[Foundation-l] Turn the things the other way around "Baidu Baike copies content from Wikipedia without attribution"

[Joan Goma]

As Ray saids legal prosecution to claim for formal accomplishing of the
copyright terms is expensive and difficult. But the same happens the other
way around.

I would like to have a clear legal opinion about applying the terms without
going to court.

They have copied articles from Chinese Wikipedia and translated articles
from English and Japanese Wikipedia so in my opinion their work is a
derivative one and according to the CCSA terms it is also CCSA no mater what
they say.

What about creating a bot to copy from Baidu all the articles not yet
existing in Chinese wikipedia.

Could Geoff Brigham provide us his legal advice?



> Message: 5
> Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 15:18:51 -0700
> From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Letter to Baidu and press release "Baidu
>        Baike copies content from Wikipedia without attribution" draft
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
>        <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <4DB4A1CB.308 at telus.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>
> On 04/24/11 9:35 AM, David Gerard wrote:
> > Baidu Baike clearly have a considerable potential liability in terms
> > of violation of copyright, including under Chinese law (assuming CC
> > by-sa holds up).
> >
> > If they're traded on the stock market in Hong Kong (or anywhere else)
> > - have they filed appropriate notices with the relevant financial
> > oversight bodies noting this outstanding potential liability? If not,
> > why not, and could they be in danger of penalties for not having done
> > so?
>
> Reading through this thread only reveals how thoroughly fucked up
> copyright law really is!  The Baidu situation does point to a prima
> facie case of copyright infringement and blatant plagiarism, but we can
> do no better than the inhabitants of Flatland after their world was
> struck by a three-dimensional object. In theory the writers of
> collaborative material have a right of action against the infringers, or
> against those who violate the moral right of attribution. In practical
> terms, if the owner can be identified the costs prosecuting violations
> on the other side of the world are so far out of proportion to any
> potential maximum penalty as to turn any such action into a fool's
> errand, even in a class action. Nevertheless, when we apply the law to
> ourselves it's with such exactitude that we put ourselves in an
> immediate disadvantage.
>
> Ray
>
>