[Foundation-l] Turn the things the other way around "Baidu Baike copies content from Wikipedia without attribution"

[Ray Saintonge]

On 04/24/11 11:45 PM, Joan Goma wrote:
> As Ray saids legal prosecution to claim for formal accomplishing of the
> copyright terms is expensive and difficult. But the same happens the other
> way around.
>
> I would like to have a clear legal opinion about applying the terms without
> going to court.
>
> They have copied articles from Chinese Wikipedia and translated articles
> from English and Japanese Wikipedia so in my opinion their work is a
> derivative one and according to the CCSA terms it is also CCSA no mater what
> they say.
>
> What about creating a bot to copy from Baidu all the articles not yet
> existing in Chinese wikipedia.
>
> Could Geoff Brigham provide us his legal advice?

Getting a legal opinion that what they are doing is illegal would be the 
easy part.  The challenge is what can you do with that opinion once you 
have it.

Copyright, and least in common law countries, is primarily an economic 
right.  In that context courts would be more concerned with the measure 
of economic damage.  How do you put a dollar figure on the damages 
suffered when the original authors weren't seeking to make money from 
it?  Whoever starts the fight still needs to fund prosecuting the 
battle, and that could be very expensive.

Ray

>> Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 15:18:51 -0700
>> From: Ray Saintonge
>>
>> On 04/24/11 9:35 AM, David Gerard wrote:
>>> Baidu Baike clearly have a considerable potential liability in terms
>>> of violation of copyright, including under Chinese law (assuming CC
>>> by-sa holds up).
>>>
>>> If they're traded on the stock market in Hong Kong (or anywhere else)
>>> - have they filed appropriate notices with the relevant financial
>>> oversight bodies noting this outstanding potential liability? If not,
>>> why not, and could they be in danger of penalties for not having done
>>> so?
>> Reading through this thread only reveals how thoroughly fucked up
>> copyright law really is!  The Baidu situation does point to a prima
>> facie case of copyright infringement and blatant plagiarism, but we can
>> do no better than the inhabitants of Flatland after their world was
>> struck by a three-dimensional object. In theory the writers of
>> collaborative material have a right of action against the infringers, or
>> against those who violate the moral right of attribution. In practical
>> terms, if the owner can be identified the costs prosecuting violations
>> on the other side of the world are so far out of proportion to any
>> potential maximum penalty as to turn any such action into a fool's
>> errand, even in a class action. Nevertheless, when we apply the law to
>> ourselves it's with such exactitude that we put ourselves in an
>> immediate disadvantage.
>>
>> Ray
>>