[WikiEN-l] Public Domain and Non-Commercial at the same time

[Daniel R. Tobias]

On 15 Oct 2006 at 10:23, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> No it isn't. It is prefectly normal to choose the interpretation that
> a) is legaly correct and b) keeps us safe.

Although, in this case, it's not actually "us" (the Wikimedia 
Foundation or individual Wikipedians) who's at legal risk, but others 
who use Wikipedia content in a commercial manner, as permitted by the 
GFDL, but perhaps not by the Philippine law in question.  They would 
be the ones who got sued (if the Philippine courts can manage to get 
jurisdiction over them), not the Wikimedia Foundation (which is 
noncommercial and hence not subject to the legal restrictions) or the 
individual editors (who aren't engaging in commercial activity 
either, at least unless an entity like the infamous MyWikiBiz is 
involved).  Wikimedia/Wikipedia has, by its own choice, decided to 
adopt a copyright policy that preserves the usability of its material 
by others for commercial as well as noncommercial purposes, but 
that's a voluntary decision not enforceable by law (unless there's 
some explicit contractual obligation that has been incurred).

-- 
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