[Foundation-l] Re: Formal request: Wikinews project - Wikimedia-l

13 Oct 2004

Fred Bauder wrote:

...
 Anyone with a damages decree is going to levy on the
servers and the domain
names.

 Sure, because those are the only assets we have. But looking at it from 
the other side of this hypothetical, would it be worth the plaintiff's 
effort to get a damages decree? Wikimedia is, just like many other 
entities in the open source world, a thinly capitalized nonprofit 
organization without any well-developed revenue stream. The servers 
aren't worth that much in the overall scheme of things - possibly not 
enough to cover even our own legal fees, or if we rely on pro bono 
assistance, the other side's lawyers. Plus they're hardware that 
depreciates rapidly. As for the domain names, most of their value exists 
because we own them. They'd have no value to the plaintiff except in a 
sale, and even that would probably be wiped out by the substantial fork 
that would promptly arise should any lawsuit actually bankrupt Wikimedia.

It only makes sense to go for damages if the defendant has the "deep 
pockets" to pay them. With us, the plaintiff's primary interest is 
likely to be a retraction and an injunction against continued 
publication of the offending material. If we find they actually have a 
case, it's much easier for everyone if we just withdraw the story and 
issue a retraction without all the litigation. Then we go on about our 
business, while the plaintiff gets to think, "Ha, I made them grovel and 
apologize, they'll tread very carefully if ever they write about me again."

The organizations that budget millions for legal defense do so because 
they have millions to protect. We may be getting up there in terms of 
visibility, but in economic terms we're still a very small fish indeed.

--Michael Snow