On 1/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/01/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 1/4/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
[[WP:COPYRIGHT]] makes it clear that ''knowingly'' linking to infringing material is contributory infringement (also that linking to copyvios makes us look bad). Given that many YouTube vids are copyvios, we can be argued to *nkow* that violation is likely, and looking the other way and whistling innocently does not seem to me to be exercising due diligence.
By that same logic, we ought not link to any site hosted on a free webspace provider like Yahoo!, since many of the sites hosted there contain copyright violations. I think that would be an excessive position that would deprive us from many useful external links. Moreover, many videos which are "copyvio" by Wikipedia's standards may well be found to be fair use by US legal standards. Use common sense please.
Indeed. I've had POVpushers remove links claiming "copyvio" when the link-remover is working for the organisation that has failed to sue over the last nine years of the page's presence because they knew damn well they'd lose if they tried.
The question with anything in the external link is: Does it enhance encyclopedic value by being one of the few very best and most explanatory links on the specific subject of the article on the Web? If it's video of the event that's the actual subject, it's relevant for example.
For another example, see [[FLV]] - I removed the link to Adobe's Flash page (arguably too generic to warrant inclusion in that particular article), and added links to two pages reverse-engineering FLV (because they're actually informative about the format)
YouTube already aggressively polices copyright violations on their site. I think it is reasonable policy for us to not try to do their job for them.