On 29/05/06, SCO Estmort eudaimonic.leftist@gmail.com wrote:
Is there any way we can take action against Baidu Baike? Surely there is some legal means of recourse, because they apparently are taking things from the Chinese Wikipedia wholesale, with utter copyright violations. We have to deal with copyright issues, I don't see why we should idly stand by and let ourselves get trampled over with. Since we have been sending cease and desist notices to small mirrors now, surely this is the ripe target, as Baidu Baike is state-sponsored by the People's Republic of China.
Call me cynical and all, but if you want to find a ripe legal target, perhaps picking one that won't have its legal bills paid by a *country* would be a good start. (Let's leave aside the interesting legal question of whether or not the Foundation has legal standing to sue.)
We can't fight China; it'd waste our time and they wouldn't even notice. We're not magically endowed crusaders for truth and justice; we're writers. Ripe targets are all well and good, but picking a fight we can win should come before picking a fight that sounds good.