Hi!
1. What does Italian law have to do with the
Sicilian wikipedia?
You should better ask the wmf lawyers for this. Basically when
"selling"
something the lawset used depends on where the buyer is. But wmf does not
sell anything, so it should be the server's physical placement to be
involved. I don't really think that wmf servers are in Italy, so I do not
see why the italian law should apply to anyone (it.wiki included).
The alternative approach would be considering where the action is performed,
as it happens with sales. It looks quite time consuming, though, since we
have none of the usual commercial docs that track a sale process. A possible
answer could be: track down the IP. I believe that this might give us a
proper identification for the upload origin, but then... we are going to
need a copyright policy for each every nation on earth. It looks pretty
twisted.
2. Why is USA law necesarily valid for the
whole of the English language wikipedia?
see point 1)
He then told me that the Sicilian wikipedia sat
on the Italian servers. Once again I was equally
dumbfounded, why? since when? under whose
direction? Remember that 90% of the contributions
to scn.wiki arrive from sources outside of Italy.
Tracert
scn.wikipedia.org gives me:
1 151 ms 152 ms 138 ms ************** [**********] hiding myself,
sorry :)
2 170 ms 153 ms 130 ms
ukrnet-293.ukr.net [212.42.64.225]
3 232 ms 233 ms 838 ms
taurus.ukr.net [212.42.64.29]
4 144 ms * 153 ms kiska.interlink.net.ua [194.44.84.5]
5 197 ms 153 ms 154 ms
vombat.itsinternet.net [213.133.160.169]
6 197 ms 150 ms 151 ms 195.94.194.145
7 160 ms 167 ms 168 ms plwaw3-ge-1-3-0-311.net.ipartners.pl
[157.25.3.1]
8 202 ms 172 ms 193 ms
fra-tr1-p0-1-1.gtsce.net [195.39.208.69]
9 239 ms 162 ms 183 ms
ge-3-2-0-0-zar1.fri.cw.net [166.63.204.109]
10 322 ms 180 ms 875 ms
so-4-0-0-dcr2.fra.cw.net [195.2.10.225]
11 595 ms 190 ms 197 ms
so-4-0-0-dcr1.amd.cw.net [195.2.10.149]
12 240 ms 577 ms 565 ms
so-4-0-0-bcr1.amd.cw.net [195.2.10.25]
13 202 ms 766 ms 203 ms
surfnet2.amd.cw.net [208.173.211.198]
14 206 ms 216 ms *
AZ-500.XSR01.Amsterdam1A.surf.net
[145.145.80.21]
15 199 ms 197 ms 534 ms
kncsw001-router.customer.surf.net
[145.145.18.158]
16 192 ms 262 ms 193 ms
gi0-24.csw2-knams.wikimedia.org
[145.97.32.29]
17 266 ms 205 ms 215 ms
rr.knams.wikimedia.org [145.97.39.155]
That does NOT look italian at all. I'd rather bet my euros on Holland, if I
was to make a guess. And it makes sense, because it's on the backbone. BTW,
you get the very same result for "tracert pms.wikipedia.org" AND "tracert
it.wikipedia.org" (!). So I guess the person talking about italian servers
was simply poorly informed, because there is no such thing as an "italian
server", not even for the italian edition. They can check with tracert if
they are in doubt and update their information. One thing is true: both scn
and it are on the same server, yet I cannot seem to understand how this can
put them under the competence of the italian laws. We actually should all
use the dutch laws, in instead. And if this is proved to be true, the whole
copyright checking process on it.wiki might call for revisions. Not the
it.wiki is special in this, I suppose many more editions may find themselves
in muddy waters.
So - can I or can't I have this particular
picture of a Beatles single
sleeve, considering that it is ok to put up on en.wiki?
IMHO, whenever in doubt the answer should be "load it on commons". They are
surely well away from italian lawmakers, because Italy is not on the main
physical backbone and having a shared server there would end up in making a
slower route for most users. Too bad that when you trace
"commons.wikipedia.org" you get the very same result you got for all
previously quoted editions. It's Holland, once again. So I am quite doubtful
as per using IT or USA laws on it, too.
I myself have sometimes been amazed from IT copyright checkers, too. They
often quote the italian law in their policies. Now, how can italian laws
apply to people who load content on a foreign server from a foreign country?
That may apply only to italian residents (no matter on which edition they
upload what), provided that we apply policies to single users and not to
physical servers.
I suppose the real problem is that we should have a global copyright policy
stated and translated for it to be published on all servers as a part of the
distributed UI on Betawiki "prior" to opening any new edition. This really
is a job for lawyers, it cannot be done by taking guesses since it impacts
both on content management and on the risk of people being sued for
copyright infringement. The most important thing to make clear is: who is
subject to whose laws, and by what criteria one can objectively determine
it. Once we get this clear, the rest is a pure matter of logics.
Any suggestions?
Bèrto