[Wikipedia-l] Suing over copyright violations

[Axel Boldt]

I have a couple of points regarding the "inability-to-sue" concerns:

1) Linux has precisely the same issue, and is clearly commercially a
   lot more relevant than Wikipedia. In all the years, nobody has ever
   had to file a suit. People occasionly violate the GPL inadvertently
   and back down once it is explained to them.

2) Bomis has standing to sue: Larry is an employee of Bomis, and as
   such all his contributions are automatically copyrighted by Bomis.
   He has edited a significant proportion of the articles on the site.

3) Imagine you're big bad Microsoft, about to willfully violate the
   GFDL. Which scenario is scarier: being sued by Bomis.com, or the
   prospect of being sued by hundreds of volunteers from around the
   country, even around the world, with lots of sympathetic press
   coverage?

4) Money for such suits wouldn't be an issue. FSF, EFF etc. would all
   be happy to provide pro bono lawyers. By contrast, Bomis wouldn't
   get nearly as much support. "Just two companies with some copyright
   disagreement -- who cares?"

Axel