David Speakman wrote:
- WP authors give up all rights to the public domain. Once it is
uploaded onto the WP servers it no longer is a work belonging to any one person.
This is not true. Where did you get that idea? You should probably study up on the differences between the GNU FDL and "public domain".
- Trade requires that the writer gets money or other tangible goods in
exchange for services. WP is one way.
That isn't what the story says. But if you're right, that's great, although it tempts me personally to find and pay an author in one of those countries $1 to contribute to Wikipedia, and then to edit it.
I'll ask Larry Lessig and Eugene Volokh (both 1st Amendment scholars) to comment on this.