Eclecticology wrote a lot of reasonable stuff, but I disagree completely with the following:
The "better safe than sorry" approach that avoids all risk, is a recipe for accomplishing nothing. Once due diligence has been applied, a policy of "It's easier to get forgiveness than permission" makes good sense.
1, we will not accomplish nothing since many of us have cameras, free time, and generosity of spirit.
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; they do not care what your motivations were and can only occasionally be shamed into being reasonable. Furthermore, copyright law itself is not forgiving.
The statements above are of course mine completely and are not meant to represent the opinions of anyone else on this list-serv or off it.
kq 0
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.
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.
One of the ideas behind licensing everything under the GFDL is to allow people to create derivative works legally. If we, as a project, are not careful about copyrights, why should anyone trust us when we say, "Go ahead! Use our material. It's GFDL."? Our credibility is the issue here.
Lars, if you don't care about Jimmy's legal risk and don't care if he and Bomis go bankrupt, that's certainly your perogative. You don't have to remove any questionable material. But I'm going to remove it so that people won't have to wonder if using Wikipedia articles under the terms of our license is really ok.
-- Stephen Gilbert
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On Fri, 19 Jul 2002, Stephen Gilbert wrote:
Lars, if you don't care about Jimmy's legal risk and
No, Stephen, that conclusion would be wrong. I do care about Jimmy's risk. But I am also capable of separating it from the project's risk. As a contributor, my primary concern is with the project and the pages that I have edited. Rather than starting to police other users in order to protect Jimmy, I'm asking Jimmy what he feels I can do to help him.
The background was this: I had earlier claimed that the fear of copyright violation was exaggerated and that really only Jimmy and Bomis were at risk. Someone else then claimed that the entire project was at risk, and now I tried to demonstrate that this was in fact not the case.
--- Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
On Fri, 19 Jul 2002, Stephen Gilbert wrote:
Lars, if you don't care about Jimmy's legal risk
and
No, Stephen, that conclusion would be wrong. I do care about Jimmy's risk.
That's not necessarily my conclusion; it's simply an "if you don't..." statement. I'm glad you you're not indifferent to Jimmy's situation.
But I am also capable of separating it from the project's risk. As a contributor, my primary concern is with the project and the pages that I have edited. Rather than starting to police other users in order to protect Jimmy, I'm asking Jimmy what he feels I can do to help him.
The background was this: I had earlier claimed that the fear of copyright violation was exaggerated and that really only Jimmy and Bomis were at risk. Someone else then claimed that the entire project was at risk, and now I tried to demonstrate that this was in fact not the case.
I did post a reason how a lack of vigilance could put the project's credibility at risk. Of course, that doesn't mean the entire project would come crashing down, but it is enough to make me adopt the "better safe than sorry" approach.
-- Stephen Gilbert
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At 10:25 AM 7/20/02 +0200, Lars Aronsson wrote:
I had earlier claimed that the fear of copyright
violation was exaggerated and that really only Jimmy and Bomis were at risk. Someone else then claimed that the entire project was at risk, and now I tried to demonstrate that this was in fact not the case.
An injunction against publishing wikipedia (a likely remedy should gross violations occur) would affect the entire project.
The trick really is to avoid even having to prepare for serious litigation. Use your own camera...
And by the way, expect in any infringement case to have the contents of this mailing list entered as evidence. Showing a cavalier attitude would be part of proving the case. On our side showing due diligence would be part of defending the case.
Fred Bauder
Lars Aronsson wrote:
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.
Maybe, but please have a little mercy on me. I have a baby to take care of.
--Jimbo
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