--- "Alex R." alex756@nyc.rr.com wrote:
This is not a copyright issue. If someone places material on Wikipedia, they do so, they have the right to do so and as long as that information is not defamatory or breaking any laws there should be no prohibition against posting any such information. The persons posting information is responsible for posting it, not the volunteers nor Jimbo. It is the person who has posted the information who is responsible for it, not the OSP, this seems to be the case law that you and I have been reviewing lately James.
Should'nt WP take an stand and defend its users from prosecution? There is a movement now dealing with security issues (since it was recently shown how invasive profiling can be done with hacking cookies and web server logs) that websites simply wipe their ip server logs. (There generally is no good reason not to) but does WP? And would a legal defense require WP to keep these logs?
What I mean is: since WP enables the publishing of stuff -- and then says "this user who did the posting is responsible, for any infringement not us" (forgeting about shielding the user for now) -- is WP under some obligation to keep its ip logs just in case, to deflect liability? If these are insufficient-- ( in the case that some violators may use decent enough proxies) -- might a court say that WP (since its in the business of "publishing") must also be in the business of ID-ing its "users" -- and not simply give them free reign to pubish?
This was kind of the argument against the centralized filesharing hubs (ie Napster) wasnt it? In this case, might WP run into an eventuality where its existence as a "Wiki" is a simple contradiction to the responsibilities demanded by US legal liability?
~S~
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