On Wed, 17 Jul 2002 koyaanisqatsi@nupedia.com wrote:
2, when you're dealing with a 600lb gorillas like Microsoft or AOL/Time Warner, do not ever expect forgiveness. They are interested in profits and domination;
Correct. And domination before profits, actually. But these giants are interested in stopping the copying where they risk losing money, which was the case with the original Napster, but is not the case when we have images and texts that were produced in 1924 and the copyright owner is unknown. And neither if someone uses images from a mail order catalog to illustrate different kinds of dresses.
In addition to the two kinds of material, copyrighted and non-copyrighted, there is also a third kind, a grey zone, where the copyright status is unknown or very hard to determine, including material produced in the 1920s and 1930s. How to treat that kind depends on whether you have an "ISP policy" (let it be published, but remove it if the owner complains), or a "safe policy" (refuse publication unless non-copyright can be proven). As far as I can see, Jimmy/Bomis is an ISP that hosts Wikipedia. But I am not a lawyer.
Suppose that some copyright owner sues Bomis for infringement and damages that force Bomis and Jimmy into bancruptcy. Too bad for them. But the contents of Wikipedia is still available under GFDL and I suppose many people on this list have complete copies at home, from which they can remove the offending material and put the project up on a new website. So I don't think the project is at risk.