Am 26.07.2015 um 19:29 schrieb James Salsman:
If Harald Bischoff has defrauded Commons reusers by requiring stricter attribution than the community requires, does the Foundation have standing in Germany to require him to return the money to his victims in proportion to the extent that their attribution was improper?
Sorry guys but if I read suggestions like this, I seriously ask myself, if you've ever read the legal code of CC-BY-SA[1] or the the copyright/Urheberrecht it is based on?!
Why? Because this is legal base of HaraldBischoffs "Abmahnung". So whoever wants to sue him for sueing somebody, should at least have some idea of what legal offence he should be sued for.
And wether we like what Harald does, or not: The terms and conditions of CC-BY-SA require the user of a CC-image to provide proper attribution. And from the legal point of view, it makes a big difference wether the attribution is on a website that is operated by the same institution (like Wikipedia and Commons) or on a third party website. The latter case definetly is no proper CC-attribution. So irrespective of how HaraldBischoffs reacted, the his rights where violated. And on the other hand I can't see a single project guideline that has been violated by his reaction.
So: On the grounds of the what do you want to ban or sue him???
Just to put that straight: I also don't like what he is doing. And of course it isn't nice, when the first reaction to a licence offence comes with ab bill of 900€. But based on etherything we know, he has the right to do so from the legal point of view.
// Martin
[1] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode