Roozbeh Pournader wrote:
There are problems with that:
- I believe the Wikimedia Foundation would be breaking Iranian law by
distributing those material to Iran, that is, serving its pages to Iranian readers. If it wishes to use the material, it should block Iran from its readership. 2) It's not only the government, and other Iranians may wish to sue the Wikimedia Foundation.
Well, although I agree with you about the ultimate point here (we should not violate Iranian copyrights, even if it is legal to do so in the US), I don't find these two arguments to be the most compelling.
First, if we are breaking Iranian censorship laws, then so be it. (I have no idea, actually, but I would imagine that we are.) Merely "breaking Iranian law" isn't particularly worrisome.
Second, I think the point is that such use would be legal in the US, and if so, I don't see that Iranians would have much of a way to sue us, except perhaps in Iran, which would be more or less pointless.
I think the most compelling argument is that we want to encourage broad re-use, including in Iran, and if Iranian copyright laws are more or less as sensible as the laws of other places, then we should follow those laws, regardless of ongoing disputes between the US and Iran which may prevent an actual treaty.
--Jimbo
Regardless of where a certain text comes from. It's copyrighted as soon as the author puts it on paper in a tangible form. Some governments give up their copyrights over this material, but I think anything that can be traced to a written source that's not specifically released under the GFDL or released into the PD by it's author is off limits to Wikipedia regardless where it comes from.
--Mgm
On 8/18/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Roozbeh Pournader wrote:
There are problems with that:
- I believe the Wikimedia Foundation would be breaking Iranian law by
distributing those material to Iran, that is, serving its pages to Iranian readers. If it wishes to use the material, it should block Iran from its readership. 2) It's not only the government, and other Iranians may wish to sue the Wikimedia Foundation.
Well, although I agree with you about the ultimate point here (we should not violate Iranian copyrights, even if it is legal to do so in the US), I don't find these two arguments to be the most compelling.
First, if we are breaking Iranian censorship laws, then so be it. (I have no idea, actually, but I would imagine that we are.) Merely "breaking Iranian law" isn't particularly worrisome.
Second, I think the point is that such use would be legal in the US, and if so, I don't see that Iranians would have much of a way to sue us, except perhaps in Iran, which would be more or less pointless.
I think the most compelling argument is that we want to encourage broad re-use, including in Iran, and if Iranian copyright laws are more or less as sensible as the laws of other places, then we should follow those laws, regardless of ongoing disputes between the US and Iran which may prevent an actual treaty.
--Jimbo
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
This leads to a legal question I've had for some time and comes up again and again regarding jurisidiction.
Somebody has recently pointed out on another page that in Russia, banal (straightforward) photographs of 3-D objects do not apparently generate copyrights (whether this is true or not, I'm not sure, but let's just assume it is for the moment). In the US, such is not the case -- any 2-D image of a 3-D object is likely to generate its own copyright, however banal.
So can we say that images of this sort that never leave Russia -- that is, are not republished anywhere else -- are in the public domain? I'm leaning towards "well, probably no," mainly because it would only seem to matter if we were being hosted on Russian servers and under Russian copyright laws. That is, if somebody sued someone over this in court here, they couldn't point to a Russian copyright law either way on this. On the other hand, would they even be granted standing?
How much do international treaties affect us on this? WIPO, etc.? Obviously we have US laws to deal with, but who else? I know that one issue is re-use, but I think there's a more direct issue than that which I still find confusing.
FF
On 8/18/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Regardless of where a certain text comes from. It's copyrighted as soon as the author puts it on paper in a tangible form. Some governments give up their copyrights over this material, but I think anything that can be traced to a written source that's not specifically released under the GFDL or released into the PD by it's author is off limits to Wikipedia regardless where it comes from.
--Mgm
On 8/18/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Roozbeh Pournader wrote:
There are problems with that:
- I believe the Wikimedia Foundation would be breaking Iranian law by
distributing those material to Iran, that is, serving its pages to Iranian readers. If it wishes to use the material, it should block Iran from its readership. 2) It's not only the government, and other Iranians may wish to sue the Wikimedia Foundation.
