Mailing List Archive

On 9/4/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just what *is* the status of {{PD-Soviet}}? Is it bogus or not? Having
> a bunch of wiki users vote on legal status doesn't strike me as
> legally sound ...

IMO, as an educated layman, {{PD-Soviet}} is bogus. The arguments are
contradictory, half of them seem to boil down to 'nobody is going to
sue us over these anyway', and the interactions between
poorly-understood Soviet-era law, modern Russian etc. law, and
international treaties seem to indicate that while in Russia certain
works MAY be out of copyright protection, there is no sane reason to
believe this means a damn thing anywhere else in the world. The works
that may be out of copyright protection in Russia seem, in fact, to be
FOREIGN works from the period, not Soviet works, and even then it's
quite probable that this does not apply to new copies made in the
present day.

IOW, if you're Russian, this may be of interest in terms of what you
can do inside Russia. For the rest of us, IMO, standard
Berne-convention copyright law applies. This applies to any other
version of the argument; Poland, Iran, or wherever. In the Iran case,
people argue since Iran is not a Berne signatory, we can treat any
Iranian works as PD. I don't think this is a sound policy morally
even if a lawyer could win with the argument.

-Matt
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On 04/09/06, Matt Brown <morven@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/4/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:

> > Just what *is* the status of {{PD-Soviet}}? Is it bogus or not? Having
> > a bunch of wiki users vote on legal status doesn't strike me as
> > legally sound ...

> IMO, as an educated layman, {{PD-Soviet}} is bogus.


It seems a little ... odd. But the educated layman argument is another
wiki user vote. I'm asking what the Foundation's actual stated policy
on whether they're leaving themselves open to this or not is. That is,
a legal opinion, and not just any legal opinion but *our* legal
opinion. Hence asking on foundation-l.

(And that would suggest writing to juriwiki-l, but that unfortunately
seems to be a write-only list in practice.)


- d.
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On 9/4/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
> It seems a little ... odd. But the educated layman argument is another
> wiki user vote. I'm asking what the Foundation's actual stated policy
> on whether they're leaving themselves open to this or not is. That is,
> a legal opinion, and not just any legal opinion but *our* legal
> opinion. Hence asking on foundation-l.

Unfortunately, past experience says the foundation doesn't want to get
involved in decisions like that - for quite valid liability reasons, I
suspect.

So in practice, the users ARE the final arbiter of this, nine times
out of ten or more. This suggests that an attitude of copyright
caution, but not paranoia, is required.

-Matt
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On 9/4/06, Matt Brown <morven@gmail.com> wrote:
> IOW, if you're Russian, this may be of interest in terms of what you
> can do inside Russia. For the rest of us, IMO, standard
> Berne-convention copyright law applies. This applies to any other
> version of the argument; Poland, Iran, or wherever. In the Iran case,
> people argue since Iran is not a Berne signatory, we can treat any
> Iranian works as PD. I don't think this is a sound policy morally
> even if a lawyer could win with the argument.
>

You think it's immoral to use an image, that someone else created,
without permission, to teach someone about a subject, using the
internet?

That seems like a way over the top stance. Of course my viewpoint is
exactly the opposite. I think it's perfectly moral for Wikipedia to
use *any* image which helps educate the readers. Well, maybe not
images which violate people's privacy, but except for that, I don't
see the harm.

Anthony
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David Gerard wrote:
> On 04/09/06, Matt Brown <morven@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On 9/4/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>Just what *is* the status of {{PD-Soviet}}? Is it bogus or not? Having
>>>a bunch of wiki users vote on legal status doesn't strike me as
>>>legally sound ...
>
>
>>IMO, as an educated layman, {{PD-Soviet}} is bogus.
>
>
>
> It seems a little ... odd. But the educated layman argument is another
> wiki user vote. I'm asking what the Foundation's actual stated policy
> on whether they're leaving themselves open to this or not is. That is,
> a legal opinion, and not just any legal opinion but *our* legal
> opinion. Hence asking on foundation-l.
>
> (And that would suggest writing to juriwiki-l, but that unfortunately
> seems to be a write-only list in practice.)
>
>
> - d.


Errrr. Afaik, anyone can write to juriwiki-l. This avoids legal issues
getting lost in the noise of this list. Well, in any cases, to be
certain an issue is noticed, you may put brad patrick in copy of any
mails of this type. Note that Brad is on holidays for the full week.

ant

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On 05/09/06, Anthere <Anthere9@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Errrr. Afaik, anyone can write to juriwiki-l.


And they famously never answer. But I suppose yes, I should at least try.


- d.
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On 9/5/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 05/09/06, Anthere <Anthere9@yahoo.com> wrote:
> And they famously never answer. But I suppose yes, I should at least try.

It's a rumor. Whenever I posted juriwiki-l directly, I got replies
from both Legal Officer (J-B Souffron) and board member(s). Most of
those mails were about trademarks. I think they worked not so badly as
rumored.

--
Kizu Naoko
Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
* vivemus, mea Lesbia, amemus *
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