On 1/25/06, Philip Welch wikipedia@philwelch.net wrote:
I don't think we should penalize copyright holders for serving WP with a cease-and-desist for a copyvio, whether formally or informally, although we might want to require them to, as a prerequisite for their future participation, state that their grievances are met and that no further action will be taken.
In general, we don't and shouldn't punish copyright holders for good-faith requests for copyright violation removal.
What we do want to punish, and strongly, is what has become the common /modus operandi/ of Usenet kooks; constant threats of legal action against anyone who disagrees with them.
'No Legal Threats' stops that behavior dead in its tracks. It either makes the nuts play nice at least to that degree (because they don't actually intend to sue anyone, just intimidate by the threat) or gets the incorrigible ones banned in short order. WP:NLT is a great nutjob filter.
As a practical matter, we want our contributors to settle their differences peacefully rather than escalate the argument arms-race to lawsuits.
-Matt