On 1/14/07, David Strauss david@fourkitchens.com wrote:
I would hate to see Wikipedia bend its content to the laws of countries with dubious jurisdiction.
I'm also saddened to see certain language Wikipedias (like Italian) adopt policies that cater to the laws of countries where the language is predominant. If a citizen can't publish or view something because of local laws, it's the citizen's responsibility not to do so, not Wikipedia's.
Er takeing this position to it's logical conclusion there are rather a lot of people around who whom it would be legal to call for the assination of the US president. Throw in the various countries with ah slightly non standard age of consent laws and you have a problem
Fair use is no exception in my mind.
Do you want to try this line of argument on the RIAA when they come asking why wikipedia is hosting all this 50 year old music?
This wouldn't even be an argument here if the issue were nudity. Having nudity on Wikipedia represents a big problem for redistribution in certain countries, but no one is posting to foundation-l that Wikipedia should disallow such content when useful and necessary.
In the context wikipedia uses it is generaly isn't a problem.
Regarding internationalism, one country that inarguably has legal authority over Wikipedia is the United States, simply because of where Wikipedia is hosted and where the Foundation has its offices. It's not anti-international to recognize this fact.
No but it is anti-international to use large amounts of non free content. About 300K items last I looked.