[Foundation-l] Re: Wikisource Copyright

[David Newton]

Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:

>>
>> Actually Jean-Baptiste is incorrect about those terms of use. They
>> allow people to download the material on the website for their own
>> personal, non-commercial use. The UN terms and conditions do not allow
>> redistribution or compliation of the material on their website.

>Actually they allow to "download and copy". I interpret this as an
>authorization to get and copy them.

>It is true that they also forbid to "resell or redistribute" them, but I
>understand it as the interdiction to commercially use them. Not the
>interdiction to copy them for third parties because it would be
>otherwise contradictory with authorizing people to copy them.

>This seems to make sense given the current applications of these terms
>of use by people on Internet.

Those terms of use talk about personal, non-commercial use and they
explicitly prohibit redistribution and the creation of compilations of
them or derivative works of them. I interpret those terms as allowing
a person to download materials from the UN website and use them on
their own computer but, beyond fair use/fair dealing, not to
distribute them further or do anything else with them at all. What
that means is that merely sticking lots of the resolutions up on
Wikisource violates two of those terms, ie the ones about creation of
compilation works and prohibiting further distribution.

Since the use that the resolution texts has been put to on Wikisource
is prohibited by the terms and conditions of the UN copyright licence
then the only defence that is available against copyright infringement
is fair use. Given that the whole of the work is being used on
Wikisource then I am not confident of that defence at all. I have also
expressed my view that fair use should be banned on Wikisource so far
as the text of articles is concerned.

I feel that we are treading on thin legal ice here to say the least,

David Newton