[WikiEN-l] Re: US Congress Staff Editing Wikipedia

[Tim Starling]

Michael Snow wrote:
> Tim Starling wrote:
> 
>> Michael Snow wrote:
>>  
>>
>>> Bryan Derksen wrote:
>>>   
>>>
>>>> My secret dream is to see the United States Congress hauled up before
>>>> the Arbitration Committee. Maybe we could get them to pass clearer
>>>> fair-use legislation as part of their parole.
>>>>     
>>>
>>> Clearer fair use legislation is not likely to do us any good. What we
>>> want is *more generous* fair use legislation.
>>>   
>>
>> US fair use legislation is already among the most generous in the
>> world. Coupled with US-centric
>> Wikipedia policy, this has the effect that anyone attempting to
>> distribute Wikipedia offline outside
>> the US risks being sued for copyright infringment. I'd prefer it if US
>> fair use legislation was
>> brought into line with the rest of the world, i.e. made more
>> restrictive not less.
>>  
>>
> You mean this seriously? You'd rather make fair use in the US more
> restrictive than make fair use/dealing/practice/whatever in other
> countries less restrictive?

We were talking about what we'd like the Congress to do, not WIPO. Come to think of it, there's a
step Congress could take towards harmonization that would be more useful for us: to reduce the term
of copyright to the Berne Convention minimum of life + 50 years.

-- Tim Starling