[Foundation-l] "Terms of use" : Anglo-saxon copyright law and Anglo-saxon lawyers : a disgrace for Continental Europeans

[Steven Walling]

On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 8:14 AM, Teofilo <teofilowiki at gmail.com> wrote:

> Perhaps the WMF should not have relied on a US lawyer alone. Perhaps a
> team associating a US lawyer with a continental Europe lawyer would
> have been better.
>

Your notion that we just had some American lawyer with no international
working experience draft the terms is incorrect. For the sake of ease, I'll
quote from the mailing list announcement with details about our General
Counsel:

"A little more about Geoff's background: Most recently, Geoff
was Vice-President and Deputy General Counsel at eBay. There, he directed
legal affairs in more than 15 countries throughout North America, Europe,
Asia and Australia, encompassing litigation, copyright and trademarks,
privacy, ethics, product and site content review, policy and regulatory
compliance, new market advice, contracts, governance and site security.
 Previously he worked for eBay in Bern, Switzerland for four years as
Vice-President & Senior Director, and in Paris, France for two years as
Senior Compliance and Litigation Counsel."

I'll add that Geoff relocated here to the WMF from Paris, where he was
living when we hired him.

Steven