This morning as I started
my car I noticed that the temperature was a full ten degrees warmer
than it was yesterday. It was plus five rather than minus five, which
makes quite a difference. And that would be thirty degrees warmer
that that which some of my loyal readers are currently experiencing.
(Waves in the general direction of the Great Lakes and gloats!)
Today the font of all
knowledge, Wikipedia, is shut down. They have done this in protest
against the "Stop Online Piracy Act" - something
which is possibly going to enter American law (and probably
British law too eventually). Apparently the main thrust of the
legislation is that it will put the burden to police user-contributed
material on website owners.
On a personal basis I
don't think that's unreasonable - I realise that I can't just blag
someone else's efforts and blog it as my own. There would arguably be
a grey area over some of the pictures I use for blog posts: clip art
and stuff I find on-line I usually re-colour so's I've had (at
least) some input into the creation of the picture. Very
occasionally I might use a photo I find on-line. But if the photo
comes with any copyright disclaimers, then I won't touch it.
And the same applies to
any of the other websites I run. I am responsible for what I put on
the Internet.
And therein lies the
problem that Wikipedia faces. It's summed up in the sentence "I
am responsible for what I put on the Internet". I don't
allow anyone else publishing rights on any webspace that I use.
Wikipedia does: by it's very nature absolutely anyone can publish
absolutely anything on Wikipedia. And so, for all that the vast
majority of Wikipedians contribute properly and sensibly, there is
nothing stopping the rogue element publishing foolishly or
maliciously. Or from blagging someone else's work (piracy).
At the moment I'm not
sure who is responsible for any copyright infringements that appear
on Wikipedia. But should the Stop Online Piracy Act become law, then
those who own Wikipedia would become responsible for the (possibly)
illegal acts of others. Wikipedia have got the hump - they claim that
the Stop Online Piracy Act will "fatally damage the free and
open Internet". Will it? I don't really know. I suspect the
Stop Online Piracy Act was never drawn up with Wikipedia in mind.
One possible answer might
be for Wikipedia to reconsider who it allows to edit their articles:
after all I am one of the resident experts who contributed to the
pages on "Upstairs Downstairs" and "The
Treacle People". However for all that this idea might work
in principle, in practice the licensing of thousands of Wikipedians
would probably prove impractical.
Will Wikipedia survive
the legislation? I expect so. After all, it's not Wikipedia that the
legislation is supposed to be targeting. And is anyone going to
prosecute Wikipedia for any alleged breaches of copyright? I suspect
that over the next few weeks a button will appear on every page of
Wikipedia allowing people to report supposed infringements of the
Stop Online Piracy Act, and an army of Wikipedians will spend their
time painstakingly rewording the article generating the complaints.
After all, armies of Wikipedians have painstakingly reworded every
contribution I've ever made to Wikipedia for no apparent reason. The
Stop Online Piracy Act might just give them something to do...
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