On 6/2/07, James Farrar <james.farrar(a)gmail.com> wrote: I think you meant that to be a rhetorical question, but I think it's actually the key to whether or not these pages should stay. If these were user pages the answer would be clearly no, right? Anthony

And there are plenty of things that are strongly integrated into society too, but we have to let them go when it's time. There are scores of these examples in society. I dont think BJAODN is on the same level as say, slavery, so I wont detail a list, but this is just to point out that argument 1 is entirely fallacious as an argument to keep something around. As for argument 2, we are, first and foremost, a free content project. We dont create this encyclopedia for us, but for downstream users. We support and nurture free content. It's one of the Five Pillars. Just because we can get away with breaking a free content license does not mean we should. Go fork if this is what you truly believe. On 6/2/07, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- -Brock

On 6/2/07, James Farrar <james.farrar(a)gmail.com> wrote: With four years under my belt I think I've moved beyond potential and into actual, and I have done a lot of work in my life for the cause of free content, on Wikipedia and elsewhere. What I meant was simply this: a) whether the page was or was not a GFDL violation seems subject to doubt -- both in specific, as plausible arguments have been raised on this list why it might not be a violation, and in general -- while I am no expert on free licenses, I know enough people who are to know that there are few cut & dried cases of interpretation, and I am not inclined to believe that this is one of those rare and happy obvious situations; b) regardless, I do not believe, as others have also stated, that BJAODN was the most egregious potential copyright violation on the site, nor the most important to fix; c) if b) is true, then moving deleting the page up to the top of the to-do pile and deleting it hastily seems advisable only if there is a real and pressing danger that the page will affect Wikipedia adversely by existing, which is usually because we are clearly breaking the law with a copyright violation, or because someone is likely to sue and/or be harmed by the contents; d) the former danger (that it is a clear copyright and thus legal violation) does not exist if a) is true; and the latter danger (that someone will sue or be harmed) pretty clearly also doesn't exist, since the majority of stuff in BJAODN is silly vandalism which I suspect no-one will ever come back to claim or otherwise be bothered by ("hi, I vandalized Wikipedia in 2004, and I'd like credit for it, plz!" or "your bad jokes and outrageous claims were so bad they adversely affected my health, and I'm suing!"); e) hence, the action of deleting the entire group of 60 pages that were 6 years in the making on GFDL grounds with no review and no discussion seems, well, a bit silly, if not downright rude. My concerns are not primarily with the copyright issues, they are with the community, and whether this is acceptable. My apologies for condensing all this in a way that could be misinterpreted. -- phoebe

phoebe ayers schreef: What plausible arguments are you referring to? I'm now looking at the latest subpage, the one that geni wants to undelete [*]. Let's take an example: == From Obanair == Obanair is a small start-up airline based at Oban airport. they currently do not fly any routes and do not have a plane. That's the entire entry. The associated history entry is: 20:57, 29 April 2007 . . EliminatorJR (Talk | contribs | block) (61,556 bytes) (From [[Obanair]]) According to the GFDL, we have to acknowledge the author of [[Obanair]]; we don't. There is a link to the original page, but it has been deleted. There is no way this complies with the GFDL. The only way to include it is to claim fair use, but according to our policy ([[WP:FU]]): "Inclusion of brief attributed quotations of copyrighted text.. is acceptable". So we need attribution for that as well. There's also the problem that we're making fun of a startup company here. The third google hit for this company's name is now "Wikipedia: Bad Jokes". This is not very good for the company; it is the reason why AfD's are noindexed. If it was a living person, it would be a BLP case. (And there are many entries about LP's; so the page could have been deleted on BLP grounds.) (Additionally, it's not funny.) No, this is not correct. There are a lot of situations that are unclear, but that does not mean that there are few obvious situations. In faact, I think the latter outnumber the former. Every contributor to Wikipedia has his/her own priority list, and this has long been accepted. We won't tell people that they must work on our serious articles before starting on [[Pokemon]], and we won't tell people which copyright violations they must give priority to. No, it's always advisable to do something about a copyright violation. (If it's advisable to do it *now*, doesn't matter; see my previous reply.) Eugene This mail is partly based on GFDL text by [[User:Obanair]]. [*] A worthwhile idea, if only to show that it won't work; that the will to make these pages complyant is not there.

