Welcome!
Hello, Geoffbrigham, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a
Wikipedian! Please
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before the question. Again, welcome!
Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (
talk) 19:32, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
I have a new idea for the page edit notices. Nathan2055 talk - review 20:59, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Dear Mr. Brigham:
At a recent RfC on allowing non-administrators to view deleted pages, you stated that the proposal would probably create legal problems in the short run (and Congressional acts as a possible longer-run consequence).
“ | I've been asked to step in and give the Foundation's legal view on this question. My view as the Foundation's general counsel is essentially the same as that outlined by Swatjester [below]. Allowing non-administrator users to have access to deleted pages would vastly increase the frequency and volume of legal complaints. (It could have even worse consequences than that in the long term, up to and including corrective legislation by Congress, which would be a disaster.) It is difficult to overstate how much legal and practical difficulty this would cause the Foundation. To be frank, community adoption of such a disastrous policy would create an actual emergency that would likely require Board intervention. I normally favor and support community-driven initiatives, so please believe me when I say I am not raising this set of concerns lightly. The current system is not broken -- so the best advice is 'don't fix it.' MikeGodwin ( talk) 13:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC) | ” |
— 13:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC) Mike Godwin, legal counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation |
“ | I have been asked a couple of times whether, as WMF's present general counsel, I share Mike's view as expressed above. I can confirm that I fully agree with Mike's assessment. Geoffbrigham ( talk) 02:18, 27 August 2011 (UTC) | ” |
— 02:18, 27 August 2011 (UTC) Geoff Brigham, general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation |
Your response provokes me to ask two questions:
Thank you for your attention. (I would understand if you would prefer not to state anything at the present time or here.)
Sincerely, Kiefer. Wolfowitz 11:16, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
FYI, on my talk page, editor Malleus Fatuorum whether the WMF legal team know that 1500 English administrators (many of them minors) have access to deleted content. Kiefer. Wolfowitz 22:01, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at
Wikipedia:OTRS_noticeboard#Idea:_OTRS_feedback_board.
MorganKevinJ
(talk) 19:48, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
We have set up a local protest site and made a banner for the german Wikipedia that could be used as it is. Do you have any suggestions for things we should do? -- Liberaler Humanist ( talk) 23:04, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
RE: "Definition: Foreign Internet site used to conduct business directed to U.S. residents OR that otherwise demonstrates the existence of minimum contacts sufficient for the exercise of personal jurisdiction over the owner or operator of the Internet site consistent with the U.S. Constitution; according doesn’t not cover such sites as .com, .org, .biz, etc.; "
PS: Sorry, but could only post here, as blog comments are closed.
Thanks for keeping us all informed! Wikicat ( talk) 22:16, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
I discussed your role the blackout (critically) in a blogpost here. If I have made any errors in fact I welcome correction.-- Brian Dell ( talk) 08:22, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Can an image that contains a screenshot of copyrighted software be released as CC-BY-SA? For example, a picture of a turned on computer, with the screen showing copyrighted software such as File:MicroDigital Mico running RISC OS 4.03.jpg or a tv screen showing a logo such as File:Pace DSL4000.jpg. Could you point me to any guidelines regarding such uploads? I am asking as there are a number of such images as part of the Commons:Chris's Acorns batch upload. Smallman12q ( talk) 23:12, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
The terms of service (tos) of Discipline Global Mobile ( DGM, a record company) expressly prohibit links to any page except the DGM homepage. The tos warns that copyright violations will be pursued legally with tenacity. There is discussion at the talk page of WP's article on DGM's founder, Robert Fripp:
Thank you for any attention.
Sincerely, Kiefer. Wolfowitz 21:56, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Per subject. The Rambling Man ( talk) 21:19, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
Hi Geoff,
I hope you don't mind, but I've made a few changes to your user page, which you can view in this diff. My edit summary should explain most of what I've done, but well done on managing to use the template, it can be quite complicated to understand templates at first. When we link "internally", that is, to other Wikimedia wikis, we use something called Wikilinks, as opposed to external links (that you place in single square brackets, for example [http://www.google.com This link to Google] will produce This link to Google).
I've left
User:Geoffbrigham/Info as it is for now, but if you'd like for it to be deleted (so that you or another member of staff don't use it accidentally!), I can delete it, as can
other,
admins that you just might be more acquainted to.
The Helpful One 23:34, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Hi Geoff; maybe you could chime in over at Commons, commons:Commons:Village_pump/Copyright#German stamps again - quick action needed? - there are currently thousands of stamps from Germany at Commons, labeled as being in the public domain, which doesn't seem to be the case according to the Loriot decision, so what should Commons admins do now? Gestumblindi ( talk) 21:47, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
There is currently a dispute between one user versus some of us sysops over our recent blacklisting of nfohump.com to prevent people from linking to it in Wikipedia articles. The rationale for blacklisting is that because nfohump.com is a warez related site, and Wikipedia servers are located in Florida, then linking to any warez-related site site would be considered a form of contributory infringement in the United States ( Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry).
MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#nfohump.com has the discussion that resulted in the blacklisting.
User:Ondertitel challenged the blacklisting in a section further down the page (see MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#.nfohump.com), stating that nfohump.com only makes .nfo files (information text files) available from each release by a warez group, and in no way facilitates access to any illegal content, and removes any crack codes from the .nfo files prior to publishing them. After looking at a few samples on nfohump.com, I agree that these .nfo files are pretty benign, typically containing an ASCII-art banner from the cracker group accompanied by a rude message or shout-out to their buddies.
I declined the request to remove from the blacklist with the reasoning that, while I myself don't personally see anything amiss, it is better to err on the side of caution and blacklist it, and defer to someone who can offer a legitimate legal opinion. If you wouldn't mind, browse a few links on www.nfohump.com and respond here on your talk page or at MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist. Thanks. ~ Amatulić ( talk) 20:39, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Hello Geoff. I believe there are legal implications involved in the issue raised at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 108#"Speedy deletion wiki". Best regards-- Fuhghettaboutit ( talk) 19:16, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
A user who asked to have one of his pages deleted was puzzled to find a copy of it still on http://en.wikipedia.g-webs.com/wiki/. I know they are quite entitled to copy WP content, but are they allowed (a) to use the logo and (b) to use a web address that starts "en.wikipedia"? The whole layout is so similar that it seems deliberately deceptive. JohnCD ( talk) 00:17, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
I just got a complaint about this rather different site (warning, many rude words). This one is much more difficult to misinterpret, but it does have the "a Wikimedia Project" button in the bottom right, and a messed-around version of the trademarked globe in the top left, as well as the statement "PULP-PEDIA® IS A FAGGOT REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF THE SHITTY PULP-MEDIA FOUNDATION, INC!", with the latter being a link to www.wikimedia.org ... and also lots of basically unattributed Wikipedia content (presumably dynamically generated.) -- Demiurge1000 ( talk) 21:15, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi, would it be possible to get a statement regarding the issue described in Wikipedia talk:Pages needing translation into English#Copy of Google translate = copyright violation?? If machine translations create a copyright of the translator (e.g. Google) on the translated contents, then WP has a big problem to sort out since that happened frequently so far. If not, then everything is fine from a legal point of view. Thanks El reggae ( talk) 14:56, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
There is currently a mediation case open to determine the proper use of the band name, "The Beatles" or "the Beatles" in running-prose. As the issue of trade marks has come up, I wondered if you could shed any light on the issue for us. As both "Beatles" and "The Beatles" are trade marked, is wikipedia in any way forced to use "The Beatles" mid-sentence, or is "the Beatles" acceptable in the legal sense? Thanks for you time. ~ GabeMc ( talk| contribs) 01:36, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
Also, if editor "A" says, "Remember, 'The Beatles' is a registered trademark of Apple Corps Ltd.", isn't this tantamount to a legal threat? Afterall, the point of the above statement seems to be "if we don't cap all the definite articles in Beatles related pages then we might get sued by Apple." Any thoughts? ~ GabeMc ( talk| contribs) 22:29, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
I've been advised to bring this to you. I've found that grimepedia are using the tern 'Grime Wikipedia' in their site. I couldn't find any contact info but you can see one example at http://grimepedia.co.uk/wiki/Add_Yourself_To_The_Grime_Wikipedia and there are a few more in the site. I found this by accident (not being even sure what 'grime' music is) in the course of an AfD, while establishing that it isn't a reliable independent source. They are probably unaware that Wikipedia is a trade mark, so I had thought of sending a message sort of friendly, like... But couldn't. Probably better through you, anyway. Peridon ( talk) 18:40, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
http://wikipediawriters.com -- Orange Mike | Talk 01:57, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Could you comment on whether we need to make disclosures of commercial conflicts of interest a hard requirement to comply with recent FTC regulations? There is a discussion with links here. This has been prompted by the recent German court decision against a corporate COI Wikipedia editor. The German court found that even talk page disclosure of COI wasn't enough, since consumers likely wouldn't read the talk page. I don't know if we need to go that far here, but our current COI policy of "gently encouraged disclosure" probably doesn't go nearly far enough to protect us from potential liability. Gigs ( talk) 21:46, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
I hope that the response below is helpful. I apologize, but I'm afraid I do have to include the following disclaimers:
The Foundation does not need to make disclosures of commercial conflicts of interest a hard requirement. The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has extremely limited jurisdiction over the activities of nonprofit organizations. The FTC Act gives the FTC authority over “persons, partnerships, or corporations.” ( 15 U.S.C. § 45(a)(2)). The Act defines “corporation” as any company, trust, or association, incorporated or unincorporated, “which is organized to carry on business for its own profit or that of its members.” ( 15 U.S.C. § 44). The Wikimedia Foundation does not fit within this definition.
