Regardless of where a certain text comes from. It's copyrighted as soon as the author puts it on paper in a tangible form. Some governments give up their copyrights over this material, but I think anything that can be traced to a written source that's not specifically released under the GFDL or released into the PD by it's author is off limits to Wikipedia regardless where it comes from.
--Mgm
On 8/18/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Roozbeh Pournader wrote:
There are problems with that:
- I believe the Wikimedia Foundation would be breaking Iranian law by
distributing those material to Iran, that is, serving its pages to Iranian readers. If it wishes to use the material, it should block Iran from its readership. 2) It's not only the government, and other Iranians may wish to sue the Wikimedia Foundation.
Well, although I agree with you about the ultimate point here (we should not violate Iranian copyrights, even if it is legal to do so in the US), I don't find these two arguments to be the most compelling.
First, if we are breaking Iranian censorship laws, then so be it. (I have no idea, actually, but I would imagine that we are.) Merely "breaking Iranian law" isn't particularly worrisome.
Second, I think the point is that such use would be legal in the US, and if so, I don't see that Iranians would have much of a way to sue us, except perhaps in Iran, which would be more or less pointless.
I think the most compelling argument is that we want to encourage broad re-use, including in Iran, and if Iranian copyright laws are more or less as sensible as the laws of other places, then we should follow those laws, regardless of ongoing disputes between the US and Iran which may prevent an actual treaty.
--Jimbo
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