[WikiEN-l] HD DVD key mess - OFFICE/Foundation?

[Jeff Raymond]

Anthony wrote:

> It's a situation of contradictory and unclear legality under copyright
> law, which would make it an alleged copyright law violation.

My understanding (which is more than some who were involved in the
decision have, but less than what should legitimately be construed as some
sort of important understanding) is that this goes well beyond copyright
issues and into other issues regarding fair use, archiving, and the laws
surrounding copying of copyrighted material - none of which we're in any
danger of violating.  The problem is that the rules in place governing
those things contradict the issues that DO potentially affect us, the
hosting of such legally ambiguous information.

This is why we need an actual lawyer, and not a pile of non-lawyer admins,
to make a distinction as to whether we need to worry about this when the
two situations appear to contradict ourselves, especially in the abscense
of a takedown notice.

> I'd appreciate the foundation coming right out and saying that we
> aren't allowed to mention the key, if that's what they want, but as
> someone coded up the site to not allow the key to be mentioned, that's
> almost as good.  Who added the string to the list of banned words?
> Why did they do so?  I assume it was an employee doing so as an agent
> of the foundation.

And now the nose is entirely gone.  Way to go.

Egads, how did we end up with these people?

-Jeff

-- 
If you can read this, I'm not at home.