On 4/20/07, Nicholas Moreau
<nicholasmoreau(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Perhaps this isn't the best time to create a
legal entity around
Wikimedia Canada.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070419.wwikipedia0420/…
Could this guy add us to his lawsuit, even though we have no control
over the content of the site, even less so than the Wikimedia
Foundation does? Under US law, the Foundation is fine if they comply
and take down offending content at request of the offendee, but we'd
be under Canadian law, and I don't know if like provisions exist.
No. Never.
It needs to be VERY clear in the bylaws and in any kind of
communication issued by the chapters that they are NOT the host of the
projects and have NOTHING to do with the content.
This is the reality today, and the reason why Wikimedia has chosen to
make chapters independant organisations rather than subisdiaries, so
that the Foundation would not have to be subject to different sets of
laws.
I should add to this that this is not simply a matter of being
prohibited by the Foundation. It has to do with safe harbours for
ISPs. Much of this revolves around the idea that ISPs have only limited
editorial control over what is in the contents. There are some very
sensitive legal issues here.
As I have already said, there are separate projects which we could host,
but before that happens we will need to consider carefully the legal
implications of the structure that we choose,
Ec