[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia Art incident

[Ken Arromdee]

On Sun, 26 Apr 2009, Fred Bauder wrote:
> > This is disingenuous.  A letter sent by a law firm "to outline our legal
> > concerns" which uses legal language and tells a site that they will
> > settle
> > matters amicably if they meet a demand is a legal threat.  It may not
> > actually
> > include the words "or we will sue you", but trying to spin it as not
> > being a
> > legal threat is absurd.
> Any communication, however artfully phrased to be non-threatening, from
> an attorney or a corporation can be taken that way. However, the option
> of not communicating is not viable.

It's easy to make it non-threatening.  Say "we recognize that you have no legal
requirement to comply, but..."

The reason they don't do that is that the legal threat is the whole point.
They're not expecting Wikipedia Art to give in out of the goodness of their
hearts; they're expecting them to give in to avoid being sued.  If they take
out the legal threat, Wikipedia Art will just ignore the letter, and
Wikipedia's lawyer knows that.  (In fact, why even have a lawyer send it in the
first place if it's not a legal threat?  There's no reason to point to any
laws if you're not implying that you're going to start a lawsuit based on
them.)

Claiming that the letter isn't a legal threat is insulting to our intelligence.