[Wikipedia-l] blatant state-sponsored copyright violations (by Baide Baiku of the PRC)

[Gerard Meijssen]

Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 6/3/06, Selina . <wikipediareview at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> On 31/05/06, Jean-Baptiste Soufron <jbsoufron at gmail.com> wrote:
>>     
>>> I don't think it would be wise for the foundation to take any action
>>> that would not be correctly backed up by a chinese law firm
>>> explaining us what we can do, and what we cannot do. As much from a
>>> legal point of view, than from a PR or a political one.
>>>
>>> Jean-Baptiste Soufron
>>>
>>>       
>> Something at least needs to be done, turning a blind eye to it will only
>> make things worse.
>>
>> -Selina
>>     
>
> There are thousands of people whose copyrights are allegedly being
> infringed.  Any one of you is free to hire a lawyer and start a
> lawsuit.  In fact, you're perfectly free to get together and talk
> about how you can effectively combine resources to do so.  It'd be
> fine with me if someone sets up a mailing list or website and then
> sends a message here redirecting anyone interested to it.
>
> But I don't think it's worth the Wikimedia Foundation spending its
> time or money on, from a cost/benefit analysis.  In fact, I think it's
> questionable whether or not it would be beneficial at all to sue Baidu
> over this.  The only thing I see them doing *really* harmful is that
> they're censoring content, and this is perfectly legal under the terms
> of the GFDL anyway (I suppose Wikipedia could add an invariant section
> ranting about Chinese censorship, but it's not going to happen).
>
> Anthony
Hoi,
Please tell me how you arrive at your conclusion. What do you consider 
the costs, how did you quantify them. What are the expected benefits, 
are they economical, political or of another nature, how did you 
quantify them. How did you compare the one with the other and again how 
did you come to this conclusion..

PS Did you consider the long term costs of doing nothing ?
Thanks,
    GerardM