[Foundation-l] BitTorrent Downloads of enwiki Images

[Delphine Ménard]

On 3/10/07, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>
> When I start distributing them, there WILL be DMCA takedown notices and
> legal threats from various folks out on the internet
> I am certain, along with possible litigation.
>
> That's fine. If someone wants to take me to Court for distributing
> Wikipedia images, I have both the legal background,
> and the resources to defend such actions.
>
> I need the Foundations permission because they are the source of the
> images on the internet. In the event there is a DMCA takedown
> notice, I will notify the Wikipedia contributor on their talk page who
> uploaded the image, wait for the response, then give the complaining
> party the time period to file suit if they really feel that strongly
> about it, or work out some reasonable compromise (which would be best)
> between the parties.

I am sorry Jeff, I still do not understand why you need the
Foundation's permission for these images. The Wikimedia Foundation
owns the servers that host those images to statr with. once you put
them on your server/computer/wheatever, the Wikimedia Foundation has
nothing to do whatsoever with those images and your torrent. µyou* or
whoever else hosts them, become the "host"; ie. subject to a DMCA
notice. If the people who send *you* a DMCA notice because they judge
that these images should not be on the internet to start with, they
might want to investigater further and see where else they can find
those images. In which case they might ask the Foundation, as the
owner of the servers that hosts those images to take them down as
well. End of the story.



[snip]

>
> In essence, the Foundation will have a "buffer" of sorts one level away
> from the forefront of these legal issues and at the same time be able
> to filter a lot of the conflict over image distribution. The other point
> is, technically under the law, WMF may be considered the source
> of the images in some cases, and in that case, they would be the
> responder to DMCA takedown notices. I think this would help
> clean up a lot of the images also (people would think twice about
> uploading fair use images if they knew they were being repacked
> and distributed and that they may receive DMCA notices about the images).

Again, hinting as the possibility that the Wikimedia Foundation is the
"source" (and here I understand it as "author" or "owning the rights
to" of ANY image hosted on thier servers is hinting at something that
is both, as far as I am concerned, wrong and dangerous as it furthers
the misunderstanding of where responsibility lies and what the
Foundation's role is (mainly owner of the servers that host ths
content) . Authors are responsible for the content they put on the
Wikimedia projects. Individually. You are responsible for putting
together those images. Individually.

In any case, if you had to seek an authorization (and I don't think
you do), it would be from every single author of those images you are
distributing, and never ever from the Foundation.

> At any rate, it would be impolite and a breach of loyalty to the
> foundation and community to go ahead with such a plan without permission
> and without giving the Foundation the opportunity to comment on the
> proposal and offer suggestions.

I do not agree :-). It is the whole point of freely licensed material
that it can be redistributed at will, and without asking permission.
You should just make sure that all photos are properly
sourced/attributed etc. in your archive and go on with it!


Announcing it on this list is about as polite as you need to get, I believe. ;-)

Delphine


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