Klaus Graf writes:
For me there is no reason to believe that Mr. Godwin is a good lawyer.
I certainly don't require that you believe I'm a good lawyer. I'd be a very poor lawyer indeed, however, if I invited publishers to embroil us in expensive copyright lawsuits that we might not win when both U.S. and international law provide a mechanism for sidestepping such lawsuits.
I realize that some people think it would be very thrilling if the Wikimedia Foundation were to take on such lawsuits to vindicate the views of contributing editors who themselves are not willing to engage directly in litigation with overreaching publishers. And it would be thrilling, I suppose, but not in a very responsible way.
If he receives a formal (blah-blah) correct take-down-notice he will take OFFICE ACTION.
Yes, it is correct that I will comply with a DMCA (or equivalent) takedown notice. In this respect, I'm like just about every lawyer everywhere who represents a service provider. Perhaps they are all bad lawyers, but at least I'm in good company if they are.
It was clearly un-lawful to take down the TU Munich logo which isn't protectable according German copyright law but WMF has done so.
I'm unaware of any takedown notice regarding "the TU Munich logo." Perhaps you are referring to some action taken by my predecessor.
It is a shame that WMF hasn't a policy of TRANSPARENCY regarding office actions. The right of the community to get all information cannot be overruled by Mr. Godwin's personal opinions about secret things.
In the world outside this mailing list, the fact that I'm responding to this extent to these criticisms would itself be taken as proof of transparency, not disproof.
If WMF or it's god-like counsel (who wasn't able to accept critics
since I am reading this list) has taken office action - there is no way to appeal.
I invite informed criticism. In fact, I love it -- it's exceedingly helpful to receive thoughtful, informed criticism. I'm sure you share my belief in this, Klaus, and I look to you as a model of how to respond to thoughtful criticism.
--Mike
-----Original Message----- From: Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wed, Jun 2, 2010 4:54 pm Subject: [Foundation-l] Office action
It is a shame that WMF hasn't a policy of TRANSPARENCY regarding office actions. The right of the community to get all information cannot be overruled by Mr. Godwin's personal opinions about secret things.
In the world outside this mailing list, the fact that I'm responding to this extent to these criticisms would itself be taken as proof of transparency, not disproof.
----------------------------------------------------
Well yes, but after the fact. If I'm reading the criticism correctly the point being made is that within the process there might be some room for *including* the community in these actions, or at the very least replacing the deleted pages with an explanation of what occurred and how to *fix* it. We've seen that here, you helpfully described what a person should do if they object to the deletion. But is that information on the deleted pages themselves?
What harm do you foresee in replacing deleted pages with a declaration like YouTube uses, "This Video has been deleted based on a copyright claim by The Disney Corporation" ? And then an extension of "If you believe this is public domain material then restore the page and include this disclaimer blah blah blah"
On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 5:08 PM, wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
What harm do you foresee in replacing deleted pages with a declaration like YouTube uses, "This Video has been deleted
based on a copyright claim by The Disney Corporation" ? And then an extension of "If you believe this is public domain material
then restore the page and include this disclaimer blah blah blah"
We aimed to do something like this. Can you say what you dislike about the current notices, which include the contact information for Gallimard?
--Mike
On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 8:24 PM, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 5:08 PM, wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
What harm do you foresee in replacing deleted pages with a declaration like YouTube uses, "This Video has been deleted
based on a copyright claim by The Disney Corporation" ? And then an extension of "If you believe this is public domain material
then restore the page and include this disclaimer blah blah blah"
We aimed to do something like this. Can you say what you dislike about the current notices, which include the contact information for Gallimard?
--Mike
I had the same thought as Will, until I read the actual page Cary created (which Yann linked to in his original message): http://fr.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Wikisource:Demande_des_%C3%A9diti...
It says exactly why the pages were deleted, and lists them, and it was created around the same time the deletions occurred.
Nathan
I hope you don't think that an individual contacting a company is going to do anything to change their minds about what is perceived about their frivolous claim.
You didn't address my extension of that notice which would read something like "If you believe this material IS in the public domain than follow these steps...."
Do we really want every contributor to be an expert in the copyright laws of any particular nation that might have a company exerting some obscure claim? So I would recommend we add the very wording that you Mike gave us on this list, to that page. I think that would address the follow-up (or initial however you see it) objection. The point not being completely that the take-down was in error, but only that part of it was in error. And now we're going to provide the method by which that part can be restored.
That was my point. That is what's missing from the take-down notice.
-----Original Message----- From: Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com To: wjhonson@aol.com Cc: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wed, Jun 2, 2010 5:24 pm Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Office action
On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 5:08 PM, wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
What harm do you foresee in replacing deleted pages with a declaration like YouTube uses, "This Video has been deleted
based on a copyright claim by The Disney Corporation" ? And then an extension of "If you believe this is public domain material
then restore the page and include this disclaimer blah blah blah"
We aimed to do something like this. Can you say what you dislike about the current notices, which include the contact information for Gallimard?
--Mike
=
On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 10:56 AM, wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
Do we really want every contributor to be an expert in the copyright laws of any particular nation that might have a company exerting some obscure claim?
We want every contributor who is going to be submitting non-original content (whether texts for Wikisource or images for Commons etc) to know about US copyright law, and where applicable, copyright law for what you might call the 'primary' country for the language of their local project.
So your question rephrased for these circumstances is do we want French contributors to be expert in French copyright law when contesting copyright claims by French companies, and the answer is yes.
On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 1:08 AM, wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
The Right Honourable Mr Godwin:
In the world outside this mailing list, the fact that I'm responding to this extent to these criticisms would itself be taken as proof of transparency, not disproof.
Well yes, but after the fact. If I'm reading the criticism correctly the point being made is that within the process there might be some room for *including* the community in these actions...
Personally I'm in favour of a strong legal lead to protect the community. If there's a debate to be had, I'd rather see action taken and then the discussion had afterwards as to whether we have a strong community feeling for those things to then be replaced.
To do it the other way, by community consensus *first*... well, the overwhelming majority are not lawyers and even fewer will be cognisant of the laws pertaining to copyright or other issues that hit Wikipedia.
So I trust Mike Godwin to protect us all and *then* be challenged on his actions whilst, in the interim, we lose the content under discussion.
User:Bodnotbod
On 3 June 2010 00:54, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, it is correct that I will comply with a DMCA (or equivalent) takedown notice. In this respect, I'm like just about every lawyer everywhere who represents a service provider. Perhaps they are all bad lawyers, but at least I'm in good company if they are.
I will remind you that Wikipedia hosts information about a number of individuals and organization who have been known to file DMCA notices on materials that they either do not hold the rights on at all or which clearly fall within fair use in order to suppress information.
So are you going to accept all DMCA notices regardless of how valid you feel the copyright claim is?
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