I have always maintaied the a reasonable prima facie case for fair use is enough to sustain us as long as the copyright owner doesn't complain. A reasonable case would include having paid some attention to the law.
If or when he complains he will at least raise the standards. Reviewing the circumstances and complying with his request at that point will cost us nothing. We would only need to consider legal costs if we chose to resist at that point..
Of course there are always people who are willing to start law suits without any merit whatsoever; you can do nothing to prevent those.
Ec
steve v wrote:
I wonder to what degree some of the lawyers (the cautious half) were taking into consideration the pragmatic issue of getting drowned in legal fees, rather than the legal merits of the issue.
A commie (as in 'mercial) encyclopedia might have an interest in suing Wikipedia, even if it is on the apparent flimsy basis of a claimed "derivative work," (from a list, no less).
I hear lawyers can cost a lot of money. SV
--- Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On 8/18/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Andrew Lih wrote:
For example, as part of my research, I have
several "article lists"
from Encarta, Britannica and some other CD-ROM
encyclopedias, but I've
hesitated to make them public or contribute them
to WP, for exactly
this reason. Talking to a few lawyer folks on my
campus has
effectively convinced me I would not have a
strong case for fair
use/fair dealing. I'm willing to (and would like
to be) proved wrong.
But the only way to prove you wrong would involve
having the whole
matter end up in court.
I know, case law sucks, doesn't it? Such is the nature of fair use. :)