On 11/08/06, George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Copyright law sometimes causes freely
redistributable things all sorts
of
pain and suffering. If you want to work to
change the law, feel free,
either through lobbying or court cases or whatnot. Taking a too-free
interpretation of existing copyright law right now, though, could easily
get
Wikipedia in a world of hurt. There have been
copyright cases with
damages
and legal fees which exceed the net value of WMF.
OTOH, that doesn't mean shy away from specious examples like the
National Portrait Gallery's specious legal threats.
No, it would be silly to assume that any copyright violation claim is
inherently legally valid or morally valid. People make legally questionable
legal threats all the time.
But that doesn't invalidate the general reasons why current policy is what
it is.
--
-george william herbert
george.herbert(a)gmail.com