The original author still has a copyright although it is licensed through the GNUFDL. Most material on Wikipedia is not in the public domain. Fred

Absolutely. Sean Barrett wrote:

At 05:43 PM 2/28/04 +0000, Abi wrote: So I took a look. The article [[Majlis of Iran]] needed copyediting, so I've done so. I am a US citizen, resident within the United States. (I thought Roozbeh had created it, but the creation was from an IP address which my handy converter can't resolve but that traceroute gets me to a comcast machine on. I'll keep looking.

Vicki Rosenzweig wrote: Vicki - I support you whole-heartedly, Caroline / Secretlondon

Where would you suggest? In France, it's illegal to criticize the government. In Germany, it's illegal to display Nazi memorabilia. In the UK there's the Official Secrets Act to deal with. RickK Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: Is this a suggestion that the servers should be moved to a free country? --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail

Anthere wrote: Well, according to the World Press Freedom Committee's document "Insult Laws: A Insult to Press Freedom" (http://www.wpfc.org/site/docs/pdf/Publications/Insult%20Laws-An%20Insult%20…): "...the primary form of this crime became known as 'insult to the president of the republic,' whose classic form was set in the French press law of 1881. It remains the basic press legislation in France today. The 1881 law also carries serious penalties for insulting foreign chiefs of state, foreign ministers or ambassadors of friendly countries, and official bodies like parliament, the judiciary, and armed forces... Similar provisions are on the books in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Spain." The report goes on to note that the French law was last actually used under Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s, when a spectator was arrested for crying out "hoo hoo" at him. More recently the Sun was threatened with a lawsuit for insulting Chirac, though this never materialized. The report also notes that the French law has served as an example for many laws in other countries, especially less-developed countries, and especially former French colonies, that *are* enforced, and those countries defend their law under "well, France has such laws, so why shouldn't we?" So "illegal to criticize" is going too far, but it's not entirely without basis either. -Mark

Anthere wrote: http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2003/countryratings/france.ht m http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2003/countryratings/israel-is raeliadmin.htm I believe recent discussion (ie, the posts starting this thread) pointed out that the US is very far from perfect on these matters. Just because people are pointing out that France has some very nasty laws doesn't somehow make the US legal code's flaws go away. And a statement isn't libel if it's true. Frankly, if you don't want repressive laws on information and free discourse, you're limited to places like Sealand. -- Jake

On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 19:10:27 UTC, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: Not to get political or anything, but Which are those? There's only one country where the majority could have voted for him, and it didn't. Where does that leave us? -- Dan Drake dd(a)dandrake.com http://www.dandrake.com Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness. --George Orwell

It's very simple : If I write "Jacques Chirac est un .....bip..." it's an insult, it's illegal. If I write "Jacques Chirac est le président le plus nul que la France a connu, sa politique est débile." it's a critic, it's legal. Insulting anyone is illegal in France, for instance. If I write "Anthere est une ...bip..." she can sue me. The penalty is just worse for the President (and not for the whole governement). This law is never applied since Valery Giscard d'Estaing promised not sdue anyone. I don't think any President will go back as long as France remains a democracy. Thus if you want to insult someone in France insult the President it's less risky than insulting anyone else. Eric Demolli ----- Original Message ----- From: "Anthere" <anthere8(a)yahoo.com> To: <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org> Sent: Sunday, February 29, 2004 4:20 AM Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Trading with the Enemy (http://www.wpfc.org/site/docs/pdf/Publications/Insult%20Laws-An%20Insult%20 to%20Press%20Freedom-1996%20booklet.pdf): http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2003/countryratings/france.h… http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2003/countryratings/israel-i…

