
(415) 839-6885
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