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

[Thomas Dalton]

On 25 April 2011 08:13, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 8:45 AM, Joan Goma <jrgoma at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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.
>
> I disagree. The license doesn't make derived works CCSA, it makes it
> illegal to publish them unless under CCSA terms. You can't just go
> from "you were not allowed to do X without my permission", "I gave you
> my permission provided you did Y" and "you did X" to "you did Y".
> Also, think of the effect that this would have on the rights of other
> people who submitted material to Baidu Baike. They have never agreed
> with the CCSA or even knowingly had anything to do with it, yet their
> material is brought under that license.

I concur. I've never heard any legal opinion saying that violating the
copyright of something under CC-BY-SA creates an implicit CC-BY-SA
license. They have violated copyright so, in the eyes of the law, the
remedy is to sue them for damages. That is the only legal remedy I am
aware of.