From: "Delirium" You might want to fact-check that. Charles

I spent a good while looking for a reference that would support the claim the government threatened the sun of the 45000 euros fine. In french, the number of references I found is laughable. In short, the topic is not mentionned but by a couple of blog and forum. French just do not know of that law, which is a good measure of how refrained in their freedom of speech they feel. Also, some discussions mentionning the law and the fine, indicated that some people thought The Sun attack was a two level construction First : insulting the president very badly Second : spreading the word this is illegal to do so, hence that no freedom of speech is allowed in France. I may be wrong, but I suspect that if the Elysées porte parole had only even "mentionned" the law in a private dinner at her sister house, that would have been reported everywhere immediately, with quotation, the food that was in her plate, and the dress she was wearing that evening. I found no such thing. I tend to believe that if any official had said such a thing on behalf of the government, that would have made enough noise, so that such an information would be very easily found even now. I don't think France bashers would have missed such a delicacy :-) Actually, what I found is many english reports saying "the Sun could be fined 45000 under a french law". The most frequent report is this one "The tabloid's controversial stance breaks a French law that makes it a criminal offence to insult the president. Breaking the law carries a fine up 45,000 euros." Most reports seemed to be copies of this one (from Jimbo reference). You could note that there is absolutely no indication of the name of any french official who would have reminded Murdoch of that law. Nor of any date or event when that happened. So, again, I may be wrong...and will recognise I am if anyone can find a reference of a french government porte parole either * threatening to sue the Sun or * actually announcing the french governemnt is suing the Sun. But I think the current accusations carried by RickK are not very far from libel. As they do not stand on any reality. It is certainly true that there is a theoretical possibility that french people could be restrained in their liberty of speech since that law exists, but in practice, there is no fact proving that our governemnt is actively limiting or even thinking of limiting our freedom. This said, I hope I use the right words. ------- As for what angered me RickK, I can't believe you are so insensitive as not to see that free and undeserved nation bashing is bound to anger their inhabitants. I will consider that you were just not realising :-) -------- Jimmy Wales a écrit:

Delirium a écrit: I would dare to compare the Sun to some of our vandals. If we are inclusionists, we tolerate their existence, however problematic they might be (ie, we try to bear our vandal existence) If not inclusionists, we try to have that tabloid close its business by repeated huge fines (ie, we try to have the committee ban them) Either way, none of this is a threat to freedom of speech. Ihmo I guess when you are an old country, you have old laws. It is not entirely impossible some of them are as old as begining of the XIXth century. And rather than to discuss them, and spent time on them, you just stop referring to them and stop using them. They are just forgotten. Meaningfull would be to see more exactly the context in which that law was voted. If it was created and voted, there probably was an event that explained it. I am no historian.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Jimmy Wales wrote: | Anthere wrote: | |>And rather than to discuss them, and spent time on them, you just stop |>referring to them and stop using them. They are just forgotten. | | | The problem is that laws restricting the freedom of speech in France | are not all forgotten, but are prosecuted with some regularity. | | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_Bardot | | --Jimbo That was a civil lawsuit. If I call you a child molestor, or call someone a ni**** here, and it causes emotional harm or constitutes libel, they can most definately sue me. I doubt there's any democracy where that isn't the case. On the other hand, you're unlikely to get sued here for holding a KKK parade or whatever, but that's more a matter of what the judicial standards are. Someone could certainly try to sue every pro-life demonstrator, etc, in their town, but I doubt they'd get far. Nathan

And yes, that was my last comment on the matter. Already a year old discussion, clearly going no where. That is unfortunate. I will try not to bug anyone anymore on this :-)

explain what I said that angered you, and what is libelous? RickK If RickK knows what he is talking about more than 50% of the time, I'm a Dutchman. I just hope the trade in cheap cracks continues to be one-way and West-to-East across the Atlantic. Charles

responded with a completely truthful post. There is absolutely nothing in what I said that was libelous, nor even incorrect. It's common practice on Wikipedia to make attacks on the United States, but it's unacceptable when Americans (yes, that's the term) respond with anything other than a cowering "yes, we're evil." RickK I didn't say anything there was libelous, or incorrect. My word was 'cheap'. I'm in the UK, we have an Official Secrets Act. Anthere disputes your claim on the 'illegality' of criticising the French government (we have had another ill-informed post on that). I'll leave aside what you said on Germany, for reasons well known in Usenet discussions. These are _not_ the knock-down arguments you seem to think they are. They seem more like a blind need to hit back with anything at hand. I have had the advantage of having worked in the USA for a year. Can I just make one point? Wikipedia is not, actually, about American national identity. Charles

Delirium wrote on. The comments by RickK were aimed at supposed restrictions on freedom of speech, or freedom of publication, or whatever. It is a more than theoretical possibility that web sites based anywhere might have *some* restriction on content based on the laws of the land. But why is this is considered an argument? Locating servers that were theoretically subject to the UK's Official Secrets Act, which is a 'non-freedom of information' measure, might well be better than locating them in a USA where a wiki might theoretically might have to self-police to avoid any 'trading with the enemy' under the wide definition. After all, those posting official secrets to a web site probably know damn well they are doing that; while someone innocently editing a page that happened to be written by an Iranian gets 'criminalised' unwittingly. Charles

I believe in chutzpah, so I will suggest the People's Republic of China! By latest reports our Chinese contributors have been having free access. Imagine! Our 5th special 2008 Olympic Edition being issued from Baijing as evidence that there is free speech in China.. :-) :-) Ec Rick wrote: