Kelly Martin wrote:
One would think that all Wikipedias would be subject to the same set of copyright rules, since they're all operated out of Florida. I've never understood why people think that the language content is written in has any impact on the law such content is required to comply with....
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.
At the Swedish (language) Wikipedia village pump, if people decide to meet up to discuss stories where they have received complaints for copyright violations, they are likely to meet in Stockholm and the complaints (if any) are likely to have originated from media companies in the same town. Both the media companies and the wikipedians are subject to the laws of Sweden (with very few exceptions), and if a conflict should escalate they will meet in a court of law in Sweden. It doesn't really matter if they use a computer made in Taiwan or a server hosted in Florida. Courts sentence people, not servers.
Now, because the entire Wikipedia community is so prudent, this whole scenario is very unlikely. Copyright violations of this kind are settled by removing the contents, and it is rare that any rights holder would go to court to win damages.