[Foundation-l] Baidu Baike & Wikipedia 百度百科與維基百科 (英文)

[Thomas Dalton]

2011/4/19 Dana Lutenegger <dana.lutenegger at gmail.com>:
> Actually, I'm pretty sure that on paper, Chinese law forbids this kind of
> copying without attribution. The issue is whether or not it can be enforced
> in practice. If it was strictly enforced, a lot of Baidu Baike and Hudong
> Wiki would have to be seriously retooled, so I doubt it. However, there have
> been recent cases in which copyright infringement claims have been upheld by
> Chinese courts, such as the infamous "Starbuck" coffee chain in Shanghai. I
> think that our legal counsel should at least be in touch with Baidu on this,
> and perhaps try to get them to take down the material, attribute it
> properly, or agree to the donation or apology letter ideas.

The Starbuck case would be trademark infringement, not copyright, so
isn't a particularly useful precedent. I believe China has similar
copyright laws to the rest of the world, though (our article says they
have signed several international agreements on the subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
).

Keep in mind, the WMF isn't the copyright holder, so there is a limit
to what the WMF's legal counsel can do. He could have a quiet word,
though, which could help.