On 24 October 2011 09:25, Orionist <orion.ist(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I'm not sure a consenus of
wikimedians is the best way to make legal decisions anyway, shouldn't we
consult an expert?
In a perfect world we'd have a legal department that vets each and every
image uploaded to Commons. The thing is, we'd need at least 200 lawyers from
all around the world, each one an expert in their country's copyright law,
and ready to work overtime. Even then, a legal expert's opinion is no
guarantee that a court will go the same way in case of a lawsuit.
We wouldn't need a lawyer to look at every case - ones where the
author has released it under a free license should be fine, for
example. There are experts on international copyright law that could
give opinions on a wide range of jurisdictions. While you never know
for sure until it has been decided in court, a good lawyer ought to be
able to give you an idea of what a court is likely to decide. In some
cases, they may have to say "I don't know", but I'd much rather have
an expert that doesn't know than a bunch of laymen that think they do.
...a deletion discussion among
non-professionals is not the proper way to
determine the law.
Neither is the opinion of a legal expert: That's the job of the courts.
It's the job of the courts if there is a disagreement. As long as
no-one is complaining, we should be fine just trusting a lawyer.