Remember that the situation is not "OH NOES VAGUELY POSSIBLE (C)
VIOLATION WE MUST FOLD TOMORROW!!1!" If you're talking about a
possible battle, one should look to past battles, and particularly
on contentious and politically charged issues like such an attack on
Wikipedia would be.
It's worth considering that, as an academic work produced by
a nonprofit, we have considerably greater scope for fair use. See
the considerable quantities of quotes and fair use images in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu ? Not a squeak from the notoriously
litigous Church of Scientology.
Furthermore, we have an active policy of aggressively removing copyright
violations once notified, and even before being notified, which would get us
many points in an actual courtroom. And the clock only starts ticking when
you have been notified.
Furthermore, for the egregiously overbroad infringement suit Gregory
Maxell hypothesises, the battle also goes out to the media. Imagine
something more mediapathic. Suing cute fluffy kittens, perhaps? Not
to mention that such a case would promptly bring to our aid ten
thousand First Amendment ninja attack lawyers.
That is: we may well in fact be in a position to say "That's utter bullshit.
Bring it on."
This is the reasoning behind [[Wikipedia:Avoid copyright paranoia]].
- d.