As Ray saids legal prosecution to claim for formal accomplishing of the copyright terms is expensive and difficult. But the same happens the other way around.
I would like to have a clear legal opinion about applying the terms without going to court.
They have copied articles from Chinese Wikipedia and translated articles from English and Japanese Wikipedia so in my opinion their work is a derivative one and according to the CCSA terms it is also CCSA no mater what they say.
What about creating a bot to copy from Baidu all the articles not yet existing in Chinese wikipedia.
Could Geoff Brigham provide us his legal advice?
Message: 5 Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 15:18:51 -0700 From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Letter to Baidu and press release "Baidu Baike copies content from Wikipedia without attribution" draft To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 4DB4A1CB.308@telus.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
On 04/24/11 9:35 AM, David Gerard wrote:
Baidu Baike clearly have a considerable potential liability in terms of violation of copyright, including under Chinese law (assuming CC by-sa holds up).
If they're traded on the stock market in Hong Kong (or anywhere else)
- have they filed appropriate notices with the relevant financial
oversight bodies noting this outstanding potential liability? If not, why not, and could they be in danger of penalties for not having done so?
Reading through this thread only reveals how thoroughly fucked up copyright law really is! The Baidu situation does point to a prima facie case of copyright infringement and blatant plagiarism, but we can do no better than the inhabitants of Flatland after their world was struck by a three-dimensional object. In theory the writers of collaborative material have a right of action against the infringers, or against those who violate the moral right of attribution. In practical terms, if the owner can be identified the costs prosecuting violations on the other side of the world are so far out of proportion to any potential maximum penalty as to turn any such action into a fool's errand, even in a class action. Nevertheless, when we apply the law to ourselves it's with such exactitude that we put ourselves in an immediate disadvantage.
Ray
This is definitively a wrong approach. Just because part of their content violate our license does not mean that ALL their content are under CC-SA-BY. No court will ever follow such a logic.
Greetings Ting
On 25.04.2011 08:45, wrote Joan Goma:
As Ray saids legal prosecution to claim for formal accomplishing of the copyright terms is expensive and difficult. But the same happens the other way around.
I would like to have a clear legal opinion about applying the terms without going to court.
They have copied articles from Chinese Wikipedia and translated articles from English and Japanese Wikipedia so in my opinion their work is a derivative one and according to the CCSA terms it is also CCSA no mater what they say.
What about creating a bot to copy from Baidu all the articles not yet existing in Chinese wikipedia.
Could Geoff Brigham provide us his legal advice?
Message: 5 Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 15:18:51 -0700 From: Ray Saintongesaintonge@telus.net Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Letter to Baidu and press release "Baidu Baike copies content from Wikipedia without attribution" draft To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID:4DB4A1CB.308@telus.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
On 04/24/11 9:35 AM, David Gerard wrote:
Baidu Baike clearly have a considerable potential liability in terms of violation of copyright, including under Chinese law (assuming CC by-sa holds up).
If they're traded on the stock market in Hong Kong (or anywhere else)
- have they filed appropriate notices with the relevant financial
oversight bodies noting this outstanding potential liability? If not, why not, and could they be in danger of penalties for not having done so?
Reading through this thread only reveals how thoroughly fucked up copyright law really is! The Baidu situation does point to a prima facie case of copyright infringement and blatant plagiarism, but we can do no better than the inhabitants of Flatland after their world was struck by a three-dimensional object. In theory the writers of collaborative material have a right of action against the infringers, or against those who violate the moral right of attribution. In practical terms, if the owner can be identified the costs prosecuting violations on the other side of the world are so far out of proportion to any potential maximum penalty as to turn any such action into a fool's errand, even in a class action. Nevertheless, when we apply the law to ourselves it's with such exactitude that we put ourselves in an immediate disadvantage.
Ray
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On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 8:45 AM, Joan Goma jrgoma@gmail.com wrote:
As Ray saids legal prosecution to claim for formal accomplishing of the copyright terms is expensive and difficult. But the same happens the other way around.
I would like to have a clear legal opinion about applying the terms without going to court.
They have copied articles from Chinese Wikipedia and translated articles from English and Japanese Wikipedia so in my opinion their work is a derivative one and according to the CCSA terms it is also CCSA no mater what they say.
