[Wikipedia-l] Re: What would Richard Stallman say?

[Daniel Mayer]

Michael Snow wrote:
>Well, you've had disagreements with at least two so far. 
>Though of course, lawyers frequently disagree with each 
>other, too. It's sort of an occupational requirement.

Actually I agreed with and helped to defend most of Alex's positions -
including most of his views on using fair use materials in Wikipedia. Our only
major disagreement was the last one (which turned out to be a misunderstanding
on my part - I have sent two emails apologizing to him but have not heard from
him yet...). 

>However, if you feel that our disclaimer of warranties 
>shifts the obligation to downstream users, making it 
>their job to determine what they can legally copy, 
>that's a reasonable position to take.

That is one of the major reasons why I supported Alex in getting the disclaimer
linked from every page. 

>As I have pointed out in some of my other posts, there 
>are other legal justifications for quotation besides fair 
>use under US copyright law. I believe we should shift 
>our reliance to Article 10 of the Berne Convention, 
>which specifically allows quotation of published works. 

That seems like a good idea, given our international bent. I find the wording
in the Berne Convention to be easier to follow than the convoluted mess of fair
use doctrine. 

>We would have to make sure we mention the source 
>and the name of the author. 

Exactly! We have WAY too many images that don't have this type of information.
IMO, we should stop all uploads and launch a tagging effort. Once that is fully
underway a form should be added to the upload page that would force uploaders
to enter text into author, source, and license fields. I consider the current
situation to be untenable and dangerous to the long term viability to the
project. 

To even have a chance of being considered fair, the use *must* give author
info, no? I hear that over 20% of the images on the English Wikipedia do not
give that information. 

>I think this can pretty much resolve the issue for text, and 
>an argument can be made to apply it to images and sounds 
>as well. 

Yep. That is my IANAL interpretation. Has this been tested for non-text
content? 

-- mav

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