Chris Howie wrote:
But what about fair use? If we are posting a snippet of a log to discuss its content, that certainly qualifies as fair use.
The "copyright" argument is, as I said, a rather cheap argument. Technically speaking, the person who said something in an IRC channel holds the copyright over what he typed in the channel. Practically speaking, it's unlikely that any court would ever give a hoot about a person posting an IRC log publicly without explicit permission.
And of course the use of IRC quotes to discuss their content would qualify as fair use. But it's a bad idea. Those who are misusing IRC would continue to do so, but would simply move their discussions from open channels into more secluded channels. People, for whatever reason, don't like being held accountable for what they say on IRC. Granted, some of this is reasonable.I wouldn't exactly want my off-topic banter in #ed spread all over the internets (for example), and I'm sure that users in #wikipedia feel the same way. On the other hand, IRC users shouldn't be given a free pass to abuse Wikipedia or Wikipedia contributors.