On 4/28/07, Artur Fijałkowski wiki.warx@gmail.com wrote:
Maybe we should ignore for a short time this problem. Put on sitenotice on all projects: ''Support our petition for change copyright in US'' And we will have millions of supporters during few weeks ;) Then post it to legislature of US and work's done ;)
The majority of our work is unharmed by copyright. We build our own material and release it for free to give the public an *alternative* to restrictively copyrighted works. We could accomplish most of our mission under the longest lasting and most restrictive systems imaginable. As such, our efforts can be supported by those from both the anti-copyright and pro-copyright camps.
I believe that branding ourselves as extreme anti-copyright activists would be counter-productive.
Not only would doing so cost us the support of many large organizations who's support we could reasonably expect to obtain today, but it would provide a convenient way for detractors to attack us ("Wikimedia are just a bunch of anarchists who want to take the bread from the mouths of the babes of authors"), and it would be likely unsuccessful: There are billions of dollars behind the current system, and the US is the largest net-exporter of informational goods.
Increasingly we should expect that copyright will be perpetual and that virtually nothing created in the US will ever become PD in any major country. This is terrible, and there are groups working to fight it (for example, publicknowledge).. but it is the trend. Fortunately, most of our activity will not be harmed by this.
Yes, actually following the nuance of the law will cause us to reject some works which people have previously uploaded. This is unfortunate. However, a more accurate policy will also allow us to accept works which we have previously rejected (such as a work published in 1920 only in the US whos author died within 70 years).