[WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[Oldak Quill]

On 09/04/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 4/9/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > On Sat, 07 Apr 2007 19:46:26 -0700, Ray Saintonge
> > <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >
> > >Let's face it, just mentioning NOR and fancruft in starting a thread
> > >where you sought responses on a copyright question was bound to give the
> > >wrong impression.  You've been around long enough to be aware of the
> > >uncanny ability of members of this list for finding the wrong emphasis
> > >in a message. :-)
> >
> > Well yes, that's true.  What I hadn't realised was that there appears
> > to be a degree of philosophical opposition to the idea of copyright,
> > or at least to the idea that we should only include what we know to be
> > clean, rather than waiting for conclusive proof before removing
> > anything.  That's a reversal of the burden of proof, as far as I'm
> > concerned.
>
> I'd say there's probably a large degree of philosophical opposition to
> the idea of copyright over a collection of 4 groups of 20 or so names
> of cars - not as much over the idea of copyright itself.
>
> If you really want to exclude absolutely all copyrighted materials
> from all articles, lest a lawyer goes through and gives a professional
> opinion on whether or not the article is infringing, most articles on
> TV series would be decimated.  If a list of 20 names of cars is
> copyrighted, what about a list of 20 character names?  Seems to me
> that would be even *more* likely to be copyrightable, as the
> individual names themselves are creative.
>
> At that point, maybe it's time to start a new project for fictional works.

Creating a content fork would be a rather dramatic solution that would
harm Wikipedia.

-- 
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)