[Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations

[Fred Bauder]

There are practices which are beyond the pale, for example, linking to a
pirated copy of the latest Harry Potter movie. Linking to the typical
YouTube video of unknown provenance is quite another matter; although it
is quite true that in both cases there may be a technical copyright
violation. In the second case, there is usually no one complaining. When
there are complaints YouTube takes the material down. The copyright
police demand proof of ownership and either expiration or release in
instances where such information is unavailable. That may be what is
required if we are to host the material, but might be unreasonable for
mere linking.

Fred

> I agree 100% with this.
> Some people on Wikimedia want to enforce copyright much beyond what is
> reasonable.
> This is hurt us, and is outside of our mission.
>
> Yann
>
> 2011/7/13 Wjhonson <wjhonson at aol.com>:
>>
>> Links by themselves are not copyrightable, and are not unfree.
>> So your argument, which you keep repeating is not germane to this
>> point.
>> The point is, the copyright police have taken a fear (of something
>> which has never occurred in actual law), and made it a point of battle.
>>
>> We are arbiters of information content, should not be acting as the
>> police and judge over what is on YouTube.
>> We cannot know is something loaded is under copyright or not and should
>> not be attempting to know.
>> It's none of our business.
>> Our business should be merely to decide what is useful for our project.
>>
>> The links themselves, I repeat, are free.  The point of contention is
>> whether a link by itself IS a copyright violation.
>> And on the presumption that it MIGHT be (which is itself ridiculous)
>> our project suffers immense harm by a handful of ummmm persons.
>>
>> All that is beside the point, my point, which is that a link cannot be
>> a copyright violation, and cannot be licensed.
>
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