Chris Howie wrote:
But what about fair use? If we are posting a snippet
of a log to discuss its
content, that certainly qualifies as fair use.
The "copyright" argument
is, as I said, a rather cheap argument.
Technically speaking, the person who said something in an IRC channel
holds the copyright over what he typed in the channel. Practically
speaking, it's unlikely that any court would ever give a hoot about a
person posting an IRC log publicly without explicit permission.
And of course the use of IRC quotes to discuss their content would
qualify as fair use. But it's a bad idea. Those who are misusing IRC
would continue to do so, but would simply move their discussions from
open channels into more secluded channels. People, for whatever reason,
don't like being held accountable for what they say on IRC. Granted,
some of this is reasonable.I wouldn't exactly want my off-topic banter
in #ed spread all over the internets (for example), and I'm sure that
users in #wikipedia feel the same way. On the other hand, IRC users
shouldn't be given a free pass to abuse Wikipedia or Wikipedia contributors.