[Foundation-l] Texts deleted on French Wikisource

[Mike Godwin]

On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 12:21 PM, Yann Forget <yannfo at gmail.com> wrote
>
>
> I didn't know you narrowed Gallimard's takedown demand. AFAIK you
> never informed me nor Wikisource about this.
>

We cannot inform you about all the details communicated in an ongoing
negotiation with parties threatening us with litigation.  Apart from whether
doing so would be consistent with legal ethics, it would also provide a
disincentive for complaining parties to negotiate with us at all.

In fact, you didn't inform Wikisource about the details of Gallimard's
> demand.
> I received Gallimard's letter only one month _after_ the works were
> deleted on Wikisource.
>

In fact, the note for every takedown specified that the takedown occurred
because of a Gallimard demand, and it listed Gallimard's contact
information. This was done at the time of the takedown, not one month later.


> Happy to hear that. It would have been much better if you would have
> informed the Wikisource community about it.
>

It would be a delightful world if all legal negotiations could be shared
with everyone instantly. We do not live in that world, however. What we did
do, at my direction, was make clear at the time of the takedown who was
responsible for the takedown demand and how to contact the entity
responsible.  At some point, it seems fair to expect concerned individuals
-- especially those who already know about the complaint -- to be aware of
public notices about what was taken down and why. You seem to be complaining
here because you knew about the Gallimard takedown demands, but didn't
bother to track the followup to those demands on Wikisource. This is a
shame, because we did try to make it easy for you to know what had happened.


>
>
> Partly false, misleading at the minimum.
>

Not false at all.


> Some of the deleted works are in the public domain in France.
>

You're still missing the point. NPG did not send a formal takedown notice.


> At least half of them are in the public domain world wide, except in
> France.
> These are published on many web sites, including the National French
> Library.
>

Please understand that if you have problems with French copyright law,
there's nothing I can do about that from here in California.


> Well, I am now in India, so I am not sure how much French law in relevant.
>

Whether Gallimard would prevail in an infringement lawsuit based on these
works is irrelevant to the question of how to respond to a takedown notice.


>  What I ask is that you inform _the Wikisource project hosted by
> Wikimedia Foundation_ about _WMF official legal policy_, whatever is
> that policy.
>

Official legal policy is to comply with properly crafted takedown notices.
This has been our policy since long before I arrived at WMF. I'm surprised
that you didn't know this before now.



--Mike