[Foundation-l] Public domain Mickey Mouse. At last.

[Carl Fürstenberg]

On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 10:25, Orionist <orion.ist at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I'm not sure a consenus of
>> wikimedians is the best way to make legal decisions anyway, shouldn't we
>> consult an expert?
>
>
> In a perfect world we'd have a legal department that vets each and every
> image uploaded to Commons. The thing is, we'd need at least 200 lawyers from
> all around the world, each one an expert in their country's copyright law,
> and ready to work overtime. Even then, a legal expert's opinion is no
> guarantee that a court will go the same way in case of a lawsuit.
>
> ...a deletion discussion among
>> non-professionals is not the proper way to determine the law.
>
>
> Neither is the opinion of a legal expert: That's the job of the courts.
> Commons editors are only trying to weed out copyright infringements without
> falling for copyfraud. They use their best judgement based on the text of
> law and precedent cases, with the intention of protecting the end user as
> much as possible. That, however, doesn't mean they offer a guarantee. The
> end users are still responsible for their use of Commons' files and should
> seek legal advice on their own.
>
> If non-professional Commons editors shouldn't be deciding which images are
> PD, then they shouldn't be deciding which images are copyrighted either, and
> not one image should be deleted whatever evidence of its copyrighted status
> comes up. I don't think that's acceptable to anyone here.
>
> Regards,
> --
> Orionist
>

It's a difference deciding if uploads of babes with big boobs are
stolen from the Internet at large or not, than to figure out if a line
drawing from World War II is free or not.


-- 
Carl Fürstenberg