I disagree. The license doesn't make derived works CCSA, it makes it illegal to publish them unless under CCSA terms. You can't just go from "you were not allowed to do X without my permission", "I gave you my permission provided you did Y" and "you did X" to "you did Y". Also, think of the effect that this would have on the rights of other people who submitted material to Baidu Baike. They have never agreed with the CCSA or even knowingly had anything to do with it, yet their material is brought under that license.
On 25 April 2011 08:13, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 8:45 AM, Joan Goma jrgoma@gmail.com wrote:
As Ray saids legal prosecution to claim for formal accomplishing of the copyright terms is expensive and difficult. But the same happens the other way around.
I would like to have a clear legal opinion about applying the terms without going to court.
They have copied articles from Chinese Wikipedia and translated articles from English and Japanese Wikipedia so in my opinion their work is a derivative one and according to the CCSA terms it is also CCSA no mater what they say.
I disagree. The license doesn't make derived works CCSA, it makes it illegal to publish them unless under CCSA terms. You can't just go from "you were not allowed to do X without my permission", "I gave you my permission provided you did Y" and "you did X" to "you did Y". Also, think of the effect that this would have on the rights of other people who submitted material to Baidu Baike. They have never agreed with the CCSA or even knowingly had anything to do with it, yet their material is brought under that license.
I concur. I've never heard any legal opinion saying that violating the copyright of something under CC-BY-SA creates an implicit CC-BY-SA license. They have violated copyright so, in the eyes of the law, the remedy is to sue them for damages. That is the only legal remedy I am aware of.
On 04/24/11 11:45 PM, Joan Goma wrote:
As Ray saids legal prosecution to claim for formal accomplishing of the copyright terms is expensive and difficult. But the same happens the other way around.
I would like to have a clear legal opinion about applying the terms without going to court.
They have copied articles from Chinese Wikipedia and translated articles from English and Japanese Wikipedia so in my opinion their work is a derivative one and according to the CCSA terms it is also CCSA no mater what they say.
What about creating a bot to copy from Baidu all the articles not yet existing in Chinese wikipedia.
Could Geoff Brigham provide us his legal advice?
Getting a legal opinion that what they are doing is illegal would be the easy part. The challenge is what can you do with that opinion once you have it.
Copyright, and least in common law countries, is primarily an economic right. In that context courts would be more concerned with the measure of economic damage. How do you put a dollar figure on the damages suffered when the original authors weren't seeking to make money from it? Whoever starts the fight still needs to fund prosecuting the battle, and that could be very expensive.
Ray
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 15:18:51 -0700 From: Ray Saintonge
On 04/24/11 9:35 AM, David Gerard wrote:
Baidu Baike clearly have a considerable potential liability in terms of violation of copyright, including under Chinese law (assuming CC by-sa holds up).
If they're traded on the stock market in Hong Kong (or anywhere else)
- have they filed appropriate notices with the relevant financial
oversight bodies noting this outstanding potential liability? If not, why not, and could they be in danger of penalties for not having done so?
Reading through this thread only reveals how thoroughly fucked up copyright law really is! The Baidu situation does point to a prima facie case of copyright infringement and blatant plagiarism, but we can do no better than the inhabitants of Flatland after their world was struck by a three-dimensional object. In theory the writers of collaborative material have a right of action against the infringers, or against those who violate the moral right of attribution. In practical terms, if the owner can be identified the costs prosecuting violations on the other side of the world are so far out of proportion to any potential maximum penalty as to turn any such action into a fool's errand, even in a class action. Nevertheless, when we apply the law to ourselves it's with such exactitude that we put ourselves in an immediate disadvantage.
Ray
On 25 April 2011 07:45, Joan Goma jrgoma@gmail.com wrote:
They have copied articles from Chinese Wikipedia and translated articles from English and Japanese Wikipedia so in my opinion their work is a derivative one
This is true.
and according to the CCSA terms it is also CCSA no mater what they say.
No, this is absolutely not the case.
The licence is a permission, not a viral infection (despite the confusion engendered by the licences being termed "viral" in another context).
That you licence your work as CC by-sa does not make a further derivative automatically CC by-sa. It means that if they distribute it further (as they have) without obeying your licence (as they have not) and without releasing their changes as CC-by-sa (as they have not), then they are in violation (as they are).
*But* this *still* does not automatically relicence their work - it just means they are in violation until they choose to do so.
You can't forcibly relicence someone else's work without a court order, even if they are grossly violating your licence. You just can't. It doesn't work like that.
What about creating a bot to copy from Baidu all the articles not yet existing in Chinese wikipedia.
This is a terrible idea and you should not do it.
- d.
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