[Wikipedia-l] Use of images (again)

Tue Jun 27 12:58:02 UTC 2006

Hi!

>   1.  What does Italian law have to do with the Sicilian wikipedia?
You should better ask the wmf lawyers for this. Basically when "selling"
something the lawset used depends on where the buyer is. But wmf does not
sell anything, so it should be the server's physical placement to be
involved. I don't really think that wmf servers are in Italy, so I do not
see why the italian law should apply to anyone (it.wiki included).

The alternative approach would be considering where the action is performed,
as it happens with sales. It looks quite time consuming, though, since we
have none of the usual commercial docs that track a sale process. A possible
answer could be: track down the IP. I believe that this might give us a
proper identification for the upload origin, but then... we are going to
need a copyright policy for each every nation on earth. It looks pretty
twisted.

>   2.  Why is USA law necesarily valid for the
> whole of the English language wikipedia?
see point 1)

> He then told me that the Sicilian wikipedia sat
> on the Italian servers.  Once again I was equally
> dumbfounded, why?  since when?  under whose
> direction?  Remember that 90% of the contributions
> to scn.wiki arrive from sources outside of Italy.

Tracert scn.wikipedia.org gives me:
  1   151 ms   152 ms   138 ms  ************** [**********] hiding myself,
sorry :)
  2   170 ms   153 ms   130 ms  ukrnet-293.ukr.net [212.42.64.225]
  3   232 ms   233 ms   838 ms  taurus.ukr.net [212.42.64.29]
  4   144 ms     *      153 ms  kiska.interlink.net.ua [194.44.84.5]
  5   197 ms   153 ms   154 ms  vombat.itsinternet.net [213.133.160.169]
  6   197 ms   150 ms   151 ms  195.94.194.145
  7   160 ms   167 ms   168 ms  plwaw3-ge-1-3-0-311.net.ipartners.pl
[157.25.3.1]
  8   202 ms   172 ms   193 ms  fra-tr1-p0-1-1.gtsce.net [195.39.208.69]
  9   239 ms   162 ms   183 ms  ge-3-2-0-0-zar1.fri.cw.net [166.63.204.109]
 10   322 ms   180 ms   875 ms  so-4-0-0-dcr2.fra.cw.net [195.2.10.225]
 11   595 ms   190 ms   197 ms  so-4-0-0-dcr1.amd.cw.net [195.2.10.149]
 12   240 ms   577 ms   565 ms  so-4-0-0-bcr1.amd.cw.net [195.2.10.25]
 13   202 ms   766 ms   203 ms  surfnet2.amd.cw.net [208.173.211.198]
 14   206 ms   216 ms     *     AZ-500.XSR01.Amsterdam1A.surf.net
[145.145.80.21]
 15   199 ms   197 ms   534 ms  kncsw001-router.customer.surf.net
[145.145.18.158]
 16   192 ms   262 ms   193 ms  gi0-24.csw2-knams.wikimedia.org
[145.97.32.29]
 17   266 ms   205 ms   215 ms  rr.knams.wikimedia.org [145.97.39.155]

That does NOT look italian at all. I'd rather bet my euros on Holland, if I
was to make a guess. And it makes sense, because it's on the backbone. BTW,
you get the very same result for "tracert pms.wikipedia.org" AND "tracert
it.wikipedia.org" (!). So I guess the person talking about italian servers
was simply poorly informed, because there is no such thing as an "italian
server", not even for the italian edition. They can check with tracert if
they are in doubt and update their information. One thing is true: both scn
and it are on the same server, yet I cannot seem to understand how this can
put them under the competence of the italian laws. We actually should all
use the dutch laws, in instead. And if this is proved to be true, the whole
copyright checking process on it.wiki might call for revisions. Not the
it.wiki is special in this, I suppose many more editions may find themselves
in muddy waters.

>   So - can I or can't I have this particular picture of a Beatles single
sleeve, considering that it is ok to put up on en.wiki?
IMHO, whenever in doubt the answer should be "load it on commons". They are
surely well away from italian lawmakers, because Italy is not on the main
physical backbone and having a shared server there would end up in making a
slower route for most users. Too bad that when you trace
"commons.wikipedia.org" you get the very same result you got for all
previously quoted editions. It's Holland, once again. So I am quite doubtful
as per using IT or USA laws on it, too.

I myself have sometimes been amazed from IT copyright checkers, too. They
often quote the italian law in their policies. Now, how can italian laws
apply to people who load content on a foreign server from a foreign country?
That may apply only to italian residents (no matter on which edition they
upload what), provided that we apply policies to single users and not to
physical servers.

I suppose the real problem is that we should have a global copyright policy
stated and translated for it to be published on all servers as a part of the
distributed UI on Betawiki "prior" to opening any new edition. This really
is a job for lawyers, it cannot be done by taking guesses  since it impacts
both on content management and on the risk of people being sued for
copyright infringement. The most important thing to make clear is: who is
subject to whose laws, and by what criteria one can objectively determine
it. Once we get this clear, the rest is a pure matter of logics.

Any suggestions?

Bèrto