The Cunctator wrote:
My attitude is that Wikipedia should be pushing the
copyright envelope
(within reason, of course) on all fronts.
Philosophically I agree with you, but I think that WMF should not be the
one playing this role. As an ISP it should maintain an arm's length
from these disputes, and respond correctly to all takedown demands. For
the sake of keeping itself protected WMF should avoid taking on dumb
risks. This does not mean that individual projects cannot take more
aggressive stands, but the lines of responsibility must be clear. These
must be accepted by individuals. If someone feels strongly that using
the Escher drawings is fair use, he should be the one prepared to argue
the matter in court. The rest of us should not be kept hostage because
of one person's idiotic misunderstanding of fair use.
Oddly enough, there is a bigger problem with people who do not protect
their own copyrights. By failing to say yes or no to our uses they keep
the situation uncertain. Even those copyvios which seem obvious are not
questioned, as much as we may be willing to accomodate their complaints.
All non-governmental content from the past century is
covered by copyright
(essentially).
Maybe the last half-century. For the US one needs to remember that
works published before 1964 had to be renewed, and this was only done
for a small proportion of those works.
We should be expanding (and we are) the amount of
content covered by free
licenses (GFDL,CC-SA).
Yes. This involves not only using free, but making free.
We should also be demonstrating the importance of
challenging the absurd
life and strength of copyright laws by taking advantage of fair use when we
can.
Especially in approaching the question of orphan copyrights. At the
same time we should no become fixated on the idea that fair use is the
only available tool.
Google is a great example of a company that by dint of
its popularity gets
to run roughshod over copyright restrictions that companies would squash if
they weren't so reliant on Google.
Maybe it's because they don't roll over at the first sign of danger.
Paranoia is rarely an effective tactic.
Similarly Wikipedia is now in the position of being one
of the 800-pound
gorillas.
A mere baby, and growing.
Wikipedia has the power to shape law because of its
size and influence.
A significant portion of the Wikimedia community has failed to grasp this.
Ec