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Ray Saintonge wrote:
Andrew Gray wrote:
On 31/08/05, Michael Turley michael.turley@gmail.com wrote:
When such permissions are explicited granted to the Wikimedia Foundation, they should be forwarded to an officer of the foundation in any case. I don't know enough about the Wikimedia Foundation to tell you who that is (or as indicated above, whether such person exists at this time).
I was just about to suggest that... have an email address at the foundation to serve as a drop-box for this sort of permissions mail, so we have a central record of it. This avoids there being a problem if the requesting editor vanishes/falls under a bus/storms off in a huff/loses all their mail, but preserves privacy in that unless there's a pressing need to confirm the license no-one needs to have access to it.
The requesting editor is only doing a job; the net results of a request should remain independent of him. What happens to the copyright owner is far more relevant. If a copyright owner drops dead to-day his work will be protected until Dec. 31, 2075. His as yet unborn grandchildren won't even know about the licence on grandpa's writings. If they choose to dispute our use of his writings, proving that we have been licensed will be our burden. A simple note from a long gone editor will prove nothing. Even an e-mail record from the author may not be enough. We have no way of knowing or proving whether an electronic permission is in fact from a person who is authorized to give that licence.
*cough* Digital signatures *cough*
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