[WikiEN-l] Press coverage listing the HD-DVD key

[Philippe Beaudette]

I *hate* "me - too" posts - but... what he said.

George has eloquently articulated what I've been feeling.

Philippe
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: George Herbert 
  To: English Wikipedia 
  Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 1:37 PM
  Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Press coverage listing the HD-DVD key


  On 5/4/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
  > Just to point out, we're here to write a FREE encyclopedia.  If it
  > turns out the **AA goons are going to successfully sue into oblivion
  > anyone distributing the encyclopedia, then there's a good argument the
  > encyclopedia is no longer free.

  Look, don't be ridiculous.  It's not the case that we're transitioning
  from a state where it would be legal for us to post anything we want
  to completely unrestricted, to one where suddenly there are now
  restrictions.

  There have always been restrictions.  We couldn't legally post Child
  Porn images to illustrate the article on it.  We don't let people
  publish BLP libel or unfounded statements.  We don't publish a
  life-size scan of a dollar bill on the Dollar page (it's about 1.5x
  "real size", presumably due to the size related restrictions).  We
  don't have actual detailed nuclear bomb plans up on [[Nuclear weapon
  design]] article.

  There have been no crusades to overturn those restrictions.

  The fight over decrypt code was lost in the 2600 case [[Universal v.
  Reimerdes]], as offensive as that is to you and me and probably nearly
  everyone else here on-list.  The Internet rather uniquely allows
  responsible organizations (who could be sued to death for statutory
  damages by the MPAA and others) to report accurately without the code,
  and for irresponsible organizations and individuals (for whom the
  statutory damages may hold little or no practical effect, as they have
  too little assets) to provide the DMCA-banned code anyways, and
  countries which don't recognize the DMCA to host the materials without
  even those restrictions.

  We are an organization that would be in terrible trouble if sued for
  statutory damages for a thousand infractions of DMCA.

  Please don't oversimplify this to a white and black case.


  -- 
  -george william herbert
  george.herbert at gmail.com

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