Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 9/19/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Wikipedia is sunk if it must use the *intersection* of all copyright laws in the world, under which nearly nothing is permissible to distribute.
Cite up or shut up.
Your claim that the intersection of permitted works is the empty set is ridiculous and disruptive. If you're going to make claims like that, please substantiate them.
Although your comment is in a rather impolite tone, I suppose I'll reply anyway.
If we had to follow the intersection of copyright laws, we could not distribute a number of things we currently distribute on various of our projects:
1. Modern mechanical reproductions of out-of-copyright artworks, since these are only unprotected by copyright in the subset of countries that have _Bridgeman_-like case law 2. Simple collections of facts compiled by someone else, since these are copyrightable under the 1996 [[en:European Union Database Directive]] 3. Anything, such as the King James version of the Bible, held under perpetual copyright in the United Kingdom 4. Anything created and first published in the United States before 1923, but by an author who did not die more than 70 years ago, since some countries that don't use a "principle of the shortest term" apply 70 years PMA *even* to works that are out of copyright in their country of origin 5. Similarly, anything out of copyright due to its country of origin having a 50-years PMA rule, since some countries apply 70 years PMA to these works anyway 6. Anything out of copyright due to having been first published in the U.S. during the period when copyright registration and renewal was mandatory, that did not have its copyright registered or renewed, since some countries apply 70 years PMA to thsee works anyway
The list goes on extensively. To get an idea of what would need to be deleted if we respected the intersection of copyright laws, find every Commons copyright tag with a proviso such as "This may not apply in countries such as [x, y, z]".
-Mark