LWN: Comments on "Wikitravel and Wikimedia on a collision course"

Anti-SLAPPs

Duncan — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 08:41:37 +0000

I was wondering about the anti-SLAPP as well, but put it off to some lawyer seeing an angle I as a layman hadn't read about. I imagine it may well be a novel angle, but it could still be a viable one, no way to know until it goes thru the process. Meanwhile, glad I'm not the only one for whom that triggered question-marks.

Meanwhile, it wasn't /that/ long ago that everybody said the GPLv2 had never been proven in court, but it has been now, and came thru with flying colors. AFAIK it's generally accepted, now.

I guess it's the turn of the relatively free subset of the CC-*s, now. Hopefully it comes thru too. However, it's my impression that the "without this licence you don't have the right to distribute at all, so you can't challenge the license or you lose your right to distribute all together" aspect isn't as strong with the CCs, which might leave them in a bit weaker position. Regardless, it'll be interesting to see how this legal experiment in the public commons turns out, for sure.

Duncan

Wikitravel and Wikimedia on a collision course

zack — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 10:47:42 +0000

I interpreted that as a typo for "the CC post".

Wikitravel and Wikimedia on a collision course

giraffedata — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 03:09:15 +0000

The anti-SLAPP motion seems strange.

Contrary to how the article makes it sound, a SLAPP specifically has to intimidate someone from participating in the political process. It's usually a suit for defamation, e.g. for something a person said in a legislative or judicial proceeding or in connection with an election.

I skimmed IB's filing and did not see any claim that could be construed as connected with public participation by the defendants.

Incidentally, the California anti-SLAPP statute under which the motion was filed does not change whether something is compensable defamation or not; it just shifts the burden of proof in favor of the alleged defamer. The usual rule is that a defendant can have a case thrown out before trial if he shows that the plaintiff has no chance of winning even if everything he says is true. But where the lawsuit is one of these that could chill public participation, the defendant only has to show that the plaintiff probably would lose (again, assuming the facts are all as the plaintiff says).

Wikitravel and Wikimedia on a collision course

paravoid — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 12:57:11 +0000

Where's "the EFF post" mentioned in the article? I Googled for a relevant post from the Electronic Frontier Foundation but couldn't find anything.

Also, the article mentions "the Mediawiki's board" while it probably means "the Wikimedia Foundation's board".

Wikitravel and Wikimedia on a collision course

Seegras — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 08:36:51 +0000

I'm puzzled about Wikisource vs. Project Gutenberg.

Wikisource is NOT an ebook-library. It's a library of historical sources. As exact to the original as possible. It's made for historical research in the first place.

Project Gutenberg on the other hand aims to put out readable books, and doesn't care about which source they're from, as long as they're in the public domain.

Wikitravel and Wikimedia on a collision course

robertwall — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 01:53:15 +0000

Heh, I'm not quite right either: the API was disabled on August 9th, and most languages have backups from just before then. August 2nd was the last full backup available for EN, presumably because it's done less often due to size or something.

Wikitravel and Wikimedia on a collision course

robertwall — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 01:50:39 +0000

Although IB does not dispute the license under which Wikitravel's content is published, the company has never provided database dumps or other convenient ways to export the data in bulk.

The API for database backups of Wikitravel was enabled until August 2nd, when it was disabled by IB. The Wikivoyage community has backups through then. (source)