On 24 February 2010 13:49, Bod Notbod bodnotbod@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 1:25 PM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Does this case have implications for Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8533695.stm
Google employees were convicted by a court for allowing a video of a teenager with Down's Syndrome being bullied to be posted online. It seems most of the internet is up in arms about this, as it shifts the location where liability can be placed, though I doubt anything like this would ever appear in the USA.
It does indeed pose a big question to anyone that uploads video showing persons who haven't signed a form giving consent for, I suppose, "broadcast".
Similarly there's a bill going through the British Parliament at the moment saying that you can't photograph people in public places. So if I wanted to take a picture of a statue and happen to catch someone walking past in the frame I would be liable.
Link?
One hopes that we British will be shown to be such other legislatory idiots that nobody will take it seriously.
Mr Godwin has already said he wouldn't fly over here to defend Wikimedia in a libel case because it would be "too risky". We are set to become an utter laughing stock.
Unfortunately not. Too many companies have London branches just to laugh and the UK's somewhat insane libel laws. Fixing them however is beyond wikipedia's ability other than as a source of "this is what you are missing" for the general public.