steve v wrote:
--- Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
I don't know whether this is better
characterized as
irrational or
incoherent. There is no suggestion that President
Hussein was the
personal copyright holder for the photograph. Your
ramblings have
nothing to do with copyright. It doesn't seem right
to want to punish
all the citixens of a country just because you don't
like its former
president.
Well, whats not to like? Its odd that you raise the
issue of "punishment" when I was simply alluding to a
major discrepancy in your claimed notion of what Iraqi
law actually is.
According to the current Coalition-instituted "Iraqi
law," Coalition soldiers can shoot whomever they
please and by law must be released from custody. An
"irrational" argument would be to claim (as you do)
that a military occupied country that has essentially
instituted extremely low value thresholds for the
protection of its own people, should somehow be
regarded for its IP "rights." *That* seems rather
irrational to me. In a case where no doubt the
photographer might want to remain anonymous, and yet
have their photograph published anyway (presumably
just to 'get the word out').
Copyright law is what has a direct bearing on what we do as
Wikipedians. I have no more facts about whether the photographer wanted
to remain anonymous than you, but I prefer not to engage in speculation
about it. In the absence of personal knowledge about an anonymous
photographer how can you possibly justify having "no doubt".
What does the fact that you condone murder by occupation troops have to
do with IP law? All I'm saying is that the military occupiers have no
business imposing their IP values on the Iraqi people.
If we really wanted to be nutty about IP law we could
have taken down all the Abu Ghraib photos, as they
were put up only on a prima fascia claim of public
domain -- which assumed that the models/photographer's
claim of "official duties" would stand in court. AIUI,
according to military law rulings, those soldiers were
not performing "official" duties. :) Would we need to
go visit the photographers in prison to inquire if
they want to release them under PD-GNU-CC?
The Abu Ghraig photos were taken by Americans who, as individuals, have
not established any permanent residence in Iraq, so American copyright
law should be applicable.
"Do you have a model release for that
photo?"
Releases from the "models" in the picture is not a matter of copyright
law, but of the privacy of those people in the photos.
Ec