Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
(And what are
we doing using British copyright laws in a Wikipedia run in the
US anyway? Surely the BBC won't tell you if it's copyright under *American*
law.)
The BBC will tell me whether they assert copyright over the list
itself. If they do not assert copyright, then it essentially does not
matter. If they do assert copyright, then we should respect that, per
our mission, our copyright policy, and not being foolish. The issue
is not so tremendously important that we should risk breaking the law
to include it. Hell, Top Gear don't even bother putting it on their
website! It really is pretty trivial, as facts go.
Wikipedia allows fair use of copyrighted material, and furthermore it
follows American copyright law rather than British so even if the BBC
claims "the list is copyright us, don't touch!" and a British lawyer
says "they're right, you know" that doesn't necessarily mean we
can't
include the list. It may be uncopyrighted in the US, and at the very
least I expect it's easy fair use.