Sascha Noyes wrote:
Thanks to [[user:DrBob|DrBob]] for finding this: Apparently wordIQ are not only infringing the GFDL and the copyright of wikipedia (or its contributers), but are also stealing our bandwidth. Images in the articles they have illegally copied from us are loaded from the wikipedia servers. (I did a quick test by replacing [[Image:BernardLortie.JPG]] with a modified version and having a look at http://www.wordiq.com/cgi-bin/knowledge/lookup.cgi?title=Bernard_Lortie)
My question: Is there any legal precedent that such action is illegal? From a pragmatic point of view, it is clearly wrong: they are making money with their (most probably spyware) toolbar at wikipedia's expense. Or, more precisely, Jimbo's expense. How do things like google's image search work. I believe they also load images from other's servers. Is there anything specified in robots.txt about this?
This kind of problem was entirely forseeable. There is consistent acceptance among Wikipedians of the principle that the material is there for anybody's use, and a common irritation when a user purports to apply his own copyrights. They do this not only with GFDL material, but also with material that is clearly in the public domain.
I don't think that any of this will ever be resolved until there is a legal determination of who owns the public domain, and who has the responsibility of defending the public domain. This is not a trivial question, and dismissing the question by saying that nobody owns the public domain does not provide us with any kind of solution. When it comes to GFDL material, or any other similarly licensed material, there is a collective right owned by a group which is much smaller than "the public". Still, what remains undefined is who has the right or responsibility to take the necessary action on behalf of the collective group.
Ec