Well, although I agree with you about the ultimate point here (we should not violate Iranian copyrights, even if it is legal to do so in the US), I don't find these two arguments to be the most compelling.
First, if we are breaking Iranian censorship laws, then so be it. (I have no idea, actually, but I would imagine that we are.) Merely "breaking Iranian law" isn't particularly worrisome.
Second, I think the point is that such use would be legal in the US, and if so, I don't see that Iranians would have much of a way to sue us, except perhaps in Iran, which would be more or less pointless.
I think the most compelling argument is that we want to encourage broad re-use, including in Iran, and if Iranian copyright laws are more or less as sensible as the laws of other places, then we should follow those laws, regardless of ongoing disputes between the US and Iran which may prevent an actual treaty.
--Jimbo
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
JW wrote:
Merely "breaking Iranian law" isn't particularly
worrisome.
Not unless they first obtain some nukes to help them enforce their particular notions of IP law.
SV
--- MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Regardless of where a certain text comes from. It's copyrighted as soon as the author puts it on paper in a tangible form. Some governments give up their copyrights over this material, but I think anything that can be traced to a written source that's not specifically released under the GFDL or released into the PD by it's author is off limits to Wikipedia regardless where it comes from.
--Mgm
On 8/18/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Roozbeh Pournader wrote:
There are problems with that:
- I believe the Wikimedia Foundation would be
breaking Iranian law by
distributing those material to Iran, that is,
serving its pages to
Iranian readers. If it wishes to use the
material, it should block
Iran from its readership. 2) It's not only the government, and other
Iranians may wish to sue
the Wikimedia Foundation.
Well, although I agree with you about the ultimate
point here (we should
not violate Iranian copyrights, even if it is
legal to do so in the US),
I don't find these two arguments to be the most
compelling.
First, if we are breaking Iranian censorship laws,
then so be it. (I
have no idea, actually, but I would imagine that
we are.) Merely
"breaking Iranian law" isn't particularly
worrisome.
Second, I think the point is that such use would
be legal in the US, and
if so, I don't see that Iranians would have much
of a way to sue us,
except perhaps in Iran, which would be more or
less pointless.
I think the most compelling argument is that we
want to encourage broad
re-use, including in Iran, and if Iranian
copyright laws are more or
less as sensible as the laws of other places, then
we should follow
those laws, regardless of ongoing disputes between
the US and Iran which
may prevent an actual treaty.
--Jimbo
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
On 8/19/05, steve v vertigosteve@yahoo.com wrote:
JW wrote:
Merely "breaking Iranian law" isn't particularly
worrisome.
Not unless they first obtain some nukes to help them enforce their particular notions of IP law.
It's not their IP law that Jimbo was referring to, but the enforcement of their standards of official decency. I can't say that I pay much attention to it when I send packages of romance books to a friend of mine in Teheran, but still I have to wonder about the foreign-ness of a culture where Mills&Boon/Harlequin type romances are on the blacklist.
Supposedly even our newspaper underwear ads are off-limits. Every time I ship a package there the postman asks me if I checked the newspaper I packed it with. I wouldn't want little kids reading Harlequins, but I would certainly never think to worry about content in the local paper.
Laura
On 8/18/05, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
On 8/19/05, steve v vertigosteve@yahoo.com wrote:
JW wrote:
Merely "breaking Iranian law" isn't particularly
worrisome.
Not unless they first obtain some nukes to help them enforce their particular notions of IP law.
It's not their IP law that Jimbo was referring to, but the enforcement of their standards of official decency. I can't say that I pay much attention to it when I send packages of romance books to a friend of mine in Teheran, but still I have to wonder about the foreign-ness of a culture where Mills&Boon/Harlequin type romances are on the blacklist.
-- Peter in Canberra _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 8/28/05, Laura Scudder laurascudder@gmail.com wrote:
Supposedly even our newspaper underwear ads are off-limits. Every time I ship a package there the postman asks me if I checked the newspaper I packed it with. I wouldn't want little kids reading Harlequins, but I would certainly never think to worry about content in the local paper.
