[Wikipedia-l] Re: comment on wikipedia

[Michael Snow]

Caroline Ford wrote:

> As always they are only talking about US copyright law. As far as I 
> know we cannot do any of this in the UK, and I imagine it will be the 
> same in France.
> Telephone directories are copyrighted in the UK, for example.
> This is why some of us are very unhappy about "fair use", as it means 
> that we cannot ever host a mirror in the UK, or have a fork.
>
> We have no pictures of UK politicians for the same reason.
>
> What would be nice would be actual advice as to what _we_ can do. I 
> understand that German wikipedia has banned fair use images. I know 
> that most of what has been suggested is illegal here and that British 
> contributors are cautious because the international nature of the 
> project never seems to be considered.
>
> Caroline (User:Secretlondon)

Speaking only for myself, I regret that my discussion is overly oriented 
to US copyright law, because that's the law I'm familiar with. When it 
comes to the UK and others, the extent of my knowledge is having read 
some of the applicable statutes. Do we have any barristers or solicitors 
contributing who might be able to add their insight to the problem? With 
better information, we could get an idea of potential liabilities and 
not put all our eggs in the US-based "fair use" basket. For now, the 
servers are physically in the US, and the foundation is incorporated in 
the US, so any lawsuit would almost certainly be in US court using US 
law. But we're talking about jurisdiction and choice of law issues here, 
not just copyright law. And it means we need to be careful of the 
implications of creating official chapters in other countries.

Not being able to host a UK mirror is a problem, but I for one have no 
qualms about whether a group based in the UK can fork. For anyone who 
exercises the *right* to fork, that only means they will not be subject 
to any legal interference by Wikipedia; it doesn't protect them against 
other legal consequences. We often focus on the GFDL as a license to 
copy, but equally important is the accompanying disclaimer of 
warranties. Specifically in this case, Wikipedia gives no warranty that 
the material you copy won't infringe someone else's copyright. Anybody 
who wants to, fork at your own risk, we'll neither stop you nor protect you.

On some of these scenarios, I'm curious as to the specifics. If 
telephone directories are copyrightable, great, but maybe the copyright 
doesn't prevent someone from independently collecting and publishing the 
same information, or does it?

As for pictures of public figures, that's not really about copyright law 
- a face is not itself a creative mode of expression, and taking a 
picture is not making a copy (anyway, the person didn't create the face 
themselves, so shouldn't any copyright belong to their parents, or maybe 
the plastic surgeon?). We're really talking about the related issue of a 
right of publicity. But there has to be some ability to use these 
images, because the news media does, and of course paparazzi manage 
somehow. I don't know what the basis is when applying non-US law, but if 
other organizations can publish pictures of these people, there has to 
be some way for Wikipedia to do so legally as well.

--Michael Snow