Michael Snow wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Delirium wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Another thing to keep in mind is the three-year limitation for taking action on a copyright violation. If something has been on the site for at least three years it is probably safe to keep. The argument that continuing availability may result in new limitation periods can probably be countered by invoking the doctrine of laches.
However, republishing in another medium, such as publishing a print edition of Wikipedia, probably would easily restart the limitation period.
That's debateable. With GFDL the history of the material should be traceable. A fairly recent case involving laches went against the Church of Scientology because they had delayed the enforcement of their rights. This was despite the fact that the limitation period had not yet expired when they started their action.
Two points are worth noting here. First of all, in case it's not clear, the doctrine of laches can only apply if the plaintiff knows about the infringement and fails to complain. If, as is very likely, a copyright holder did not know about infringing material on Wikipedia, then laches would not prevent a claim based on the continuing availability of the material within the statute of limitations.
Second of all, if the Scientology case Ec alludes to is the New Era Publications v. Henry Holt case that I've read, I should mention that laches was only applied to deny an injunction against publication. It did not prevent a remedy for monetary damages.
So the notion he suggests, that anything that's been on Wikipedia for at least three years is safe to keep forevermore, probably should not be used as a "rule of thumb" for copyright problems.
I agree that laches in that case was applied to prevent injunctive relief, and that a lot has happened since 1989: notably the spread of the on-line world. Invoking laches before the expiry of the limitation period would not be my choice of a first line of defence. One thing that is certainly not clear is when the limitation clock starts running. In the world of the printed book continuously renewed availability is not an option; time must elapse between one edition and the next. Laches can probably be invoked to prevent the extension of the limitation period beyond three years as long as an unbroken thread can be traced from the original allegedly infringing act to the act that is used as a basis for action. The limitation period can probably be viewed as the time within which the person should have known about the infringement.
The copyright owner should have a duty of due dilligence which duty might be satisfied simply enough by periodic Google searches using key phrases in his text. Something like keeping dated records of negative search results might be sufficient to establish lack of knowledge. If there were positive results, and he did nothing about any of them (including ones unrelated to Wikipedia, and our downstream users who have failed to trace their source as required by the GFDL) then invoking laches after the initial three year period would be a possibility. "Doing something" may be as simple as sending an informal request to have the material removed from the offending website.
Ec