On Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 3:59 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
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This still leaves me
wondering if WMF Legal could be involved in the legal defense of the reusers if they acted in good faith in attempting to comply with the license terms as they understood them on Commons.
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Acting in good faith will, at best, mitigate against damages. It isn't actually a defense against liability. If people are getting sued after doing absolutely everything right, then I could maybe imagine getting involved. However, in many licensing disputes there is a legitimate case that the reuser violated the terms of the license (e.g. by neglecting details regarding authorship / attribution / etc.), often due to ignorance of what the license requires. In many such cases, the reuser may well face a likelihood of losing if the case ever made it to court. In a world of "good faith" we might expect that reusers who made mistakes out of ignorance to be treated kindly, but the legal system isn't exactly geared towards kindness.
I think that we (the community + the WMF) should do more to help ensure license compliance and educate reusers about appropriate attribution, etc. However, I don't think that WMF Legal should get involved in cases where someone wanted to do the right thing but failed. There is no need to waste our resources on third-party cases where there is a significant risk of losing.
-Robert Rohde