The FTC’s jurisdiction does extend over certain nonprofit entities. But the Wikimedia Foundation does not conduct the types of activities that would expose it to FTC jurisdiction. The FTC has jurisdiction over any nonprofit association that “provides substantial economic benefit to its for-profit members.” ( California Dental Ass’n v. FTC, 526 U.S. 756 (1999)). Thus, a nonprofit trade association organized for the profit of a particular industry would be subject to the FTC’s jurisdiction. The Foundation does not exist for the benefit of any profit-seeking members and is not the sort of nonprofit organization that would be subject to FTC jurisdiction.
Further, the recent FTC regulations do not contemplate liability for organizations such as the Foundation. The Foundation is not an “advertiser” or “endorser” as defined in the recent FTC guidelines. See 16 CFR § 255.
Companies that endorse or advertise products through Wikipedia must keep in mind that both U.S. and foreign laws may apply to their actions. According to the recent FTC guidelines, “[w]hen there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), such connection must be fully disclosed.” 16 FCR § 255.5. If a company posts information about its own products or services on Wikipedia (or if an advertiser or marketing agency is being paid to post such information), the connection should be fully disclosed. -- William Kelly, Legal Intern, WMF —Preceding undated comment added 22:30, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi,
It would be greatly appreciated, if as the WMF's legal expert you were able to assist Wikipedians in providing an appropriate response in relation to a number of articles covering the recent 'child abuse' allegations in the UK. From what I can gather certain claims were made in various media outlets (and in other on-line but unreliable sources), which resulted in a senior political official who was wrongly identified having to issue a strongly worded denial. The same senior official is apparently now considering legal action to get various internet posts that wrongly identified them and linked them with the ongoing abuse allegations. At some point, these claims (or the denial of them) were mentioned in Wikipedia articles, although in respect of one article these were revison deleted per the existing BLP policy.
It would be appreciated if acting in your role as General Counsel, you could begin a dialogue with the named official's legal representatives,with a view to ensuring Wikipedia's coverage is fair, accurate and proportionate. Sfan00 IMG ( talk) 13:45, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
FYI: a new user, Shadow003 ( talk · contribs), has said that this article "contained false and slanderous information, and it has been formally contested by Mr Briatore’s lawyer with a letter of formal notice to the Wikimedia foundation." See WP:ANI#Legal notice, WMF involvement? and WP:BLPN#Flavio Briatore. Regards, JohnCD ( talk) 13:46, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
Some information for you:
Uncle G ( talk) 16:54, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
Hi Geoff. I'm on the board of the above. In this comment, Bence of ChapCom says, "WMF will not provide any recognition or trademark permission until Wiki Med Foundation changes its name legally to another name that is acceptable to AffCom and WMF Legal." I was already aware of AffCom's view regarding our name, but I wasn't aware until he posted that comment that you'd offered advice on the matter. Could you please confirm that you have advised the Foundation not to recognise us under the above name?
I should point out that the board is very attached to the existing name and it is highly unlikely to change the name without good cause, and none of us believes the present argument from AffCom (that it may be confused with Wikimedia Foundation) has any merit. Some view AffCom's stance on this as being a simple exercise in dominance. (We incorporated without involving AffCom.) I have no view on the latter point. If it is your advice that we must change our name before the Foundation recognises us, it is highly unlikely that recognition will ever happen, and I would consider that to be a less than ideal outcome.
This discussion between Bence and some project members six months ago, and this earlier discussion between Bence and James Heilman, our chair, over the recognition process for Wikimedia Canada cover some of the background of the present situation. -- Anthonyhcole ( talk) 14:16, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
Hi Geoff, I'd like to draw your attention to a particular discussion. The point at issue is whether this article about a website should include a link to the subject website, in line with our usual practice for articles about websites. I don't mean to draw you into a content dispute, but several editors have claimed that there is a legal issue here that the WMF will have an opinion on, possibly including an office action to prohibit the link from being included in the article, and at least two editors claim that they have already contacted the foundation. I'm all for involving the WMF when appropriate, and as an administrator I'm happy to enforce any WMF rulings and office actions, but in this case there are two meta-issues that concern me:
Thanks, Bovlb ( talk) 05:45, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
Hi Bovlb,
Thank you for contacting us about this issue. We have looked into this matter and believe that the decision as to whether the linked website in question should remain linked from Wikipedia is one that lies with the community. We trust the community's judgment here and do not believe this matter rises to the level of an office action at this time.
