Remember that it's expensive to the plaintiff as
well as to the
defendant.
Ok, it only takes one *rich person*. Point stands.
What is the basis of this guess? Most people
who've reviewed CC-BY-SA
and compared it to GFDL see lots of similarities.
It's a guess, it doesn't really have much of a basis, just gut
feeling. I would have called it an estimate otherwise.
Would you care
to enlighten me? Risk assessment involves assessing
potential damage and the chance of that happening. Is legal risk
assessment somehow different?
Yes, in the sense that Pascal's Wager is wholly unhelpful in assessing
risk. (I think it's wholly unhelpful in other contexts as well, but
you certainly can't conduct an enterprise by applying "it only takes
one" logic to a legal question.)
The flaw in Pascal's Wager is that it incorrectly assumes zero cost,
what's that got to do with anything?
I can't
see how it would be. Legal costs
are just as damaging as any other similar sized cost.
Apparently you are under the impression that legal costs are not
damaging to plaintiffs as well as to defendants.
Why would I care about the plaintiff's costs? There are plenty of
people in this world with more money than sense.
Let's boil this down to what the real argument
is:
1) It would be wrong to relicense GFDL content on Wikipedia to a new
GFDL that's like CC-BY-SA.
2) Allowing those who object to the content would do no good because
it's impossible.
3) Therefore, people will sue us because they object to the new license.
4) What will they sue for? Damages (unclear how to calculate those,
since there's no market value or lost profit calculation that's
obvious, and since the content isn't registered, which is a
requirement for statutory damages), plus removal of the content.
So ... either removal of the content is impossible, in which case why
sue? Or it's possible, in which case, why spend the money on a
lawsuit when you can get the same result by asking. (You don't even
have to ask nicely.)
Removal of content isn't impossible, it's just impossible without
causing a great deal of harm to Wikipedia. As for registering
copyright, isn't that US law? We're not talking about the US here. Do
France and Germany have similar requirements?
It helps in analysis of this question to be familiar
with how
copyright litigation actual works, and what it actually costs
plaintiffs to bring one.
It costs the plaintiffs money. Something lots of people have and the
WMF doesn't.