On 5/4/06, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/2/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
While en.wp has initially been extremely liberal in its application of "fair use", a few other Wikipedias prohibit it entirely. I think it's time that we work towards fair use / fair dealing policies on all Wikimedia projects. This is going to be a bit tricky as we have to distinguish between the law that applies to the uploader of the work, and the law that applies to the Wikimedia Foundation which is hosting the work.
I would appreciate a legal opinion on how to best achieve this - my own feeling is that the fair use policies of a project like de.wp or nl.wp should explain the legal situation in countries where these languages are predominantly spoken, while allowing the freedoms granted under U.S. law.
Until we have an answer to "are the authors or is the Foundation ultimately responsible for the content of the Wikimedia projects?" - which I believe we will only ever get if we go to court, I do not believe there is a clear answer, legal or not, to the question.
My take on this is:
-FL law comes first -You must respect whichever local law is yours (country of residence) when you edit Wikimedia projects.
In any case, (and maybe unfortunately) editing Wikimedia projects which are physically based in Florida *does not* grant you *more* rights than those you have in your own country.
Internet is not a lawless zone.
Delphine
-- ~notafish
Sarl Louis Feraud International v. Viewfinder Inc. provides some guidance about this issue. If you're distributing copyrighted material to residents of France, then the French courts can find you liable for copyright infringement. As long as you never go to France or have any assets there though, that ruling is meaningless unless someone can convince a judge in your country of residence (or somewhere you have assets) to enforce the ruling. According to the Berne Convention countries are supposed to enforce rulings from other jurisdictions which are members, however for example in the United States they won't do so if that ruling violates the Constitution. Fair Use is a Constitutional requirement in the United States.
I really think the question has to be defined more specifically though. What is Wikipedia trying to accomplish? Are they trying to obey the laws of the countries they operate in, or are they willing to break those laws if they can get away with it? Is it enough to protect contributors identities so that they can get away with breaking the laws of their country, or does Wikipedia insist that everything a contributor does must be legal? Finally, though it wasn't mentioned, what about redistributors, including redistributors in other countries?
It'd be nice to just say that Wikipedia should be legal everywhere, and maybe that can be accomplished wrt copyright law, but go outside of copyright law (and consider China, for instance), and it's obvious that Wikipedia should not attempt to follow the law of every single jurisdiction in the world.
Anthony