[Foundation-l] precisions about the recent WMF "fair use" decision

[geni]

On 2/12/07, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com> wrote:
> There's simply no way I can discuss this issue with you unless you're
> willing to adopt a more holistic consideration of Wikipedia's needs.
> Your arguments are trapped in the consideration of the *one* idea you
> seem to support, which is restricting Wikipedia content to what may be
> republished in *your* country.
>

There area couple of unclear elements of English and welsh law which
mean that I cannot support that at this time. However given the
percentage of countries that follow English and welsh law it would not
be an entirely irrational approach.

> Nowhere in my post did I mention copyright,

You mentioned fair use

> yet you framed my argument
> as if copyright were its only consideration.

You didn't mention any other in your initial post.

>You straw-manned my
> argument by ignoring aspects of the balance I proposed -- most notably
> ignoring censorship -- that didn't fit nearly within your pet issue.
>

You didn't propose a balance.

> Finally, you invoked a false slippery slope by stating my argument leads
> to hosting Wikipedia in Iran. Only your imaginary, straw-manned version
> of my argument has that flaw.

Not a strawman. Just feeding extreme values into your argument as
presented. A standard technique for testing the validity of models. Of
course you are free to present a modified version of that argument.
You may also wish to take more care in stating your auxiliary
assumptions.

-- 
geni