From: "Vicki Rosenzweig" vr@redbird.org
At 08:47 AM 11/15/03 -0500, Alex756 wrote:
"Daniel Mayer" maveric149@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