On 5/15/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
geni wrote:
I don't know how chinese copyright law works and international copyright law tends to get very complex very fast.
Answers.com is an American company. If Baidu is listed on nasdaq that may be enough for US jurisdiction and US copyright law to apply. If the individual authors are left to their own devices than individual authors should start peppering these unrepentant violators with large quantities of DMCA takedown orders. If you are a significant author in 1,000 articles you could send them 1,000 takedown orders.
So you send 1000 takedown orders, and they ignore them all, then what?
This could be more easily done by US Wikipedians because of their easier access to US courts in every judicial district if it ever gets to that. Proving damages would be difficult, but accepting the minimum statutory penalty of $200 for each separate violation could have an interesting effect.
Don't you have to register the copyright in order to get statutory damages? If so, then you're out $30 a pop. (I looked it up, not only do you have to register to get statutory damages, you have to register within 3 months of publication or before the infringement takes place.) http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000412----000-....
Then you get your judgement, for $200 a pop. Now how exactly do you plan on collecting that $200 per violation?
In my opinion copyleft licenses are most useful when used defensively. If Baidu sues me, you can be sure I'll countersue. But short of that...
Anthony