[Clipart] clipart Digest, Vol 73, Issue 29

[Greg Bulmash]

Posted the following to the Wikipedia helpdesk boards...

=========================================

Policy on 3rd Party Notifications of Infringement?

Over on the Open Clip Art Library mailing list, there's currently a
debate regarding a question that came into the helpdesk where someone
said they believed that images submitted by a specific user came from
a copyrighted source. The user has been contacted and reiterated their
claim that the images are Public Domain, but there's still some
apprehension.

The debate centers around what exactly needs to be done to maintain
DMCA safe harbor protections? Do the images need to be removed
immediately, pending investigation? Should they be left up, pending
investigation (and if so, how long can the investigation take and how
in-depth does it have to be)? Is the onus on the copyright holder to
discover this themselves and file a DMCA notice? Or does a third party
notification of infringement require a certain level of proof before
it must be acted upon?

The librarians don't want to spend all their time on wild goose chases
trying to track down vague allegations of infringement or take down
the images from valued contributors prematurely. At the same time, no
one wants to distribute copyrighted, non-PD works.

Does Wikimedia have an internal policy that lays out a detailed
process for handling third party reports of infringing materials?

Thanks for any help on this,
Greg

On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 12:49 PM, Jon Phillips <jon at rejon.org> wrote:
> yes, I hear you...yes, copy wikimedia commons...greg could you look
> into that and propose something?
>
> cool!
>
> On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Greg Bulmash
> <oneminuteinspirations at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Perhaps Wikimedia Commons already has a set of procedures in place
>> that can be copied or used as reference. If not, then I think that a
>> lawyer needs to be consulted about OCAL's responsibilities to respond
>> to third party reports of infringement. What level of proof does the
>> report need to reach, and once it reaches that level, what does OCAL
>> need to do? IMO, if OCAL follows a procedure set out by an attorney,
>> it can be the difference between getting a suit dismissed or letting
>> it go to trial.
>>
>> - Greg
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 9:37 AM, Jon Phillips <jon at rejon.org> wrote:
>>> Well, I would favor that we need to see specific proof of something
>>> being a violation either via a url or an original copyright holder
>>> making a claim and/or providing an example of the copywritten
>>> material. This is also why we need a flagging system
>>>
>>> Jon
>>>
>>> On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 9:13 AM, John Olsen <johnny_automatic at mac.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Apr 13, 2010, at 8:29 AM, clipart-request at lists.freedesktop.org wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Message: 4
>>>>> Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2010 08:29:14 -0700
>>>>> From: Greg Bulmash <oneminuteinspirations at gmail.com>
>>>>> Subject: Re: [Clipart] Can some one answer these queries please?
>>>>> To: Gerald Ganson <Gerald.Ganson at rdc.ab.ca>
>>>>> Cc: clipart <clipart at lists.freedesktop.org>
>>>>> Message-ID:
>>>>>       <g2tdbc6f7271004130829g52853d1bp9bf16700f44f41f0 at mail.gmail.com>
>>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>>>>>
>>>>> If true, I wonder if ArtFavor is deliberately trying to poison the
>>>>> collection or if ArtFavor is just clueless.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Well this gets into the whole sticky situation of trusting our community of volunteers.  The main concern would be what liability is OCAL under?  Did we do what was necessary to not be the violator here? Is the onus on ArtFavor? In my neck of the woods ignorance of the law is no excuse.  So if they are under copyright then it seems that ArtFavor is the violator here unless he can point to a place where he got them and it was stated to be in the PD.  If ArtFavor says they are PD and some else says they are copyright, shouldn't we have some specific examples of violations and proof of copyright?  Is it the copyright holder's job to defend his copyright?  If it is Corel, would we need a cease and desist from them?  Obviously we can't keep stuff under copyright on here.  I also wonder if Corel's copyright claim is for the collection, not the art itself.  This is the fine line that Dover books always claimed.  They had no claim to all their old PD graphics.  They merely claimed co
>>>>  pyright on the layout and collection of them in their books.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> John Olsen
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> clipart mailing list
>>>> clipart at lists.freedesktop.org
>>>> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/clipart
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Jon Phillips
>>> http://rejon.org/
>>> http://fabricatorz.com/
>>> http://status.net/
>>> http://rejon.status.net + skype: kidproto
>>> +1.415.830.3884 (sf/global)
>>> +86.134.3957.2035 (china)
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> clipart mailing list
>>> clipart at lists.freedesktop.org
>>> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/clipart
>>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Jon Phillips
> http://rejon.org/
> http://fabricatorz.com/
> http://status.net/
> http://rejon.status.net + skype: kidproto
> +1.415.830.3884 (sf/global)
> +86.134.3957.2035 (china)
>