Justin Cormack wrote:
On 24 Jul 2006, at 10:02, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Ultimately, only a judge can decide whether a
contribution is in
fact a
coyright violation. We may suspect copyright violations; we may
demand
that a contributor accept responsibility (and define what that
means),
but we can rarely make a definitive statement that a particular
writing or image is in fact a violation.
It's a dangerous game you propose here.
What's so dangerous about insisting that contributors accept
responsibility for their action, and that WMF clarify its role as
an ISP.
One important reason is that the foundation does take an editorial interest,
indeed employs people to deal with content issues, so cannot just claim to
be an ISP. Another is that they (or other people) intent to publish print
copies and copies in other forms, where liability is clear, and there is no
common carrier type argument.
And the whole point was to create a free encyclopaedia remember. Non
free content has no place in a free encyclopaedia.
It does tend to muddy the woaters about editorial control, and this is
unfortunately poor strategy. Good business sense would suggest that
assets be protected by building a separation between these functions.
This does take us into the issue of governance structure, which is
better in a separate string.
I know the arguments that distinguish fair use and free use, but the
issue is bigger than that distinction. We still need to determine
whether the source material is copyrightable in the first place, or
whether we are taking it from a source which is itself only copying
public domain material and claiming copyright.
Ec