And we are hardly the only people out there to rely upon it or its basic premises. There are far bigger fish with far bigger stakes than us who rely on it (Corel as a case in point), and who would be far bigger targets for legal litigation (since they actually derive revenue from it). I would be wary about interpretations which diverge beyond the actual subject matter ruled on in Bridgeman (i.e., I would NOT assume it applied for stained-glass windows, because the element of lighting would be a major creativity issue in that case, despite their two-dimensionality), but since half a decade has passed without appeal or contrary rulings I don't think we have any strong need to be afraid, yet. But again, I'm not a lawyer.
FF
On 4/12/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Fastfission wrote:
Since Bridgeman v. Corel currently IS the law (whether the archivists like it or not) and has BEEN the law for the past six years, I think we shouldn't be too worried about using it. In any event, if something horrible happened which changed the legal situation we can always go back over the images tagged as such and delete them.
While I am of course sympathetic, it bears repeating that Bridgeman v. Corel is *not* binding authority, as it was merely a district court case.
It may not be binding outside of that district or on any higher court but it is influential as long as no contrary decision has been issued. As someone else has noted it has not been appealed, and that may very well be because the losers in the district court were convinced that such an appeal would get nowhere. Saying that is was "merely" a district court case does not mean that we cannot rely on it to some extent.
Ec
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