On 24 October 2011 09:25, Orionist <orion....@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> I'm not sure a consenus of >> wikimedians is the best way to make legal decisions anyway, shouldn't we >> consult an expert? > > > In a perfect world we'd have a legal department that vets each and every > image uploaded to Commons. The thing is, we'd need at least 200 lawyers from > all around the world, each one an expert in their country's copyright law, > and ready to work overtime. Even then, a legal expert's opinion is no > guarantee that a court will go the same way in case of a lawsuit.
We wouldn't need a lawyer to look at every case - ones where the author has released it under a free license should be fine, for example. There are experts on international copyright law that could give opinions on a wide range of jurisdictions. While you never know for sure until it has been decided in court, a good lawyer ought to be able to give you an idea of what a court is likely to decide. In some cases, they may have to say "I don't know", but I'd much rather have an expert that doesn't know than a bunch of laymen that think they do. > ...a deletion discussion among >> non-professionals is not the proper way to determine the law. > > > Neither is the opinion of a legal expert: That's the job of the courts. It's the job of the courts if there is a disagreement. As long as no-one is complaining, we should be fine just trusting a lawyer. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l