On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 10:35:38 +0100, Karl Eichwalder ke@gnu.franken.de wrote:
As long as someone can claim the additional paragraphs are "derived" from the copyvio, you would better remove the additional paragraphs as early as possible.
Right. Keeping all changes in a publicly accessible version control system is beyond fantastic, but it's also a liability.
Elseware the past expansive definition of derived works has been tolerable largely because normal writing models don't have so much copyvio risk, and the lack of (open) version control makes proving a transitory risk near impossible.
I think I would have a good chance, equipped with a video like the 'heavy metal umlat', of convincing a court in the US that years of wikipedia contributions on an article are the derived works of a couple of paragraphs of copyvio that spent a few months in the text early on and then were surgically removed.
I agree that this makes no sense, but thats what intellectual property law has become in the US. At wikipedia we have two additional complicating factors as well, a public history that makes making the case easy, and a court system which is likely to view the work of wikipedia as unimportant compared to the properties of, say, corbis because we don't charge for it, but they charge for their content.