[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Settlement of litigation between Internet Brands and the Wikimedia Foundation

[Jay Walsh]

We've just published a post by Geoff Brigham outlining the settlement
of litigation between Wikimedia Foundation and Internet Brands, which
is great news indeed.

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/15/a-victory-for-wikivoyage-and-free-knowledge/

Congratulations to everyone who's been working hard on this effort.

---
A victory for Wikivoyage and free knowledge
Posted by Geoff Brigham on February 15th, 2013

Settlement of litigation between Internet Brands and the Wikimedia Foundation

Today we are pleased to announce a settlement in the legal proceedings
between the Wikimedia Foundation and Internet Brands relating to
issues stemming from the creation of Wikivoyage, our community’s
newest free knowledge project. We regard this settlement as a victory
for the Wikimedia movement, and a vindication of our values and
beliefs.

Our community expressed a strong desire to create a new, freely
shareable, non-commercial travel guide. In response, Internet Brands
(owners of a for-profit wiki-based travel project) sued two
Wikimedians visibly involved in supporting the travel guide. Internet
Brands branded the proposed new site an “Infringing Website” and
claimed that the volunteers were acting “for the benefit of the
Wikimedia Foundation” to “usurp” the community of users of Internet
Brands’ site and taking actions that included “deliberately misleading
statements, and Trademark infringement and violation of Internet
Brands’ intellectual property rights.” Internet Brands identified the
“Wikimedia Foundation, members of its Board, and other members of the
Foundation” as potential “co-conspirators” who were “corrupt in this
scheme”.

Unintimidated, the Foundation moved in to defend our volunteers and to
protect our community’s right to an open and meaningful discussion
about the project.

We contacted one of the most respected law firms working in this
field, Cooley LLP, and asked that they represent and defend the two
volunteers facing legal action from Internet Brands. Cooley was
engaged, and with our financial support, the volunteers moved the case
to federal court and also filed an anti-SLAPP motion against Internet
Brands, alleging that their freedom to openly discuss the project was
under threat. Internet Brands responded by abandoning its federal
claim, essentially admitting it had no factual basis. The federal
court then dismissed all of Internet Brands’ remaining claims.

Meanwhile, in September 2012 the Wikimedia Foundation filed its own
lawsuit against Internet Brands seeking a declaration from the court
that Internet Brands had no proper basis to block the wiki travel
project.

The settlement was signed on February 14, 2013, and Internet Brands
has now released the Foundation and Wikivoyage e.V. (the German not
for profit who worked so hard to make the project a success) from any
and all claims related in any manner to the creation and operation of
the wiki travel project. In return, the Foundation will dismiss the
suit.

Wikivoyage is now officially launched and growing, with about 9000 new
entries added in the first month, and new language versions in Polish,
Romanian, Finnish, Hungarian, Chinese and Japanese being opened.

The Wikimedia Foundation believes there is enough room for multiple
travel sites to co-exist, and for community members to contribute to
multiple sites in this area. Our Executive Director, Sue Gardner,
outlined this perspective in a post to the original travel project
discussion. We have stood by this belief from the beginning, and we
believe that a successful, freely-shareable, non-commercial travel
project will help support the overall quantity and quality of travel
information on the web.

We thank and recognize our global community of volunteers,
particularly the pioneers of the Wikivoyage project for their
dedication and focus in making the project possible. I want to thank
my colleagues at the Foundation in many different departments for
their hard work on this case. We are also grateful to our friends at
Cooley LLP for their continuous support, tireless dedication, and
outstanding legal counsel through these challenges.

It’s now possible for the Wikivoyage community to continue their
efforts to build a global free-knowledge travel site unhindered. We
wish them the best of luck and look forward to working closely with
the Wikivoyage community as the project grows and thrives.

Geoff Brigham, General Counsel

-- 
Jay Walsh
Senior Director, Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw

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