On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 3:48 PM, Gautam John
<gautam@prathambooks.org> wrote:
Hi Theo:
> I beg to differ Gautum. Since, it was made part of the curriculum this
> almost constitutes as cheating. I am not sure about lofty first world
> standards but
You seem to have missed this:
"Yes, it is important to explain why copyvivos are important (and from
an academic, plagiarism point of view too) but the bigger issue if
intellectual honesty."
Copyright violations aren't only important from an academic plagiarism point of view but also legal and ethical, you seem to be only focusing on text based violation in Academia maybe. Commons users and admins spend the better part of their time educating themselves and dealing with these violations from different countries not because of some honesty issues but real legal ones.Violations more often than not, can lead to court cases, damages and expose the project to liability.
I never really distinguished what Media I was referring to in regards of Copyright violation, in case of Video and Music, you might want to read different variation of DMCA, along with the take-down notices that WMF has already complied with located here[1]. For images, I can attest to spending several hundred hours talking on IRC and looking for copyright terms of different countries to comply with. It is something people I know take very seriously. I am not sure if "Intellectual honesty" means ethics in this context but I would disagree if that is what WMF and other Wikipedians would be concerned about, it's really the legal liability that they expose WMF and projects to. Maybe Hisham can clarify.
> Second, if we don't uphold the "WMF policies" (they are actually project
> policies, not the foundation's) in an officially sanctioned and financed
> program, then who will?
Again, you are raising a straw-man here. I did not say do not respect
copyrights. I said that the current actions were overblown. We might
disagree on this but I do carry an activists perspective here and
respect your position and what the WMF has to do to limit liability
too.
As I saw it, you stated that copyright violations are no big deal, especially in India and the more important thing is being honest (Intellectually) when someone plagiarizes or something to that effect. Correct me if I based my assumptions wrong or if this straw-man is alive.
If you read my comment again, I never allege that you said not to respect copyrights. I was referring to your perception of this issue being overblown and not as important. I also did say, these issues are more important when it is the WMF at the helm conducting these programs.
I am well aware of your position as a open-source book publisher and a Creative commons hero along with someone I respect, that was why I found your position very surprising on this issue.
Also, Hi Hisham, Nice to see you avoided replying to my comment alone. ;)