JT wrote:
Does this mean that wikipedians outside the US can break their own native copyright rules when loading something onto wiki and are covered because of US law?
If something is illegal to upload in the nation you live in, then it is your choice on whether or not to break your laws; you are the one that will end up fined or in jail if you get caught. But what is legal to have on the Wikimedia server is a separate issue and only the laws of the United States and California apply to that. But IANAL so what do I know....
Or would the presumption be that as they had broken native copyright rules in scanning or copying the image, they or wiki would be liable in their country?
Which "wiki" are you talking about here? I know this may be shocking to you but even in the Wikimedia family there are 4 different wiki projects and one of those projects has at least 40 different versions; each of these are also their own wiki in a technical sense.
Wikipedia is not the only wiki.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Daniel Mayer wrote:
But what is legal to have on the Wikimedia server is a separate issue and only the laws of the United States and California apply to that.
One caveat that I would like to introduce here is that we do want Wikipedia to be easily redistributable in the majority of countries around the world. Therefore _some_ concession to non-U.S. law is warranted in _some_ cases.
But really, this sort of discussion is generally just fun abstraction, since I'm not sure that there are really that many cases in which the copyright or censorship laws of the countries we're most interested in actually restrict us much.
I doubt very much whether anyone will be able to legally sell Wikipedia 1.0 on a streetcorner in North Korea, nor do I think we can seriously entertain the sort of self-censorship that would be required in order to make that happen.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
One caveat that I would like to introduce here is that we do want Wikipedia to be easily redistributable in the majority of countries around the world. Therefore _some_ concession to non-U.S. law is warranted in _some_ cases.
But really, this sort of discussion is generally just fun abstraction, since I'm not sure that there are really that many cases in which the copyright or censorship laws of the countries we're most interested in actually restrict us much.
I doubt very much whether anyone will be able to legally sell Wikipedia 1.0 on a streetcorner in North Korea, nor do I think we can seriously entertain the sort of self-censorship that would be required in order to make that happen.
This is sort of a tangential issue, but it seems copyright issues might indeed pose a major problem for a Wikipedia 1.0. It's quite possible that we have not caught all the copyright-violating articles submitted to Wikipedia (though we do catch a lot of them), and it's further quite possible that the copyright holders who haven't yet noticed will notice once a higher-profile Wikipedia 1.0 is released. At this time they may inform us of the copyright violation, and ask us to remove the offending material. Doing so from the website is trivial, but it would also force us to stop distributing Wikipedia 1.0 until a modified version without the copyright violation has been prepared. This could be disastrous for attempts to produce a paper or CD-ROM version, as any inventory copies have to be destroyed and a new print run prepared. If we got, say, three copyright violation notices spaced a month or so apart, it would effectively make it impossible to distribute Wikipedia in such a form, since the costs of starting a new print run each time would become prohibitive. And it's not entirely beyond the realm of possibility that we might receive more in the neighorhood of a dozen such notices.
-Mark
Delirium wrote: [...]
At this time they may inform us of the copyright violation, and ask us to remove the offending material. Doing so from the website is trivial, but it would also force us to stop distributing Wikipedia 1.0 until a modified version without the copyright violation has been prepared. This could be disastrous for attempts to produce a paper or CD-ROM version, as any inventory copies have to be destroyed and a new print run prepared. If we got, say, three copyright violation notices spaced a month or so apart, it would effectively make it impossible to distribute Wikipedia in such a form, since the costs of starting a new print run each time would become prohibitive.
Every new computer today has a CD-burner, and when 1.0 is ready for distribution every computer will have a DVD-burner. We just have to produce some ISO-images and a handbook in PDF ready for print (and some nice artwork with a "handicraft work guide" (?) for those people who want "paperboard boxes" (?)).
People can make as many copies for their friends as they like. We can distribute the process of sending copies to universities or libraries (like theopencd.org did) among Wikipedians, especially in developing countries. No need to order huge amounts from the "press shop" (?).
BTW, I find all this talk about a paper Wikipedia completely useless (sorry if someone feels offended). It's (much!) too much work, too risky and I don't see a necessity for it. Can't we talk about this again in five or ten years when the DVD-version has stabilised and we are sure that our 50.000 most important articles (and pictures!) have no copyright violation in them? Book-on-demand production might also be a bit cheaper than today.
