A few moments ago we posted this to the Wikimedia Foundation Blog, it is self explanatory.  

Today the Wikimedia Foundation filed a suit in San Francisco against Internet Brands seeking a judicial declaration that Internet Brands has no lawful right to impede, disrupt or block the creation of a new travel oriented, Wikimedia Foundation-owned website in response to the request of Wikimedia community volunteers. Over the summer, in response to requests generated by our volunteers, the Wikimedia community conducted a lengthy Request For Comment (RFC) process to facilitate public debate and discussion regarding the benefits and challenges of creating a new, Wikimedia Foundation-hosted travel guide project. The community extended the RFC at the Wikimedia Foundation Board’s request to allow for greater community input, and to encourage input from Internet Brands. Once concluded, the RFC process revealed the community’s desire to see a new travel project created. The Wikimedia Foundation Board supports the community’s decision and is moving forward with the creation of this new project.

Unfortunately, Internet Brands (owner of the travel website Wikitravel) has decided to disrupt this process by engaging in litigation against two Wikitravel volunteers who are also Wikimedia community members. On August 29, Internet Brands sued two volunteer administrators, one based in Los Angeles and one in Canada, asserting a variety of claims. The intent of the action is clear – intimidate other community volunteers from exercising their rights to freely discuss the establishment of a new community focused on the creation of a new, not-for-profit travel guide under the Creative Commons licenses.

While the suit filed by Internet Brands does not directly name the Wikimedia Foundation as a defendant, we believe that we are the real target. We feel our only recourse is to file this suit in order to get everything on the table and deal head on with Internet Brand’s actions over the past few months in trying to impede the creation of this new travel project.

Our community and potential new community members are key to the success of all of our projects. We will steadfastly and proudly defend our community’s right to free speech, and we will support these volunteer community members in their legal defense. We do not feel it is appropriate for Internet Brands, a large corporation with hundreds of millions of dollars in assets, to seek to intimidate two individuals.

This new, proposed project would allow all travel content to be freely used and disseminated by anyone for any purpose as long as the content is given proper attribution and is offered with the same free-to-use license. Internet Brands appears to be attempting to thwart the creation of a new, non-commercial travel wiki in a misguided effort to protect its for-profit Wikitravel site.

The Wikimedia movement stands in the balance and the Wikimedia Foundation will not sit idly by and allow a commercial actor like Internet Brands to engage in threats, intimidation and litigation to prevent the organic expression of community interest in favor of a new travel project, one that is not driven by commercial interests.

The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. We are devoted to creating and nurturing free knowledge projects supported by volunteers. Our actions today represent the full stride of our commitment to protect the Wikimedia movement against the efforts of for-profit entities like Internet Brands to prevent communities and volunteers from making their own decisions about where and how freely-usable content may be shared.

Kelly Kay, Deputy General Counsel