[Wikipedia-l] Dream a little...

[Ray Saintonge]

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

>David Gerard wrote:
>  
>
>>On 23/10/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>When the $100 million dollars is spend in the United States, we have
>>>achieved something for the United States.. At this moment the amount of
>>>traffic is slowly but surely moving away from the English language
>>>domination in both our traffic and in in content. Given that there is a
>>>lot available in English in the first place, I expect that we have a
>>>better return on investment from what we do for other languages and
>>>cultures.
>>>The other cultures are underfunded relatively to the huge amounts of
>>>money that are spend on English language content in the first place.
>>>      
>>>
>>The reason for changing the laws first in the US is because they tend
>>to pressure the rest of the world into 'harmonising' with their
>>copyright laws.
>>    
>>
>Hoi,
>Spending all this money on changing the law in the USA is imho largely a 
>waste of money. There are so many productive things that can be done 
>with it. There is so much content that is need of preservation. Things 
>that are not available in any US repository. There is so much even in US 
>repositories that is NOT English that needs preservation.
>
Spending that whole amount trying to change US law would be very 
wasteful.  Designating a _small_ part of it to influence what can be 
realistically accomplished would not be out of line.  This would apply 
to both US and other countries' laws. 

For the rest of it I absolutely agree with you.  One impression that I 
get from many people's posts is a failure to grasp the enormous scope of 
the problem.  While I don't completely oppose copying a novel from 
Project Gutenberg to Wikisource, in most cases that only amounts to 
moving an existing solution sideways.  There is more benefit to be 
gained by adding material that is not yet on line anywhere, or that is 
ted up by ridiculous proprietary agreements.

>The Wikimedia Foundation is about content. By doing what we do best, the 
>creation of content and making this content available, we make the 
>business model of proprietary knowledge more and more problematic. By 
>becoming an ever important factor for the availability of knowledge, our 
>position will be such that we will have as a consequence increased 
>influence on the politics behing copy right. Combine this with the 
>growing realisation that science is hampered by the effects of copyright 
>the momentum is ours anyway.
>
Absolutely.

>If there was one situation where I would agree that some action was 
>warranted, it would be when the USA decides the copyright period yet 
>again. This would be a good moment to move the Wikimedia Foundation to a 
>more benign country. Being realistic however, it would have more 
>symbolic meaning than actual effect given what American judges to 
>organisations that are clearly outside their jurisdiction like in the 
>Spamhouse case.
>
"Spamhaus" rather than "Spamhouse" for those who are not finding it.

We've got 11 years before the United States again has to deal with 
pressure from the Disney Corporation on this.  A lot can happen in the 
interim.  We can certainly be more pro-active than waiting for the 
opportunity to react to a legislative initiative with which we 
disagree.  In such a case as you point out the choice of a "benign" 
country would not be that simple; it couldn't be a member of the EU.  
There is no model for a large multinational non-profit corporation.  The 
kind of move that you suggest can be an important factor in contingency 
planning, but that should not imply any kind of absolute commitment to 
the action that you suggest.  Building an infrastructure that would 
include redundancy and allow for an almost instantaneous move of the 
central node to any of several sites or countries seems like a more 
sensible plan.  The conceivable scenarios that would require such a move 
go well beyond displeasure with US copyright law.

Jurisdiction for internet cases is not a simple issue.  US anti-spam 
legislation has been strenghthened since the Spamhaus suit was filed so 
it's not clear if the results would be the same.  The US isn't the only 
country trying to claim jurisdiction in internet cases.  Some countries 
claim that merely having residents who download from a copyright site is 
enough to give them jurisdiction.  There is a notable Australian case on 
this.

Ec