I doubt that too may little kids *want* to read Harlequins! Saucy newspaper ads are another matter, but even so, if the Iranian Government is spending the people's money on employing inspectors to check for brassiere adverts, then you've got to wonder about their priorities.
However, I can't see Iranian moral crusaders being much of a threat to Wikipedia. Nor neoNazis, for that matter, though considering some of the recent posts exulting in vandalism of their Nazipedia, I'd say that they now have a powerful incentive and moral justification to mount an underhanded campaign of their own.
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Skyring wrote:
Pete, awarding fifteen minutes of eternal fame to whoever coined that word "Nazipedia"
*checks archive*
On 20/08/2005 16:27, Alphax wrote:
"Stormfront Wikipedia" is unnacceptable on the simple grounds of trademark infringement. "Stormfrontpedia" would be acceptable. "Nazipedia" might get them into trouble in whatever juridstiction their servers are located in :)
*wins*
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
Alphax wrote:
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Skyring wrote:
Pete, awarding fifteen minutes of eternal fame to whoever coined that word "Nazipedia"
*checks archive*
On 20/08/2005 16:27, Alphax wrote:
"Stormfront Wikipedia" is unnacceptable on the simple grounds of trademark infringement. "Stormfrontpedia" would be acceptable. "Nazipedia" might get them into trouble in whatever juridstiction their servers are located in :)
*wins*
Sorry, Robert Klein used the term a couple years ago, in one of his periodic announcements of departure from WP, the complaint being that WP was allowing in too much anti-Jewish bias. I guess it's a good sign when all the partisans hate you equally... :-)
Stan
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Stan Shebs wrote:
Alphax wrote:
Skyring wrote:
Pete, awarding fifteen minutes of eternal fame to whoever coined that word "Nazipedia"
*checks archive*
On 20/08/2005 16:27, Alphax wrote:
"Stormfront Wikipedia" is unnacceptable on the simple grounds of trademark infringement. "Stormfrontpedia" would be acceptable. "Nazipedia" might get them into trouble in whatever juridstiction their servers are located in :)
*wins*
Sorry, Robert Klein used the term a couple years ago, in one of his periodic announcements of departure from WP, the complaint being that WP was allowing in too much anti-Jewish bias. I guess it's a good sign when all the partisans hate you equally... :-)
I'm sure it has been used before... NSK used it back it February, but I think I was the first to use it on-list talking about Pseudodoxia.
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
On 8/18/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
First, if we are breaking Iranian censorship laws, then so be it. (I have no idea, actually, but I would imagine that we are.) Merely "breaking Iranian law" isn't particularly worrisome.
Well, to get to the details about Iranian censorship of the Internet, the is no law there, but semi-official regulations. And those regulations, when referring to content from hosts outside Iran, only have some implications for the Internet service providers inside Iran who provide that information to end users.
Fortunately, Wikipedia is still far from raising anything
Second, I think the point is that such use would be legal in the US, and if so, I don't see that Iranians would have much of a way to sue us, except perhaps in Iran, which would be more or less pointless.
The copyright holders can republish the same material outside Iran and have copyright protection, I believe. But Wikipedia may then say that they have used the unprotected source...
A question: If I put some material on a website and publish it to the world (including US) by doing that, do I get copyright protection? Will it matter that I reside in Iran or not? Will it matter if the hosting machine is in Iran or not?
In other words, assuming we actually want to use something protected in Iran and not protected in the United States, what is the criteria for making sure?
I think the most compelling argument is that we want to encourage broad re-use, including in Iran, and if Iranian copyright laws are more or less as sensible as the laws of other places, then we should follow those laws, regardless of ongoing disputes between the US and Iran which may prevent an actual treaty.
I really appreciate that.
roozbeh
On 18/08/05, Roozbeh Pournader roozbeh@gmail.com wrote:
A question: If I put some material on a website and publish it to the world (including US) by doing that, do I get copyright protection? Will it matter that I reside in Iran or not? Will it matter if the hosting machine is in Iran or not?
Several jurisdictions have interpreted "publication", in terms of legal coverage, to mean publishing, by a foreign national, on a foreign webserver, of documents. Admittedly, this is in the context of defamation not copyright law, but it may prove interesting.