On 5/21/06, Peter Mackay
<peter.mackay(a)bigpond.com> wrote:
If
it's so unremarkable and so uncreative, isn't the whole
question of copyright totally moot?
Hardly. We put a lot of effort into monitoring the license status of
photographs in WP. It doesn't matter if the photographs themselves are
good
or bad, exciting or boring.
I think it does matter what the chances of the copyright violatee making a
complaint are. I could be wrong on this. But if we are to focus our efforts
anywhere, surely they should be areas where there actually is a potential
complainant.
This is a more important question. You cannot legally make a formal
complaint without standing.
Copyright is an economic right and a property right. If no-one exists
who has standing to claim a copyright that copyright may have become a
nullity. This is the crux of the problem with orphan copyrights. This
also explains the absence of legal precedent on this point; nobody is
available to be plaintiff.
Ec