[Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Ray Saintonge wrote:

>
> I have no complaints about commercial use, but I am concerned when a 
> commercial user massively takes freely licensed or public domain 
> material and parks them under the umbrella of his copyrights so that the 
> users of "his" material unwittingly respect a copyright that has no 
> basis in fact.  If the only ones with rights of action against the 
> fraudster are the separate owners of the fragments, we will have loosed 
> the tactic of divide and conquer upon our own selves.  I would really 
> like to see a situation where we nominating someone as an non-exclusive 
> agent with the right to prosecute serious copyright violations on a 
> class action basis.
>   

Is it possible to make this work for copy-left licenses?
That is can one transfer even partially the right to seek
redress to another party?  If so, that would be wonderful.
I am sure many contributors would take the advantage of
it.

To be most careful, I would suggest that such party would
be legally differentiated from the Foundation, and would
accept on an equal basis such nominations from contributors
to non-WMF projects as well. Specifically since - at least in
theory - the agent might be requested to act against the
Foundations stated interests.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen