Short quotes of
text also tend to be the kind of fair dealing which is
broadly accepted by all countries and is essentially indistinguishable
from "not copyrighted".
Perhaps. Certainly no-one will object that a particular article contains,
say, a short quote from a particular Bible translation. But when you pile
up articles like that in an organized way you essentially enable people to
read the whole translation. Start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_1:1
Read the KJV translation of the verse. Then click on next verse and the
read the KJV translation of that. Proceed until you run out of verses.
I understand that the copyright of the KJV is enforced in Britain. Would
this series of articles be in violation of British law? Mostly an academic
question, I think, but you get my point. It's probably no coincidence that
the translations chosen for this Bible verse project are (almost
everywhere) in the public domain.
- - -
A few months back we established here on the mailing list that our use of
this featured picture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:LindisfarneFol27rIncipitMatt.jpg
is in violation of British law. In fact a great many images where we rely
on Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. could not be legally used in a
Wikipedia published outside of the United States of America.
A Wikipedia which restricted itself to content which is free to use by
everyone in every jurisdiction would have to let go of a lot of good
stuff. It would be a very painful sacrifice and I doubt it would be worth
it.
We are already not allowed to have photos of the Louvre and other
buildings in France. This is the price we pay for Free content; if you
want to excercise Free Speech, use Tor or Freenet...
--
Alphax -
Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
"We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales
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