Kim Bruning wrote: I am curious about this as well. I'd also like to see a difference between those complaints that have come in from other sources such as: *e-mail complaints to board members and/or the Foundation "official" e-mail addresses *Snail mail complaints about copyright infringement *court-ordered content take downs by subpoena or cease and desist letters *e-mail complaints to project admins or sysops *content owner's complaints on project talk pages *suspected copyright infingement discoveries by editor/contributors on projects Of all these, I would guess that the editors and participants on most Wikimedia projects do a fairly good job of identifying content that is likely to have originated from someplace other than the project it is posted on. Certainly it is suspect to review any very large contributions of text, especially when there is 32K of content with only one edit on the page. Sometimes a textual contribution simply stands out as having come from something other than a traditional Wikimedia editor due to its exceptional polish in grammar or a surprisingly consistant (usually non-neutral) POV. I've never had a formal complaint addressed to me, but I have seen just one single copyright complaint by the original author or publisher. Far more often I've seen an author try to contribute previously published content and then try to explain the GFDL to that same author. In every case I've seen like that, the author was willing to grant GFDL rights when possible. In all, I would guess that user suspected cases of copyright infingement outnumbers all other types of copyright violation identifications by at least a ratio of 100:1 or more. I'm curious to see if anybody else on this list has had any similar experiences. For that, en.wikibooks has on average about 2-3 significant copyright violations per week, sometimes more if a troublesome user is deliberately staying ignorant on the subject. Scale that about 100x and I think you might be close for Wikipedia, but I'm not as familiar with that project. -- Robert Scott Horning

Kim Bruning wrote: I don't think that this is necessarily apathy on the part of people on this mailing list, just that many list readers feel that most copyright issues have been dealt with more or less adequately on the various Wikimedia projects. If you see improper fair use, mark it up with appropriate editing tags and bring it to the attention of the administrators of the various projects. If you have a problem with some admins not "getting it" and ignoring your complaints, bring it up on the community forums first. You might be pleasantly surprised by the response you get, particularly if you mention specific fair use problems. For example: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks%3AVotes_for_deletion#Images deals with several copyright infringement issues I have been dealing with. I think this is more of an issue of education rather than specific apathy on the part of the Wikimedia Foundation board. I don't know what is going on with en.wikipedia as I am only an occasional editor/contributor there and I've given up trying to keep up with the Village Pump. It just isn't my thing, although I do occasionally take a peek every once in awhile. If you can give some specific details over what is happening, I would like to know some details. You asked for some stats and I gave them to you, for what I could offer. As far as copyright checking being seen as disruptive, I would have to agree to a certain extent. I also don't think you should be so draconian as to suggest that every article on Wikipedia must have a specific outside reference to every fact, and unless you can prove that it is an original composition or copied with permission under the GFDL (or compatable terms) that you should assume that it is a copyright violation. On this issue, trust the community. I think they will get it right, and it doesn't require outside intervention on the order you are asking. -- Robert Scott Horning