The only authority is your individual conscience. This is your community.
Are we wikipedians citizens or
policemen? Are sysops policemen? If I suspect that another user is
breaking the law, should I report that to you or should I take action
against the abuser? Speaking for myself, I have no interest whatsoever to
play the role of a police.
Maybe wikipedians are both, maybe wikipedians are neither. I suspect that
the analogy is a bit too stretched for us to communicate well using it.
What I'd say is that if you see someone violating copyrights, and you feel
like doing something about it, then do so, and I will support you. If you
don't feel like doing something about it, then don't, and I'll support that,
too. It's your right to let it go on.
My wish and hope, though, is that we all do a little bit of the "dirty work".
It's hard to tell an eager newcomer not to upload copyrighted materials. It's
hard to do it in a way that's nice. So anyone who doesn't feel up to it, can
feel free to do something else instead.
When I was new to Wikipedia, I remember it was very
hard to understand who
was in charge, giving orders, and who was just giving their personal
opinion. If somebody tells me I "shouldn't" do this or that, I like to
know the authority of that statement.
Sure. The interesting thing about Wikipedia, though, is that there's
very little "in charge" and there's very little "giving orders".
No one
has much power over others.
HOWEVER, having said that, we are here together with an agreed upon vision:
to write an encyclopedia for the widest possible distribution. This vision
gives us a shared context, and some "rules" follow directly from that.
--Jimbo