On 7/8/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Ok, "every" was a gross exaggeration, sorry.
It does seem to happen a
little more often than I'm happy with. I doubt OTRS hardly ever
receives legitimate complaints that require blanking the entire
article. Even if there is a marginally questionable legal issue with
the article, it's likely only to be in one small section, and that
small section is the part that should be blanked (and the article
protected).
The problem is that certain OTRS people appear to want WP:OFFICE level
powers without either gaining community support or a board ruling.
IANAL, but as far as I'm aware, the only kind of
legal complaint that
we need to worry about is libel. Real legal threats from real lawyers
about libel need to be taken seriously. Other legal threats can, and
should, be ignored. This legal threat was, apparently, about
trademarks - just because the person complaining was a real lawyer
doesn't mean they aren't talking complete nonsense.
IANAL but # wikipedia can't afford one.
Quite a selection of legal complaints that I suspect may have some
basis (ie the courts would not throw the case straight out):
Content based:
Copyvio
Born secret issues
Various stuff to do with child porn
Various stuff relating to bypassing encryption software
Certain images could require certain forms of record keeping (those
depicting sexual acts)
Death threats
Some stuff based around privacy laws
Software based:
Copyvio
Patent vio
Various stuff relating to bypassing encryption software
Not all of these will be handled by OTRS of course.
Of these:
Copyvio- we have a lot of processes in place to neutralise these.
Born secret issues- If we hit by that we may be hitting NOR issues
otherwise eh any resulting court case would be interesting to watch.
ACLU might be interested
Various stuff relating to bypassing encryption software- Lack of
useful caselaw. EFF might be interested.
Various stuff to do with child porn- kill. Issues related to lolicon
are more complex again ACLU may be interested. Main problem with this
area is that it can be hard to figure out the exact borderline without
expensive court cases with some seriously negative PR.
Patent vio- I don't know enough about the validity of software patents
to comment.
--
geni