Robert Scott Horning wrote:
Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
Expect big changes in the next 24 months on
internet copyright and usage
in the United States Congress and Senate. Congress has been getting too
many people complaining. One sad note is that Slashdot is no longer
"news for geeks" but "news for hackers, and software pirates". The
pendulum is starting
to swing back the other way and unfortunately, it may swing too far to
the right. Experimental internet IP litigation is where WE DO NOT
WANT TO BE in the line of fire.
expect that if there will be any major legislation, it will mainly
cover presumptions of fair use rather than changes in the release of
public documents. And fair use is clearly something that even Wikimedia
projects tend to abuse on a large scale.
I think it was a very wise and prudent move on the part of those who set
up the Wikimedia Commons that they avoided fair use images altogether.
This may be ultimately a saving grace for all Wikimedia projects that
this has been done.
What's more needed is clarification and a balancing of interests. Much
of the legislation is clouded by an absence of defining litigation.
This allows for a great deal of private interpretation based only on
speculation; that is so on both sides of the debate. Thee is quite
enough abuse on the English language projects alone; much of it does not
meet my own standards of belief in a more aggressive copyright policy.
I agree that there's an element of sense to the policy on Commons. It
makes allowing fair use images more workable on the individual projects,
where a context for the images must be provided.
Ec