phoebe ayers wrote: It's also important to point out that US law provides a three year limitation to prosecute for infringement of copyright. Material that has already been there for three years cannot be subject. There is a five year limitation for criminal wilful infringement, but it would be extremely difficult to establish wilfullness when the actual copyright of the material is seriously diswputed. In such circumstances the legal obligation is likely not there. Nevertheless, it would be good public relations to accomodate in that way any idiot who is willing to publically admit that he is one. Thank you for your comments in general on this. The fact that they are coming from a person who does not habitually participate in wikicatfights makes them all the more cogent. Ec

On 03/06/07, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote: If that's the case, the US legal system is even more fucked up than we already knew.

On 6/3/07, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote: Remember also that copyright infringement of a non-registered work is limited to actual damages.

On 6/3/07, Sean Barrett <sean(a)epoptic.com> wrote: http://www.google.com/search?q=copyright+statute+of+limitations Next time read the rest of the thread before making an ass out of yourself.

On 6/3/07, James Farrar <james.farrar(a)gmail.com> wrote: "Some courts hold that you can recover your damages for the entirety of the infringement so long as a lawsuit is filed within 3 years of the last infringing act; others limit damages to those acts which occurred within the three years leading up to the lawsuit." The courts are divided as to whether or not infringing acts which occurred more than three years ago count, they are *not* divided on the fact that you can recover for damages for those infringing acts which occurred less than three years ago. As I said, if the infringement of copyright is the act of "purchase", Infringement is the act of "copying", "distribution", or "public performance/display".

Anthony wrote: I'm sorry to admit having done a bit of homework on this before replying. :-P Your quotation is grossly out of context, and what follows puts a serious shadow on your position. In the second part of his essay Patry talks about the recovery of rights, and the remedial role of copyright legislation. Thus, if one of our jokers sought to recover his rights from the time that he issues a claim he could, but that would not have the effect of recovering damages for past infringements. This whole discussion seems to highlight the extend to which some of our colleagues have taken copyright paranoia. It has already been stated that a person seeking relief for infringement of his copyrights on the part of BJAODN would need to admit that he was the one to have made such idiotic contents. He would also need to show where the copyrighted text was taken from, something that he can't do unless he has access to the deleted original article; if he was a common vandal he doesn't have access to much of anything. Maybe he'll start looking for evidence that the material was cached on his hard drive, but that ceases to work when he remembers that he made his submission at some time before he last blew out that hard drive. If he can establish that the idiocy was his he will need to register his copyright before he can carry on with his law suit. At that point the infringer can use the laches argument, and if it ever gets that far we always have the ever-popular fair use claim in our back pocket. So tell me: How many of our idiots would be capable and willing to go through all that? I would question the credibility of a site that can't even get a simple fact straight. Section 507(a) clearly says five years for criminal infringement. There is significant difference in the wording of the two clauses, but at least the two time periods are clear. I should also add that this reference deals with the more rarified atmosphere of music copyrights.

On 6/3/07, James Farrar <james.farrar(a)gmail.com> wrote: Most likely, yes, and no one said otherwise.

On 6/3/07, James Farrar <james.farrar(a)gmail.com> wrote: Yes, there is. That means that something done by the person who No, it doesn't.

Each time we serve up copyrighted material is a new infringement. It's not hard to understand. Anthony happens to be correct here. On 6/3/07, James Farrar <james.farrar(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- -Brock

On 6/3/07, James Farrar <james.farrar(a)gmail.com> wrote: It causes it in a technical sense? OK, I suppose you could argue that. It's your argument though, not mine. All I'm saying is that infringement does in fact take place. This is pretty obvious. A copy is made without permission. Who "causes" such a copy to be made, technically and/or legally, can be argued, I suppose, but there is no question that a copy is being made. Could a downloader ever be found liable for copyright infringement? I don't know, probably so, but I don't know of any case where this has actually happened. In most cases the downloader isn't worth going after anyway because the recoverable damages would be too small - certainly in the case where all the downloader does is visit a Wikipedia page.

