On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 1:21 PM, Gautam John <gautam@prathambooks.org> wrote:

Hi Yann:

Thanks much for this.

It's nice to know that ISPs are the same the world over and do more
than they are asked to do. *sigh*

More to the point, the kind of action initiated by Gallimard, exceeding the limits of the law and banking on other's ignorance of the law (ie FUD) is seen very often in India, although not so much by corporate action (but that is not unknown either).

In India, we are far more likely to see this sort of thing from government offices, also preying on people's ignorance of the law (including ISPs etc). The situation is made far more complicated by loose terms employed in the laws and rules pertaining to those laws, especially regarding intermediaries.

If put to a vote, I would want Wikipedia (and Wikipedians, of course) to stand fast against all these kinds of pressures in India, by employing the kind of firm responses Yann describes. The price of freedom cannot be freedom itself.

On 8 September 2011 12:54, Yann Forget <yannfo@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> For your information, Wikilivres hosting service provider received a
> letter from Gallimard, a leading French publisher.
> See http://www.wikilivres.info/wiki/File:Injonction_de_Gallimard.pdf
> This letter says that major French ISPs have been asked to restrained
> access to a list of pages.
> Then the hosting service provider sent me a mail saying that "terms of
> services have been violated",
> and that there are "monitoring" the site.
> In addition, the letter sent to French ISPs is one year old, and the
> restriction has never been applied
> by any provider, according to the tests I have made.
> However these restrictions should have been done "within one month",
> according to this letter.
> Actually there is nothing in French law which demands ISP to restrict
> access to content
> which are not in the public domain in France.
>
> AFAIK no terms of service was violated, and I've asked the ISP for
> clarification.
> Gallimard issued a similar threath to Wikisource last year, after
> which some texts were deleted by OFFICE action, and later restored
> after I sent a counter-notice. There was no news from Gallimard after
> that.
>
> This is to mention that copyright has to be taken seriously in this project.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Yann
>
> 2011/8/26 John Vandenberg <jayvdb@gmail.com>:
>> Wikisource already has a "Commonwealth copyright wikisource"
>>
>> it is called Wikilivres, and it is hosted in Canada.
>>
>> http://www.wikilivres.info/
>>
>> On that website you will find many examples of works which are illegal
>> to distribute on US servers.
>>
>> Whenever English Wikisource finds a work which is illegal in the US,
>> but legal in Canada, it is moved to Wikilivres.
>>
>> Wikilivres is currently paid for by a Wikisource administrator [[user:Yann]].
>>
>> --
>> John Vandenberg
>
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>

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