[Wikipedia-l] Re: Copyright violations at download.wikimedia.org

[Kate Turner]

Gregory Maxwell wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc:

> It would appear that we are breaking the law with respect to copyright
> at download.wikimedia.org.

this is not particular to downloads, but applies to any place that old
revisions are available, including the web interface.
 
> This is a result of our policy about the insertion of copyrighted
> material into articles:
 
> [[Wikipedia:Copyright problems#Instructions]]
> "Pages where the most recent edit is a copyright violation, but the
> previous article was not, should not be deleted. They should be
> reverted. The violating text will remain in the page history for
> archival reasons unless the copyright holder asks the Wikimedia
> Foundation to remove it."

does this policy apply everywhere or only en.wp?
 
> As a result our database contains large quantities of violating
> material. 

my understand of the relevant US law is that we are not required to
aggressively remove copyright violations until requested by the copyright
holder.

kate.