Fw: [Intlwiki-l] request for deletion for other language- wikipedi

(This is a reply to Alex's posting [Wikilegal-l] Fw: [Intlwiki-l] request 
for deletion for other language- wikipedias -clarification Alex R. alex756 
at nyc.rr.com  Tue Dec 9 19:22:20 UTC 2003
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikilegal-l/2003-December/000135.html )

First, I appreciate your responce. (And I owe you and Martin another thanks 
regarding my previous postings on GFDL). I have quite many legal questions, 
and it really helps to know what others like you think about the same 
matter.

1) Regarding democracy and intellectual property laws

Alex>>Japan is a free and open democratic society, it must support the 
principle that human knowledge and the criticism and dissemination thereof 
is protected under all the laws of the land.

I think this is true to a certain extent. But as you are aware, it is also 
true that there are some who believe in or argue for stronger copyright 
protection to foster the production and dissemination of knowledge, rather 
than stronger protection of users rights (such as fair use). Those people 
exist in the U.S., as well as in Japan.

And I am not inclined to say that is like Japanese society becoming 
totalitarian regime or under dictatorship, you know... Indeed, Japanese 
copyright law was recently amended to offer stronger protection.

Of course, not that I agree with that move or the judgment.

And I have some complains about Japanese laws and related matters, but I 
will save it for another email.

2) Regarding the "prior permission" requirement to use prefectural symbol 
images:

Alex>>There are also many musuems that demand permission to make copies of 
the paintings in their collections that are already in the public domain. 
Anyone can demand permission this does not mean that permission is necessary 
for all uses.

I think so to, though I am not probably as confident as you are, since I 
cannot tell to what degree this or that particular use is risky or okay. 
Some japanese wikipedians are critical of the requirement.

But the requirement of prefectures are not based on copyright, it seems. We 
are not sure what legal ground it has, but we have decided not to go against 
it - partly because many prefectural gov'ts are doing that.

As I understand, it is partly to not take risks - to keep Wikipedia freely 
distributable and reduce potential worries for downstream users.

Also, it is partly to not to use Wikipedia as a tool for advocacy. Just for 
the same reason we do not promote or support any specific religion or 
political activism on wikipedia, we do not challenge this piece of seemingly 
unreasonable requirement. Individual wikipedians might decide to do 
something, but not through Wikipedia, not in the name of Wikipedia. So, 
rather than being confrontational as a site, we have decided to be 
comformist... well, I guess some people would not like to hear this in 
particular...

3) Regarding jurisdiction:

Alex>>Besides the work is being published in the United States and is thus 
under US law, not Japanese law. Japanese law would only apply if someone 
forks from Wikipedia or creates other derivative works on a Japanese server 
thereby publishing the works in Japan. When you are on a Wikimedia project, 
you are in the United States, virtually speaking. That is my opinion, 
anyhow, for whatever it is worth.

I am thinking that IF those symbol images are copyrighted by japanese 
prefectures, THEN those symbol marks are governed by japanese copyright law, 
and the uploading of the images to Wikipedias server could be illegal based 
on the protection given by the Japanese laws. No?

Or is there a possibility that the contributor has made an illegal use of 
it, and therefore it would be his/her interest to get the images removed 
from Wikipedia, but it is legal to keep those things on server for the 
Wikimedia Foundation and admins for Japanese Wikipedia?

As you know, we did not receive any deletion request from the original 
contributor who uploaded all the images. Nor did we receive any request from 
prefectural governments. The issue was raised and discussed by other 
wikipedians who noticed about the unclarity of the legality of those images 
presented as GFDL material.

4) Regarding the issue of GFDL and moral rights:

Alex>>To suggest that someone has a right to integrity on Wikipedia is not 
to understand how a wiki works. I doubt that any judge in any jurisdiction 
would say that someone's work submitted to
Wikipedia would have to ONLY be reproduced without change.

I am of course not knowledgeable about other jurisdictions, nor Japanese one 
indeed, but I see your point. And probably modification would not be a legal 
problem in most of the case. But I am not very sure if there is no issue at 
all here.

I am also participating to CreativeCommons Japan, the project to port CC 
licenses to Japan, and have been following the discussion there (with a fair 
number of lawyers/legal scholars). One of the issues raised is that of 
integrity. There may be a possibility that when a CC-by'd work is modified 
or used in a way that damages social reputation of the original author, 
then, in spite of the license terms, the use might be illegal on copyright 
ground (possibly on defamation, too, maybe).

For example, say, a CC-by'd music file is used for hardcore pornographic 
film, and the attribution to the music files' author is provided just as 
CC-by license requires. The creator of the music file may sue the filmmaker 
and win. There was discussion of ways to minimize this kind of trouble, but 
none is found to be a sure solution, it seems.

I cannot deny the possibility that I might be misunderstanding their 
discussion, because sometimes it is highly technical and hard to follow. But 
it seems that some would say GFDL and Wikipedia's interface arrangement 
would not solve the conflict completely.

Sorry for the long posting, but I hope this could help others having similar 
kind of questions as well.

Regards,

Tomos

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