--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I too thought that the response was peculiar. Passing the buck onto some na�ve individual who may not understand copyright law at all evades responsibility.
Its understandable. Official positions not only must remain uncolored, but also moderately defensive of the institution. Any offical doctrine is going to draw a sharp and non-intuitive line, unless dealing with specific cases. Language is just codewords, and paradoxically enough, private discussion can be more open.
Sometimes we need to say, "This material may still be copyright, but it's 30 years old, the publisher went bankrupt 25 years ago, and the writer or photographer died 20 years ago without a family and without mentioning copyrights in his will. Maybe we should take a chance."
I dont think that its remotely this conditional. Alex made it clear that it's all pretty unclear as to how a case could come down. The most touchy aspects are all very general and current issues for law, not at all particular to WP. To stick-neck-out or not-stick-neck-out; that is the question. And this is in degrees: the *degree of caution expressed (in direct proportion to the number of nuts invested) versus the degree to which such caution is {{{understood}}} to stifle the goal of development. The balanced and cautious community decision led to the well understood and vigilant requirement for attribution. This is good enough IMNSHO.
S
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