On 04/06/07, Brock Weller <brock.weller(a)gmail.com> wrote: Ah, but "we" don't give it to "them"; "they" take it. It's "their" action, not "ours".

On 6/3/07, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote: Before someone takes *that* the wrong way, I'm talking about the person who runs the server and knows about the file, not *everyone* who knows about the file.

On 6/3/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: Specifically, it requires "knowledge of the infringing activity", which seems to me to be different from "knowledge that the activity is infringing". But now we're getting way beyond my initial statement, and into the realm of hypotheticals which are far too poorly defined. If you can find some material on exactly what constitutes "knowledge" for the purposes of contributory copyright infringement, I would be interested in it, though. Just because a few people with no connection to the material

On 6/4/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: I don't understand the question. If you know about the activity, but aren't sure if it's infringing, then you have knowledge of the infringing activity but don't know that the material is infringing. I'm kind of just restating the question though, so I'm not sure if I've explained myself. I can easily admit that many of the terms I'd be happy to see any precedents in the matter. Until then I can only speculate. A good place to start for understanding what constitutes knowledge of I'm not talking about the DMCA, though. For contributory infringements it may be sufficient to show that Are you talking here about the standard under the DMCA (OCILLA), or the standard for contributory copyright infringement? Again, two completely different things. Like I said, we're probably getting way too hypothetical and not properly defining situations here. Anthony

On 04/06/07, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote: "Fucked up" is blaming the site for the downloader's infringement.

On 04/06/07, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote: [...if such a thing is an infringement.] Not at all, it's evidently doubly fucked up. I'm hardly surprised.

On 04/06/07, Brock Weller <brock.weller(a)gmail.com> wrote: Can I just note the useful, productive and argument-ending nature of this thread. Thank you. Do please all continue. - d.

On 6/3/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: Flaimbait is hard to ignore :). Anyone know who James Farrar is, anyway?

On 04/06/07, James Farrar <james.farrar(a)gmail.com> wrote: Run back to first principles for a second. I give you a pirated copy of a novel I made. Which one of us has infringed copyright? That would be me; I did the copying without the right. The law considers copyright infringement to be an act done by the publisher of the material, which is sensible enough. (There may or may not be ancillary punishments for then recieving it, but that's secondary) The legal interpretation of having material on the internet is that you are "publishing" it each and every time to each and every person who comes along and requests the file (at least, this seems to be the dominant view at the moment) - as such, each time someone requests a copy of the file *you* make a copy of it and give it to them. Logically, therefore, you breach copyright every time someone else accesses the file. Follow the wonderful twisted insanity? Their action, your criminal act. It becomes weird because you don't have to be involved in the loop at all, and as such they can initiate *you* breaking the law, though there's probably some wonderful case from the fifties involving automated musical phone lines or something to show why it all makes sense. After all, you do presumably have to knowledgeably have put the file there, or something. (Imagine, incidentally, if I built a machine which would print and bind bootleg copies of Harry Potter novels on the push of a button. Am I the maker responsible for the breach of copyright? Is the user? I am tempted to see if we can get that set as a question in a law exam...) -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On 04/06/07, James Farrar <james.farrar(a)gmail.com> wrote: I believe there is an offence of knowingly pinching material you know to be copyrighted, too :-) [My following of and-this-constitutes-publication is mostly from the defamation end, not the copyright end, but it's all publication liability when you get down to it...] -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On 6/3/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: I think that qualifies as "copyright paranoia paranoia".

Tony Sidaway wrote: Please consider the implications of a "no" on that: Is anything in the "Wikipedia:" namespace necessary to the encyclopedia? Ec