On 5/29/06, 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.
Well, Baidu is its own company that's NASDAQ listed; it's not an arm of the PRC government. But there is no doubt the PRC government looks kindly on its own companies and wants to promote their well-being.
What you say is true, that Baidu is lifting content wholesale and integrating it into its own corpus without appropriate GFDL license requirements. The upside is that Baidupedia is generally regarded as a joke within the PRC and is not getting much traction (for now at least).
I think it is worth it to send them a letter to the effect that the GFDL requires such-and-such and that WMF would be happy to supply them a translation of the policy and provide help to implement the measures. Remind them first, rather than charge in with legal notices. And in the process, point out their own "Business Code of Conduct and Ethics" listed here which has a statement about respecting copyright: http://ir.baidu.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=188488&p=irol-govhighlights
I think we should give up any hope of negotiating with the PRC entirely, as they obviously have taken a hostile and insulting stance to us by lifting material wholesale, then saying it is their copyright.
That's easy to do, because we have never negotiated with the PRC per se, and there is no real avenue to do so.
This is such a gross violation of Wikipedia's philosophy, and PRC being a member of the World Trade Organisation (with compulsory ratification of the WIPO), some form of action *must* be taken. I do not think this is a time for lega pacifism.
I agree that after the appropriate gestures and made, in the end high profile PR about this issue may be a good thing. But if you want to see something that is more likely to get the attention of "big media" just make sure to highlight at the same time their incredibly "useful" MP3 search engine - http://mp3.baidu.com
If we could initiate any attempts I think the whole community will cheer on. The right to sue is clearly there, perhaps the tediousness is in collecting copyright holders, but then again I think we can make a point of this case. The PRC is required to comply, because such a gross violation can mean PRC's expulsion from the WTO. If anything I think we should treat Baidu Baike as an enemy, and drop any pretenses or hopes that the PRC will ever willingly unblock zh.
Natalinasmpf
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)