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

[geni]

On 24 October 2011 12:56, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:

> We wouldn't need a lawyer to look at every case - ones where the
> author has released it under a free license should be fine, for
> example.

Not remotely. Even at the most basic you would have the whole Freedom
of panorama issue and is the author actually the rights holder
problem.

> There are experts on international copyright law that could
> give opinions on a wide range of jurisdictions.

How wide? Because I've run across questions on subjects ranging from
North Korean to Burundian copyright law.

> While you never know
> for sure until it has been decided in court, a good lawyer ought to be
> able to give you an idea of what a court is likely to decide. In some
> cases, they may have to say "I don't know", but I'd much rather have
> an expert that doesn't know than a bunch of laymen that think they do.

Commons has a pretty good record of being able to deal with copyright issues.


> It's the job of the courts if there is a disagreement. As long as
> no-one is complaining, we should be fine just trusting a lawyer.

As no-one is complaining we could trust a magic 8 ball. The point is
that commons tries to act before people complain which means that
copyright nerds are a reasonable and far more cost effective solution
than lawyers.


-- 
geni