Dan Rosenthal wrote:
I have long
felt that the difficulties when our collective copyrights
are breached would be greater than any problem we would face in trying
to abide by the rights of others. We have any number of layers to
protect us from legal liabilities from copyvios, but there is very
little effort to deal with being on the other side of the dispute. This
is definitely a point that I would raise before the Board if elected.
Financially, I have been led to believe the WMF does not really have the
resources available to be spending on prosecuting intellectual property
violations other than what we can do by hoping people abide by C+D letters.
Which is a shame too, because I would very much like to see the foundation
more litigious in its defense of our licenses by pursuing sites that use our
contributors works without attribution, (as well as other violations of our
IPs).
Sometimes, a lack of finances can be an easy excuse. Like anything else
if it's otherwise a good idea, it needs to be given room in the budget.
Michael Bimmler's allusion to moral rights made me wonder whether a case
could be brought in another country that has strong moral rights
legislation. We wouldn't be looking for money, though it would be nice
to recover the costs of the suit. We want proper attribution.
The right of attribution is essential to maintaining the viral character
of copyleft. Copyrights need to be vigorously defended, or they risk
being treated as abandoned. If we tacitly consent to Baidu's improper
use of our material it puts into doubt the use of the same material
further downstream. There would be a presumption that they have a
copyright on what they publish, and that would put a chill on anyone
wanting to use their material. Commercial publishers may very well ask
and easily receive permission to use "their" material. Acknowledging in
public that it is used with Baidu's permission would then strengthen the
fiction that there is a real copyright.
Ec