From the Foundation-L post:
we sent a letter to Wikipedia Art that was aimed, not to threaten legal action, but to outline what our legal concerns were, and to try to begin a negotiation to resolve the matter amicably -- ideally by switching the domain name over to us, but not by requiring any content changes on their site at all.
This is disingenuous. A letter sent by a law firm "to outline our legal concerns" which uses legal language and tells a site that they will settle matters amicably if they meet a demand is a legal threat. It may not actually include the words "or we will sue you", but trying to spin it as not being a legal threat is absurd.
I can answer that question -- it's wholly unrelated to the recent Board statement on trademarks. Our concern was not primarily about trademarks.
This spawned a discussion where someone pointed out that the letter *was* primarily about trademarks, and Mike replied that it wasn't about the board statement, which only relates to the first of those two sentences. Again, spin.
Yeah, Wikipedia Art are basically trolls, but I find this disturbing. If Wikipedia can make legal threats to trolls and deny it, and accuse trolls of trademark violation in a baseless way, they can do it to anyone, and the next guy they do it to may not necessarily be a troll.
This is disingenuous. A letter sent by a law firm "to outline our legal concerns" which uses legal language and tells a site that they will settle matters amicably if they meet a demand is a legal threat. It may not actually include the words "or we will sue you", but trying to spin it as not being a legal threat is absurd.
Any communication, however artfully phrased to be non-threatening, from an attorney or a corporation can be taken that way. However, the option of not communicating is not viable.
Fred Bauder
Fred Bauder wrote:
This is disingenuous. A letter sent by a law firm "to outline our legal concerns" which uses legal language and tells a site that they will settle matters amicably if they meet a demand is a legal threat. It may not actually include the words "or we will sue you", but trying to spin it as not being a legal threat is absurd.
Any communication, however artfully phrased to be non-threatening, from an attorney or a corporation can be taken that way. However, the option of not communicating is not viable.
I think that any member of the general public whose experience with courtrooms is limited to TV dramas is thoroughly intimidated by a mere suggestion that they could end up in court for any issue whatsoever. For them fighting a traffic ticket where winning is a near certainty is a greater penalty than paying a questionable fine. It also explains why copyright paranoia is in such good health.
Ec
On Sun, 26 Apr 2009, Fred Bauder wrote:
This is disingenuous. A letter sent by a law firm "to outline our legal concerns" which uses legal language and tells a site that they will settle matters amicably if they meet a demand is a legal threat. It may not actually include the words "or we will sue you", but trying to spin it as not being a legal threat is absurd.
Any communication, however artfully phrased to be non-threatening, from an attorney or a corporation can be taken that way. However, the option of not communicating is not viable.
It's easy to make it non-threatening. Say "we recognize that you have no legal requirement to comply, but..."
The reason they don't do that is that the legal threat is the whole point. They're not expecting Wikipedia Art to give in out of the goodness of their hearts; they're expecting them to give in to avoid being sued. If they take out the legal threat, Wikipedia Art will just ignore the letter, and Wikipedia's lawyer knows that. (In fact, why even have a lawyer send it in the first place if it's not a legal threat? There's no reason to point to any laws if you're not implying that you're going to start a lawsuit based on them.)
Claiming that the letter isn't a legal threat is insulting to our intelligence.
On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 12:24 PM, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
Yeah, Wikipedia Art are basically trolls, but I find this disturbing. If Wikipedia can make legal threats to trolls and deny it, and accuse trolls of trademark violation in a baseless way, they can do it to anyone, and the next guy they do it to may not necessarily be a troll.
At least the next guy will have benefited from watching Wikipedia Art stand up to the WMF, most likely successfully. The next time someone gets a letter from the WMF lawyers, they ought to know to read it carefully to discern whether it's a bona fide legal threat or just the WMF holding out a tin cup and asking for favors. I for one appreciate trolling when it accomplishes such feats ("positive trolling for the good of mankind", as Paul Wehage put it at http://akahele.org/2009/03/in-the-eye-of-the-beholder/ ).
One wonders if Visual Wikipedia may not have had its domain name taken away if they had the benefit of watching the Wikipedia Art situation first.
Trolls are the plecostomus of the Internet. Sure, it'd be better to not produce all the crap in the first place, but at least there are trolls around to eat up when you feed them.
2009/4/26 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
The next time someone gets a letter from the WMF lawyers, they ought to know to read it carefully to discern whether it's a bona fide legal threat or just the WMF holding out a tin cup and asking for favors.
Well, they should already know that when you receive a letter from a lawyer you hand it over to your own lawyer for advice. The law is specifically designed so only lawyers can take part, if a layman tries to take on a lawyer they will lose on a technicality designed for precisely that purpose. (Me, a cynic?)