[WikiEN-l] filtering, etc.

[Ray Saintonge]

Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

>--- "Alex T." <alex756 at nyc.rr.com> wrote:
>
>>I completely agree. Unless there is blatant
>>copyright violation (which can be
>>reported through the DMCA mechanism) trying to use
>>Wikipedia to define
>>what is or what is not fair use may be dangerous as
>>it is too much self policing
>>may just be unwarranted self censorship.
>>
>
>So we should just wait for those horrible "cease and
>desist" notices? You're sure they can't still sue us?
>
That can be a reasonable approach.  A "cease and desist notice" is just 
that, a notice.  If you think that the person issuing the notice has a 
point, you simply cease and desist, and that's the end of the story. 
 Safe harbor provisions are there to give you time to act upon the 
notice.  If you disagree with the notice then you're in a different 
ballgame.

Most individuals live in absolute dread of any kind of legal notices. 
 They're so blinded by the vision of being law-abiding that they ignore 
all the protections that the law affords them.  Lawyers know how that 
game works.  They use it all the time to bully and intimidate.  They're 
playing poker against opponents who believe that bluffing is dishonest.

In the corporate world lawsuits about anything and everything are just 
routine business.

>I still think it would be best of us to take our own
>pictures for as much as possible.
>
Certainly

>Besides, we don't want to be branded something like "a
>place for internet piracy disguised as an
>encyclopedia" in the media. Remember, 5  companies own
>90% of the media, and they wrote the DMCA.
>
Does that picture really look right to you?  What ever happened to the 
Jeffersonian ideal that the purpose of education was to know your rights 
and be able to defend them?  Is media concentration an argument to 
support the principle that "might.is right"?  Freedom and democracy do 
not depend just on laws and constitutions, but on the DUTY to defend 
one's rights.  Caving in to intimidation does not make you part of the 
solution, but part of the problem.

Ec