Gregory Maxwell wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc:
It would appear that we are breaking the law with
respect to copyright
at
download.wikimedia.org.
this is not particular to downloads, but applies to any place that old
revisions are available, including the web interface.
This is a result of our policy about the insertion of
copyrighted
material into articles:
[[Wikipedia:Copyright problems#Instructions]]
"Pages where the most recent edit is a copyright violation, but the
previous article was not, should not be deleted. They should be
reverted. The violating text will remain in the page history for
archival reasons unless the copyright holder asks the Wikimedia
Foundation to remove it."
does this policy apply everywhere or only en.wp?
As a result our database contains large quantities of
violating
material.
my understand of the relevant US law is that we are not required to
aggressively remove copyright violations until requested by the copyright
holder.
kate.