[Foundation-l] Copyright complaints

[Robert Scott Horning]

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> Hoi,
> The great thing of juriwiki-l is that it is in essence a big black 
> hole. Things get in there and it is not seen that something comes out. 
> When it comes to issues with licenses and issues to do with the 
> implementation of the rules many projects *choose* how to implement 
> them. This results in content that is inconsistent with the GFDL. This 
> in turn results in people telling organisations that use Wikipedia 
> content that they cannot use the content as is.
>
It doesn't help in this case that Juriwiki-l is a closed member-only 
list.  There are some good reasons for this, and for most purposes I 
would agree that it is a good idea to keep it closed.  It is just that 
for issues of this nature that debate and public discussion is needed, 
particularly because it is policy issues (or implementation of policy) 
that is being discussed.

As far as telling people if they can or can't use copyrighted content 
(and Wikipedia is copyrighted content), you can offer a complaint if you 
care to, but the person who is doing the infringement can accept or 
reject that advise.  So far I don't know of a single situation where 
formal courtroom legal action has taken place over Wikipedia content in 
regards to somebody violating the GFDL provisions of its use.  Most 
violators know they have screwed up and take the violating content down 
or conform to the GFDL, because it is usually incredibly easy to comply 
with the terms of the GFDL.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning