| TomT0m added a comment. |
Just to check if there is an actual problem here: let’s imagine a theorical usecase.
Alice, or the AliceAndBob group, contributed to Wikipedia and are hurt because some informations they entered in Wikipedia are also present in Wikidata. She/They thinks there legal rights have been violated and want to go to court.
First question: do we have actual candidates for Alice or AliceAndBob?
Second question: Under which precise law could they actually file a claim?
Third question: Under which condition would the court accept the case?
The rationale behind this question is that my impression is that, at least in the france case, only the producer of data in a database can claim rights, if he has engaged a substantial amount of efforts or resources, and if he can prove it, to compile the datas. The « author’s law » in france do not cover datas or databases beyond the pure form.
Which kind of contributor in Wikipedia actually does (amongst other things) pure data compilation work to the point he can consider this « substantial »? If no individual can, can a group of contributor consider they together engage a substantial amount of effort and together file a complaint?
To give an idea of the complexity of the questions, I’ll translate a few phrases of a lawyer’s webpage in french ( https://www.murielle-cahen.com/publications/p_bases2.asp )
On « who can claim the right»:
Le droit sui generis appartient au producteur de la base de données. Le producteur est « la personne qui prend l'initiative et le risque des investissements correspondants » selon le Code de la propriété intellectuelle. Aucune autre personne ne peut se prévaloir du droit sui generis.
« the sui generis right belongs to the producer of the database. That is « the person who take the initiative and the risk of the corresponding investments »according to the intellectual property code. No other person can claim the right. »
On « what is a substantial amount :
Selon la CJCE, le rassemblement des données, « leur agencement systématique ou méthodique au sein de la base, l'organisation de leur accessibilité individuelle et la vérification de leur exactitude tout au long de la période de fonctionnement de la base » peut nécessiter un investissement substantiel.
« According to the CJCE (a high level European court of justice), the data compilation, their systematic or methodical arrangement into the database, the organisation of their individual access, the verification of their correctness all along the lifetime of the database activity » can need a substantial investment.
Ce n'est pas l'investissement lié à la création des données qui entre en ligne de compte mais l'investissement lié à la présentation de ces données dans la base.
This is not the investment linked to the creation of the datas that is taken into account but the investment linked to the presentation of the datas in the database.
« les moyens consacrés à l'établissement d'une liste des chevaux ne correspondent pas à un investissement lié à l'obtention et à la vérification du contenu de la base de données dans laquelle figure cette liste »
The means used to establish a list of horses do not constitute an investment linked to the obtention and verification of the content of the database in which this list is included »
In this document the « substancial amount » is also discussed. An extraction of 12% of the announces of a job website was not considered substantial by a court, for example. So considered in isolation, 10% information reuse is not substantial.
But in our case, does this mean 10% off all wikipedias, considering no one can claim to be the producer of all wikipedia, or 10% of a specific contributor contribution, considering it’s rarely relevant to consider the unique contribution of a single contributor, or that the contribution of a single contributor qualify to the database definition…
The more I personnaly dig into this questions, the more issues are opened and the less clear it becomes that there is an actual issue, and if there is an actual issue if there is a legal risk. Or even if there is a moral or ethical issue: I think we will all agree here that pure facts can be used by anyone (beyond private life one).
Cc: TomT0m, jrbs, EgonWillighagen, sarojdhakal, Agabi10, NMaia, Simon_Villeneuve, Jarekt, Rspeer, OhKayeSierra, Aschmidt, AndrewSu, Mateusz_Konieczny, Maxlath, Huji, Glrx, Realworldobject, Ltrlg, Papapep, Tgr, Ayack, Gnom1, MichaelMaggs, MisterSynergy, Pasleim, Cirdan, 0x010C, Sylvain_WMFr, Denny, Ivanhercaz, Pintoch, Lydia_Pintscher, Lea_Lacroix_WMDE, Aklapper, Psychoslave, Lahi, Gq86, GoranSMilovanovic, QZanden, LawExplorer, ZhouZ, Mpaulson, Wikidata-bugs, aude, jayvdb, Slaporte, Mbch331, Jay8g
_______________________________________________ Wikidata-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-bugs
