[OWW-SC] copyright and OpenWetWare

[Sri Kosuri]

I haven't read the article, but I am quite sure that the Digital Millenium
Copyright act specifically allows user generated content to have a note like
we do under the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act.

Our license is a different issue, b/c that only pertains to if we put up
already openly licensed material, our license may not be compatible.  This
is the equivalent of a copyright violation, and they holder would have to
notify us.

If we wanted to be perfectly legal however, our note is not sufficient.  We
have to fall under the requirements for "safe harbor".  There are a few
things that we haven't done.  For example, I believe we have to (and
probably l should) become a registered agent (this costs a nominal fee).
This is so if people take a claim against us to the Copyright Agency, they
have an address to contact.

A good description is actually at wikipedia here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act#Requirements_to_obtain_the_safe_harbor

Since we aren't a real organization, either someone will have to put their
name on it... or we ask MIT to do it.  Anyways, something to bring up at the
next Steering Committee meeting.

Sri

On 10/27/06, Reshma Shetty <rshetty at mit.edu> wrote:
>
> I thought that this article (if true) has interesting implications for
> potential copyright violations on OpenWetWare.
>
> http://www.slate.com/id/2152264/
>
> The basic gist of the article is that hosting content that violates
> copyright is not a big problem as long as you take down the content
> expeditiously once notified.  This particularly applies to sites that
> host user-generated content.
>
> Note that http://openwetware.org/wiki/OpenWetWare:Copyrights provides
> a mechanism for people to notify us about content on the site that
> violates copyright.
>
> Our situation is slightly more complicated since all material on OWW
> is licensed under both CC-SA and GFDL.
>
> Personally, I think we should discuss the issue of whether to permit
> people to choose alternate licenses for uploaded files.  Mediawiki has
> the functionality to permit you to do this.  I am undecided however.
>
> -Reshma
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