[Foundation-l] Public domain Mickey Mouse. At last.

[Thomas Dalton]

On 24 October 2011 09:25, Orionist <orion.ist at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I'm not sure a consenus of
>> wikimedians is the best way to make legal decisions anyway, shouldn't we
>> consult an expert?
>
>
> In a perfect world we'd have a legal department that vets each and every
> image uploaded to Commons. The thing is, we'd need at least 200 lawyers from
> all around the world, each one an expert in their country's copyright law,
> and ready to work overtime. Even then, a legal expert's opinion is no
> guarantee that a court will go the same way in case of a lawsuit.

We wouldn't need a lawyer to look at every case - ones where the
author has released it under a free license should be fine, for
example. There are experts on international copyright law that could
give opinions on a wide range of jurisdictions. While you never know
for sure until it has been decided in court, a good lawyer ought to be
able to give you an idea of what a court is likely to decide. In some
cases, they may have to say "I don't know", but I'd much rather have
an expert that doesn't know than a bunch of laymen that think they do.

> ...a deletion discussion among
>> non-professionals is not the proper way to determine the law.
>
>
> Neither is the opinion of a legal expert: That's the job of the courts.

It's the job of the courts if there is a disagreement. As long as
no-one is complaining, we should be fine just trusting a lawyer.