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