On 8/25/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
Ok, I don't know about the legal definitions,
but by the everyday
meaning of the word, the WMF is the publisher. They are the one that
makes the content available to the public, that's what the word means.
Perhaps
then it would be good to read what distinction you make between
a publisher and an ISP. I think that it is a distinction that would be
crucial in any legal dispute.
Precisely, Ray. The question is, does a webhost like Geocities "publish"
content, or just make it available through their infrastructure, while the
user who authors the content is considered the publisher? The WMF position
is that it is a webhost, and editors are publishers.
By the way, why are we talking about lay, as opposed to legal definitions?
Are we discussing human readability? AFAICT, the earlier discussion was
centring on the GFDL, a legal document. The term "publisher" has a special
meaning in law.
Johnleemk