Just my two WikiCent. Kurt
P.S.: Sorry if I choose some strange word constructions :-)
On Tue, 26 Aug 2003 19:27:44 +0100, Kurt Jansson jansson@gmx.net gave utterance to the following:
Every new computer today has a CD-burner, and when 1.0 is ready for distribution every computer will have a DVD-burner. We just have to produce some ISO-images and a handbook in PDF ready for print (and some nice artwork with a "handicraft work guide" (?) for those people who want "paperboard boxes" (?)).
People can make as many copies for their friends as they like. We can distribute the process of sending copies to universities or libraries (like theopencd.org did) among Wikipedians, especially in developing countries. No need to order huge amounts from the "press shop" (?).
BTW, I find all this talk about a paper Wikipedia completely useless (sorry if someone feels offended). It's (much!) too much work, too risky and I don't see a necessity for it. Can't we talk about this again in five or ten years when the DVD-version has stabilised and we are sure that our 50.000 most important articles (and pictures!) have no copyright violation in them? Book-on-demand production might also be a bit cheaper than today.
Just my two WikiCent. Kurt
P.S.: Sorry if I choose some strange word constructions :-)
And in some countries High-speed internet is charged for by data volume transferred. There is no way I'd be downloading any ISO images on an account with 1GB/month "free" and the rest at $0.2 ber MB.
Richard Grevers wrote:
And in some countries High-speed internet is charged for by data volume transferred. There is no way I'd be downloading any ISO images on an account with 1GB/month "free" and the rest at $0.2 ber MB.
I'll send one to you by post if you promise to make at least 10 copies for friends, universities or libraries. And you should convince your friends to make copies, too.
BTW, there is some kind of social underground movement in Germany (I'm sure in other contries too) where people are founding Umsonstläden ("gratis shops"). You can bring things you don't need any more to them or take-away things you need - for free. It's meant as an alternative to market economy or barter economy. Some of them also have a PC where you can copy the latest Linux distros. I think we should consider using them as distribution centers.
Kurt
P.S.: Some addresses in Germany are listed on http://co-forum.de/index.php4?UmsonstLaden (it's a wiki, btw)
Kurt Jansson wrote:
BTW, there is some kind of social underground movement in Germany (I'm sure in other contries too) where people are founding Umsonstläden ("gratis shops"). You can bring things you don't need any more to them or take-away things you need - for free. It's meant as an alternative to market economy or barter economy. Some of them also have a PC where you can copy the latest Linux distros. I think we should consider using them as distribution centers.
that sounds interesting! write us an article about them! :)
The Bridgeman case was a British publisher; it is important to remember the national treatment principle in international copyright law. The regarguement in Bridgeman surrounded around the question of applying British law to infringement under US law. It was put aside because the British case on which Bridgeman relied was no longer good law in the UK (it was an 1865 that said a photograph that was just a copy of something else was copyrightable because at that time it was not just "slavish copying" as it is now considered.
Is such an issue of applying another countries law in the US a possibility for Wikipedia? Yes. Will someone bring an infringement suit? I doubt it because Wikipedia has a very strong fair use AND fair dealing defense (depending on the country). Regarding privacy rights Wikipedia's NPOV approach will also make any lawsuit that might deal with such privacy invasions a nonsuit, after all if someone does not like what they read on Wikipedia they can change it and make it more accurate. It is probably the problem of the person posting the information rather than the Wikipedia collective; there is a strong argument that Wikipedia cannot police its own content and thus cannot be responsible for copyright violations, libel or any other tort that might be committed by its volunteers; the volunteer attempts at policing are laudable, but in and of themselves doing so does not appear to create any kind of obligation to do so; after all Wikipedia does not have any resources to apply to such due dilligence.
Anyway, the publicity from any infringement/privacy suit will be good for Wikipedia, no?
Of course Wikipedia 1.0 will have to have much higher standards as it will be a fixed product.
Alex756
From: "Jimmy Wales" jwales@bomis.com
Daniel Mayer wrote:
But what is legal to have on the Wikimedia server is a separate issue and only the laws of the United States and California apply to that.
One caveat that I would like to introduce here is that we do want Wikipedia to be easily redistributable in the majority of countries around the world. Therefore _some_ concession to non-U.S. law is warranted in _some_ cases.
But really, this sort of discussion is generally just fun abstraction, since I'm not sure that there are really that many cases in which the copyright or censorship laws of the countries we're most interested in actually restrict us much.