Dear Trustees,
it is my pleasure to send you the legal isseus update on Japanese
projects (Wikipedia, Wiktrionary and other projcets) made by
coorinations of many wikipedians. I appriciate my co-contributos and
hope our report will help your discussion and good decision to our
future.
We cut update into 5 as below; every part will be mailed to the board.
1 Disclaimer / Backgrond - Tomos & Aphaia
2 Resolved isseus - Suisui
3 Going-on issue 1: Dolfin vs WMF - Tomos
4 Going-on issue 2: K.M. vs "Wikipedia Japan' (sic) - Aphaia
5 Going-on issue 3. John Doe (in report referred as "X") vs an
Wikipedian - Tomos
As an appendix a note on a resolved matter will be send.
Besides the above three, many other Wikipedians worked to make it sure details.
Feel free to contact us, if further information is necessary.
Cheers,
--
Aphaea(a)*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com
----
Disclaimer and Warning
First, this report is personal in nature. That is, views
expressed in this report are not a representative
view of Japanese Wikimedians. The report is an aggregation
of views of individual authors. Earlier drafts of various
parts of the report were presented on the mailinglist
WikiJA-l for general feedback. Yet due to
language and time restrictions, it is far from regular
concensus-building process on Japanese Wikipedia.
Every part of this report has the signature of its reporter at the end.
Likewise, the views expressed in this report may not
be fair representations of the views held by the parties
involved in the disputes.
Second, none of the authors are legal experts. The terms
used in the reports should be interpreted with caution, because
it could well be inaccurate and/or misleading.
Please also remind that there is no strict correspondence between Common
Law judical terms/concepts and Japanese ones reflecting differences in
their legal systems.
The legal terms are chosen possibly because they are the closest imaginable
to the writer, and the choice could be inaccurate and misleading, too.
Third, none of the authors are native speakers of English.
Please feel free to ask for further clarifications.
(This part written by: Tomos)
*General Background
This year we have now no legal issues or troubles on any other
Japanese projects than Wikipedia (except Wiktionary deletion issue on
June, see the below #Legal issues related to ja in 2004).
Situation on ja.wp has not changed from Tomos report on March
[[m:User:Tomos/Legal_discussions_on_Japanese_Wikipedia]] basically. On
processing deletion and blocking/banning the basis of juristic
analysis are same, but recently the growth of user population
resulted in some policy changes as follows.
Decision on deletion and blocking/banning were formerly on full
concensus, but now are based on rough consensus. Today it is difficult
for ja.wp to reach the full consensus because of its huge population
of registered users, although most of decision are made based on full
consensus in fact and the request for cancellation of decision are
rare in case there were opposite parties.
Certain contributers assert the deletion should be (or is expected to)
noticed to the original contributors, in addition to thier agreement
in advance at the time their submission. This opinion is partly based
on a view of courtesy but also on the legal aspect in relation to a
Japanese law, Law of Providers' Responsibility or shortly ISP Law(see
the below, #Deletion and ISP Law).
Introduction of ''Terms of Use" which will be applied only to Japanese
Wikipedia was proposed in February 2004, when there was no other
Japanese project within Wikimedia. The proposed draft of Terms of Use
was written in Japanese and discussed during February and March
mainly. But the discussion subsided, and the proposal still remains at
a draft status. That draft is linked from MediaWiki:Lastupdate
but seldom refered in the community. There is no possibility of further
discussion on Terms of Use now. Other Japanese projects have
no such discussion on making their own Terms of Use or shared
with other projects.
(This part written by: Aphaia)
*Deletion and ISP Law
On ja every contributor is expected to read the notices below the edit
window including they are considered to give the project full agreement
for the possible deletion of their contribution when they submit.
On the other hand in Japan, Law Concerning Limitation of Damages to
Specific Telecommunications Service Provider and Disclosure of Sender
Information, so-called ISP Law states that certain prior notice
relieves liabilities of the provider.
When a deletion request is made by a third party, the provider can
make a notice to the contributor and if no objection is raised within
7 days, the provider can delete the posting free of liability to
the contributor, even in the case the deletion eventually turns out
to be based on a misunderstanding or incorrect information.
(This part written by: Aphaia)
On Japanese Wikipedia and Wiktionary, there were discussions if non-GFDL
license should be introduced to address the issues surrounding internal
handling of the texts. No significant change have happened.
The copying-and-pasting, archiving by copying, use of boilerplate texts,
dividing a long page into several parts, and copying of a page one
project to another are some of the actions that are likely to be in
violations of GFDL. It was suggested that certain remedies be implemented.
Suggested remedies included:
a) introduction of dual-licensing system, the second license making
materials available under public domain terms within Wikimedia projects.
b) partial change in the text(s) to which all contributors agree when
they press "save" button, resolving only a limited range of problems.
Objections included:
-the discussion was not easy to understand for the general participants
-participation was not wide enough to legitimatize such a radical change
-GFDL is said to be one of the core-elements of the Wikimedia projects so
that no deviation should be allowed
-introducing non-GFDL would be inconsistent with other language-projects'
adherence with GFDL
It was also indicated by some that the existing texts of Wikipedia, to which
all the contributors have been agreeing through the pressing of "save" button,
can be interpreted that the internal treatment of the contributions would be
made not according to GFDL. In that case, no change is necessary, and there
is no problem that above actions are in violations with GFDL.
(This part written by: Tomos)
*Legal issues related to ja in 2004
Until Oct 7 there have been several legal issues on ja, some have
already been resolved, others are going-on or uncertain if they are
resolved. In this section brief information on each issue is found
successively by date. Usernames are only showed for on-going issues.
Apparently Resolved
Suisui will provide details to the board on two resolved issues in another
mail. Here I mentioned only when they happened
R1. Dec, 2003 - resolved in the early 2004
R2. Wiktionary deletion; May, 2004 - resolved on June.
Going-on issues or uncertain if resolved
G1. Apr. 2004 Dolfin vs Wikimedia Foundation or "Japanese Wikipedia" - Tomos
G2. Jun. 2004 K.M. vs "Wikipedia Japan"(sic) warned in
http://taurus.kake.info.waseda.ac.jp/wikip/joyful/joyful.u.cgi?mode=res&…
- Aphaia
G3. Sep. 2004 X vs uncertain in the text; the admin of the BBS - Tomos
(running by an reigistered user of ja)? warind in
http://taurus.kake.info.waseda.ac.jp/wikip/joyful/joyful.u.cgi?mode=res&…
Report of Going-on issues will be sent or forwarded individually.
(This part written by: Aphaia)