Dear friends:
There's a response from the Board of Trustees in
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Israel/Letter_to_the_BoT_regarding_URAA#Response_from_Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_of_Trustees
Regards,
Patricio
2014-02-20 2:15 GMT-03:00 Yael Meron <[email protected]>:
> Hi Santiago,
>
> Thank you for your support.
> We hope this would bring stronger advocacy actions by the WMF as well as
> practical solutions for the Wikimedia projects.
>
> Regards,
>
> Yael Meron
> Wikimedia Israel
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 1:49 AM, Santi Navarro <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Hello. Wikimedia Spain members wrote an open letter to BoT where we show
>> our position about the URAA and we support Wikimedia Israel. The letter
>> says:
>>
>> ==================
>>
>> We, the members of Wikimedia España, the chapter of the Wikimedia movement
>> in Spain, support the concerns expressed by our fellow Wikimedia Israel
>> and other places around the World about the legal norm known as URAA. That
>> norm, based on the legal status quo, has the effect of extending the
>> copyright of cultural works for periods even longer than those already in
>> force.
>>
>> We do not object in any way to the right of people to live out of the
>> results of their work, be it in manufacturing, service industries,
>> agriculture or any other human activity, but those works form the core of
>> culture as the sum of human knowledge, and their use by all Mankind has to
>> be protected too. While it is entirely understandable that painters,
>> writers or photographers have the right to sustain themselves with their
>> works, it is not reasonable that people who did not author anything should
>> be allowed to make money out of the works of people who died fifty,
>> seventy-five or even hundred years before.
>>
>> Furthermore it has to be taken into account that under the excuse of
>> protecting the authors' rights, an unduly burden has been charged on the
>> users of works of unknown authors, anonymous works or the ones of people
>> who simply did not intend to claim any right at any time at all. The
>> Uruguay Round Agreements were negotiated by 123 countries. Somebody who
>> came across some anonymous work that could be dated at anytime in the last
>> century, could be required to find a negotiator among the more than seven
>> billion people on Earth, since, otherwise, he/she could be violating some
>> state copyright law.
>>
>> Another aspect that URAA does not pay attention to is the fact that many
>> works remain unattended. When talking about books, it means that they are
>> not reprinted and are not available anymore. But it does not mean that
>> somebody could just reprint them in order to make them known to the
>> public. In that way people can neither buy copies of works nor make them
>> themselves. Who is profiting by that? In other cases, photographs,
>> pictures, rolls of film, etc., just sit rotting -literally in some cases-
>> in storerooms, not only forgotten, also forbidden. Is there any benefit
>> from it?
>>
>> So, in spite of all legal terms, we, the Wikimedians from Spain, support
>> not just our Israeli companions, but the right of all the Human Race to
>> have a chance to enjoy what has been done by authors. And so we expect the
>> Wikimedia Foundation, as a provider of free knowledge sources, will do
>> their best and fight for the shortest copyright terms possible, restricted
>> as closely as possible to the author's lifetime.
>>
>> Yours sincerely,
>>
>> Wikimedia Spain
>>
>> ====================
>>
>> *Wikimedia España Blog
>>
>> http://blog.wikimedia.es/2014/02/postura-de-wikimedia-espana-sobre-la.html
>>
>> *On Meta in different languages:
>>
>>
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Espa%C3%B1a/Letter_to_the_BoT_regarding_URAA
>>
>> We encourage you to create a debate about it and work for free knowledge.
>>
>> Thank you and regards
>>
>> --
>> Santiago Navarro
>> Wikimedia España
>> http://www.wikimedia.org.es/
>>
>>
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--
Patricio Lorente
Blog: http://www.patriciolorente.com.ar
Identi.ca // Twitter: @patriciolorente
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