On 7/14/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 7/13/06, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
Robert
Scott Horning said:
The precedence that I would like to use for why the WMF should hold
copyright on Wikimedia project content is the same reason why the Free
Software Foundation holds copyright for the GNU projects: If there is a
copyright violation, they can be a legal party to enforcing the
copyright and defending the GPL.
My preference here would be to have each editor appoint WMF as a
non-exclusive agent for the purpose of taking all steps to defend
editors' copyrights.
Optionally, I hope. I personally have no desire to sue people over
the vast majority of my legal rights under copyright law. Basically,
as long as you don't take my works and then create a non-free
derivative, I don't care what you do with it, at least so far as
copyright law is concerned.
I think that that view is shared by most of us who have a philosophical
attachment to the concept of free information.
I dunno. I've seen an awful lot of lawsuit-happy Wikipedians. I've
even been legally threatened by a number of them for running a mirror
site.
Frankly,
I'd hope that the WMF would do the same, and only use
lawsuits to make works more free, not less.
I presume that with "optionally" you are referring to WMF retaining the
option to sue or not sue based on the circumstances of the situation,
and not that each editor has an option about naming WMF as agent ...
sometimes. The alternative would only create more confusion when the
WMF's right to pursue the matter comes up. On the other hand, it would
be ridiculous to demand that WMF pursue with vigour every bit of
perceived copyvio.
What I'm saying is that if the WMF requires me to give it the right to
enter into copyright lawsuits on my behalf, I won't ever contribute
anything to Wikipedia or any of the other projects again. (I suppose
I'd make an exception for those things that I'm willing to give to the
public domain).
I don't want the WMF to have the option to sue or not sue based on the
circumstances of the situation. I obviously can't stop others from
giving them this right, but I won't give it to them for my own
content.
Anthony