--- "Alex R." <alex756(a)nyc.rr.com> wrote:
I agree with all of Jimbo's point. The dichotomy
commercial v.
non-commercial
is not really applicable because of the GFDL.
Ok.
As
well, even if one were to
use the fair use defense under US law, this fair use
may not be fair use for
downstream licensees. The problem is that fair use
does not primarily depend
on the third sector (what some people call
non-profits as being the "third
Force
in democractic societies); fair use is a specific
use defense. Thus it might
be
allowed in Wikipedia, copying a whole text might not
be considered a
copyright
infringement, but someone downstream that does not
have notice of that fact
is going to infringe and may not have the same fair
use defense as Wikipedia
will be found an infringer.
You say "will be found" as if this were a "legal
certainty." Is there such a thing where
hyper-transmission of materials is concerned? Please
dont point to the current RIAA case-- its likely to
recieve a severe case of public-advocacy backlash.
While anyone who releases a text has the burden to
prove that they did not
engage in an infrnging act (thus the burden IMHO
should be on the editor
contributor and the downstream licensee)
This is pretty straightforward. It comes down to a
contract between contributor and Wikipedia. A
deliberate and repeated violation of this contract is
the real issue. Understood.
Wikiepedia
may not have any
direct absolute liability because "Wikipedia" as
such, did not contribute
the
text
This is exactly what I said.
(a reason that the editors should retain
authorship attribution and
copyright IMO)
Is this going to happen? How does this jive with the
open-wiki model? Again, the democratizing,
open-source model was never really inline with the
privatized proprietary model in any case-- it's just a
matter of time for these things to come to a head -- I
see no point in changing horses in mid-stream now.
the goal is to create a base of
knowledge that can be used,
not sidelined because the due dillegence could not
be done to show who
actually owns the co-author copyright on any
Wikipedia article
And I take it that "due diligence" does not mean "an
excess of zeal" either right? We all are *not in
disagreement. Should we (for clarity's sake) now
better define the term "due diligence" -- or must it
remain as subjective as the law is itself? :-)
effectively
making the GFDL license scheme useless except to
non-income producing downstream licensees
I see, so the whole notion of open-encyclopedia,
generated by free editor labor, is somehow predicated
on the possibilty that it will someday must be used by
someone "for-profit" -- and not merely maintained as a
perennial world resource ? Is'nt
this--philosophically in contradiction to your first
paragraph--more subject to laws dealing with
non-profit, for-profit distinctions?
not-for-profit publishers will probably be
considered
no different than commercial publishers, the only
difference is that the money in a not-for-profit
does not go to the shareholders
(there are none) it
goes to'
salaries and the assets of the corporation, there is
still plenty of income from the exploited
intellectual >property.
Thus, copyright violation vigilance will do at least
two things, first make
it easier for third parties to do their due
dillegence, second make it
harder
for Wikipedia (be that the volunteers or the
not-for-profit structure in
Wikimedia) to be held liable for failure to take
reasonable steps to prevent
any infringement (or defamation/personality rights
issues from cropping up).
This is quite clear. What at issue now are specific
technicalities --1. Copyviolations in the article
history only--not in the current version. -- is it
necessary to delete an article --or can it simply be
refactored? 2. The creation of stubs from copyvio
sources. 3. Proper attribution to article source as a
mitigating factor in a hypothetical claim of
violation. 4. The inefficiency of deferential
preference to the VFD process over refactoring.
This is important when dealing with non-US nationals
that browse Wikipedia,
Wikipedia's problem will not be copyright so much as
it will be the problems
that might arise with defamation and
privacy/publicity rights; in those
cases the person that posts the tortious material is
not
shielded by US law. the law
in the place of the defamation applies (and that can
be any country in the
world).
As long as people are made better aware of this
fact--essentially, that they are personally
responsible for the material they submit specifically
in a civil defamation context. The issue then is,
since WP itself is shielded, how much can or will or
should WP shield its contributors?
We should also remember that copyright law itself
provides the best "out"
for this kind of problem. sec. 102(b) of Title 17
USC
states:
"(b) In no case does copyright protection for an
original work of authorship
extend to any idea, procedure, process, system,
method of operation,
concept,
principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in
which it is described,
explained,
illustrated, or embodied in such work."
Thus any material that is rewritten to the point
where the only resemblance
with
the original material are ideas, concepts, facts,
that will never be a
copyright
infringement.
Tadaa. ( Meaning: Similar to Violá ).
Never say never though?
As far as history pages are concerned my current
thinking on copyright
infringements
appearing on these pages is to invoke sec. 108 of
the Copyright Act. Thus
while
a current page version is released under the GFDL,
prior versions of an
article
should have the famous 108 notice so that if some
one has downloaded
copyright
infringing material at least Wikimedia will not be
responsible as it is
acting as a
non-commercial archive (this cannot apply to the
current version of any page
as
it would be in violation of the GFDL).
Alex756
Thank goodness! But this new notice will take maybe
an hour for one of the developers to implement. I hope
the Firmament does'nt get sued before then.
Thank you Alex. I think that all of this actually
cleared something up. My spidey-sense is getting back
to normal.
Ah the sweet swell of indication,
~S~
"I don't believe in nothin nomore--I'm going to law
school." -The dark-cap wearing teenage bully from 'The
Simpsons'
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