[WikiEN-l] Copyright violation

[Alex R.]

From: "Vicki Rosenzweig" <vr at redbird.org>

At 08:47 AM 11/15/03 -0500, Alex756 wrote:

>"Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com> said:
>Arvind Narayanan wrote:
> >The site http://www.chessandbeyond.com has
> >copied several articles from Wikipedia. There's
> >nothing about wikipedia on those pages, and at
> >the bottom there is the statement
> >
> >   Copyright © 2003 Chess And Beyond
> >   ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
>
>This really pisses me off and is a very clear violation of the GNU FDL.
They
>not only failed to credit the Wikipedia article as the source but then they
>try to pretend that they own the copyright! This is legally and morally
>wrong.
>
>Since you are actually one of the authors you are on very good footing to
>complain.
>
>First, list the website at:
>http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sites_that_use_Wikipedia_for_conten
t#Articles_with_issues
>
>Then write them a letter:
>http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Standard_GFDL_violation_letter
>
>If they stonewall you after a letter and a follow-up letter, then come back
>to
>the list and we will discuss what to do next.
>
>-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
>
>Good plan to start but wouldn't it be appropriate to send their ISP a DCMA
>art 512 takedown request in a few days?

NO.

>Two reasons. First, we should give them a reasonable time to answer us,
>rather than assuming the worst. Two,  the DCMA is designed to prevent the
>spread and sharing of material, and is antithetical to what we're doing. We
>should use it only as a last resort, not by reflex.

A reasonable time is being interpreted as 24 hours on the internet. If
Wikipedia
authors do not assert their rights they will lose them. I do not think it is
antithetical to the purposes of Wikipedia because if Wikipedia wanted to
give it
away it would all be put into the public domain. It is not in the public
domain,
 it is under a complex license that needs to be followed.

If it is not followed people should not be allowed to ignore the license.
Then  Wikipedia may be nothing more than a free for all, anyone can
copy anything and use it anyway they want without any fear of the copyright
laws that are their to protect the authors who are making their valuable
contributions and have an expectation that those contributions will be
linked back to Wikipedia.  If the takedown notice is followed the copyright
infringer still has the right to follow the GFDL policy and then they will
obviously have the right to use the material.  I do not see how using the
OCILLA provisions are against Wikipedia. Actually they make the GFDL
stronger in my "nonlegal" opinion.

Once again this discussion should be on the Wikilegal discussion list that
is what it was created for.

Alex756