John M. Sinclair wrote:
I'm new to this discussion, so I may be inserting at the wrong place and time, but I want to suggest that Wikipedia's counsel determine whether the Digital Millennium Copyright Act implicitly requires individual accounts in order to maintain the Foundation's protections under the Act. I don't know that it does, but I think it may, or may head in that direction.
This would be seriously unrealistic. If you think there is something of the sort there by all means give a specific references. If you need to run to counsel to verify the presence every little speculative legal provision nothing would ever get done anywhere, and expensively so.
People sign all sorts of complicated contracts every day without so much as reading them, let alone understanding them. They are typically held responsible for the consequences. Do you consult your lawyer every time you sign an apartment lease, or buy a car, or take out a credit card. The consequences of clauses in these contracts can be more profound than what is being discussed here.
By the way, and by comparison, the federal courts require individual attorney accounts for use of the online filing system (called Pacer), so that an individual attorney must take responsibility for her or his pleadings, and can't hide behind a firm account. Of course, you can always locate an individual attorney, and determine what firm they work for.
The court system requires considerably more formality than Wikipedia accounts.
Ec