Fred Bauder wrote: Specific plans and precautions would be a problem, but books of techniques have been protected by free speech. In the 60s there was a dispute over a book of techniques by "the man who trained Fidel Castro", and that was eventually considered permissible. The only technique that I clearly remember had to do with flushing nail-filled balls of cotton down the toilets of public buildings. You would almost need to tear out the plumbing to clear up the problem. That book was mild compared to some of the material that has been produced by sone far right private militias, and they too have been ruled protected by the First Amendment. Even if the above listed items are not publishable in the U.S., this does not establish a case for them being publishable elsewhere. Ec

Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote: That, and to what extent do we want to monitor a wide range of laws in many countries. It's just not practical. Consideration of the host country's laws and major international treaties makes sense, but if a downstream user is going to republish material he must accept some responsibility for his actions. It's unsafe to mix issues; the results are too unpredictable. A more appropriate question in regards to North Korea might have to to with the copyrights to a portrait of Kim Il-sung, and whether we would respect the copyrights of an identified North Korean photographer. In other words the acceptability of the picture in terms of NPOV policy is a different issue from acceptability in terms of copyright policy. Agreed. But that still allows us room to manoeuvre if we feel we have a just cause. Not all take down requests are justified. But Britain and the other developed countries are not where the distribution would be most useful. Some third world countries may have ridiculously complicated laws but no means of enforcing them. With the British laws under discussion, more than one interpretation is possible. How do we determine which of two conflicting interpretations is the right one? I can speak better of this in a Wikisource context. The issue of the copyrights on Hitler's Mein Kampf has been discussed. A German language edition would be perfectly legal in the United States but not in most of Europe; the same could be said of any new translation. The existing major English language versions continue to be covered by copyrights in both places. In Canada all of these versions could be legally published. The early works of Bertrand Russell (d. 1962 at age 98) would, at least in theory, still be covered by US copyright if they were never published in the US even if the foreign publication was before 1923. Project Gutenberg does include some material that is covered by US copyrights, but has done so with an Australian server where the publication is perfectly legal. They merely advise US readers not to view these pages because they may be breaking the law by doing so. The porn issue ends up being a diversion from the complexities of the copyright issue. It would be wise to avoid situations that bring them together. Ec

Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote: Ahh! but that's looking at distribution in developed countries only as a means to an end. :-) Certainly. Even lawyers are likely to be divided in their opinions. Doing "_something_" should be a decision, and not a default. There will be opportunities to change course as more information comes in. For now, if they are alleging copyright infringement it is up to them to make a specific accusation, and get the legal ball rolling. What's the down side? The fact that there was a favorable decision in Bridgeman v. Corel may eventually not stand up as valid law for the substantial issue, but relying on it is evidence that you at least have a good faith argument. Statutory law makes no provision for poker bluffs. They want us to believe that they are playing with a full house. Checking the bidding around to them may be the best thing to do. Ec

Nikola Smolenski wrote: All 1954 deaths are still have their works under copyright until the end of this year. What you cite is the standard under international law. It is interesting to note that the countries that have or are pushing for longer copyright terms are rich ones with many businesses that are already heavily invested in their intellectual properties. The artists that did the work more than 50 years ago have long since been paid off. Lately the third world countries have been more interested in agricultural subsidies since that has a greater impact on them than intellectual property. Ec

S.Vertigo wrote: A certain amount of conformity is needed to protect our sanity. The issues that could be a basis for a stand are too numerous. An organization can only offer passive support to others with compatible but different goals. For an encyclopedia the goals revolve around the more general concepts of free speech. Even if we all feel that the right to publish bomb-making instructions or porn should be recognized, such issues are peripheral to our purpose. Expending our energies there would be a waste of our resources. It is more important to promote the continued free access to information that by right we already all own. We are already big enough to be noticed. Encarta and EB are still pumping the urban myth that the work of recognized experts will always produce a more reliable product. Lack of imagination will be their big millstone. Skirting around issues never solves them. One problem with implied contracts is that nobody ever reads them. If such contracts fall withing a national scope we can certainly go somewhere else, but then we would just be "signing" a new implied contract in a new jurisdiction; so that alone does not really advance anything. In theory, a truly free project will have a diffuse leadership, but I despair of seeing that accomplished in a population that has signed its implicit contracts without reading them. In a "law-abiding" society where there are copious statutes there can also be a mind-boggling tendency to comply with laws that never existed outside of the implicit contract. Copyright paranoia is only one aspect of that. Not surprisingly in that environment the winners play a little closer to the legal line, and the honest ones readily admit when they have inadvertently crossed that line, abandon the offending position and carry on with life. For a large successful corporation juggling lawsuits may be a part of everyday business. I doubt that the politicians have fully grasped the implications of the cyberworld. One does not or cannot become a legislator without adhering to a significant portion of the impled contracts. This leaves out a lot of people who are not a part of that clique. Maybe that explains poor voter turnouts. A Sonny Bono can turn his POV into law because he is working with like-minded colleagues. By the time the rest of us figure out what is going on it is very difficult to undo the damage. For courts to enforce jurisdiction a case must first be put before the judges. This is why I feel that when it comes to take-down orders the person seeking the order must first have standing. We don't know where the project legally stands because there have not yet been any serious legal threats. The "Constitutonal principles" that you mention did not spring magically out of nowhere when the US Constitution was written. You are viewing cutting edge legal issues with American glasses. The current Iraqi mess did not begin with Saddfam Hussein, but with the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. Hussein was very successful at keeping a lid on the problems, and managed to maintain one of the most secular states in an Islamic world that has more than its share of fanatics. There have been other coups in Iraq since 1919. I would be surprised if the person who emerges as the new Iraqi president out of the current democratization process lasts five years without being assassinated or overthrown in a coup. I doubt that Iraqi citizens would accept any extension of US "Constitutional jurisdiction and citizen protection". It's not theirs; they're not indigenous. This is an area that has also resisted fundamentalism since the 7th century despite the influence of a large southern neighbour. Can a nation from the other side of the world persevere that long. Ecv

On Fri, 6 Aug 2004 07:35:43 +0200, Nikola Smolenski <smolensk(a)eunet.yu> wrote: I don't know. The foundation itself might be subject to restrictions if it is to operate in the United States- anything from legal liabilities to issues with its tax-exempt status (speaking of which, what's the status of that status?) Of course, there's always the ability to have some sort of local chapter manage the images in one of those countries. -- You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means.