On 5/15/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)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