The Foundation has actually drafted some guidance on linking liability consideration, which you may find useful.
As to your second question, with rare exception (such as execution of a formal DMCA takedown notice), the community is free to work within ordinary community processes in evaluating content, even if there is a legal issue involved. That said, if any user believes there is a legal issue involved, they should feel free to contact the Foundation's legal team. We are always happy to take a look at these kinds of issues.
Hope this helps! Michelle Paulson (WMF) —Preceding undated comment added 18:17, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the swift response Michelle. That's very helpful. Bovlb ( talk) 05:42, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Hey I have had a heated discussion with editors and administrators regarding the fact that the logo of the 2018 Olympic Games is in Commons. I am concerned that the IOC being very protective of its brands, some persons could believe that they are free game in good faith reading Commons, start using these logos for their own purposes and get into trouble with the people from Lausanne. Thanks for the consideration you grant to my request. Hektor ( talk) 08:27, 22 May 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.147.45.90 ( talk)
Hi MR Brigham. I think my question for you is a simple one:
Serial sockpuppeteers are a major timesink for Wikipedia, inhibiting the ability to work on articles as much as we'd like to. Can WMF issue some sort of cease-and-desist order to the ISPs of serial sockers? I'm assuming that repeated use of Wikipedia against WMF's TOS is itself a violation of the TOS of most ISPs, which I'm guessing means that individual ISPs can then either decline service entirely, or filter Wikipedia out for individual subscribers. Can WMF do this, and would WMF do this to protect the project? And if not, why? Thanks, — The Potato Hose 19:40, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
Please take a look at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Is Wikipedia subject to gags by British courts? It seems that in the case of one of the articles police have already forced an admin to do certain edits. Both matters involve publishing the identities of crime victims. Roger (Dodger67) ( talk) 10:39, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
In a discussion with Jimmy Wales on the moral rights of the photographers and the personal rights of the subjects, he said "I think that the commons community has gone down a very sad and disappointing path with respect to ethical matters. My views on this are not new, and are well known. Our project is a grand humanitarian effort. That it has been hijacked by people who do not share our values is something that needs to be fixed."
We further requested him to bring this matter to the attention of WMF and make a resolution or something to force Commons make enough policies to protect our rights as a photographer and our commitments to our subjects. He replied: "I am just one board member on this issue. I will continue to call this to the attention of the board and staff, but I need help from the community to illustrate that this is a problem that concerns many of us."
So we would like to bring that discussion to the attention of every member on board. J Kadavoor J e e 11:17, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Even, when a 16-years old kid hounded by a bully admin under an indifferent watch of the WMF and the Arbcom feels like killing himself? Wont to see the links? I would have provided you with some, but I am trying to protect the kid here. 76.126.32.64 ( talk) 23:15, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
Not that I want to use it or anything like that. Just saw it and wondered. Perhaps this specific image could be "grandfathered in". Smallbones( smalltalk) 15:18, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
Hi, sorry to bother you. I recently changed Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks ( diff) to try to reduce our potential liability for defamatory statements republished by third parties. My concern is simply that we shouldn't make blanket claims about republishing being "legal". I don't know if that's really a problem, but I suspect that anyone who finds themselves libeled in any Wikipedia article that was "legally" republished in my (British) jurisdiction would attempt to sue the republisher who might then claim against WMF etc. Anyway, over to you. - Pointillist ( talk) 21:34, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
I have found some of my articles being sold through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. as books (See [1]). It appears that there are fake reviews that help deceive customers that these are valuable items rather than merely reprints of wikipedia articles (See [2]). All of this activity seems to be done by VDM Publishing. Does wikipedia have any particular stance on VDM Publishing?
Hi Geoff. You undoubtedly know that the subject of this Wikipedia article has begun legal proceedings against some Wikipedia editors. For info, I've just closed an RfC to do with the article: Talk:Yank_Barry#RfC:_Should_Barry_be_characterized_as_a_former_member_of_The_Kingsmen.3F. Thanks. Formerip ( talk) 22:54, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
Hello,
I've recently noticed that Wikimedia Commons contains at least one, and probably more, classified documents from WikiLeaks. I posted to Commons' village pump to ask how such material can be legally hosted on Commons, and was told that the matter is somewhat unclear. Do you (or anyone else at the WMF) know if there is or should be a policy or law forbidding classified material on Wikimedia projects? Thank you for your time,
-- Jakob ( talk) aka Jakec 18:58, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
There's a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Harassment#Example 3 where I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts, or those of anyone from the WMF Legal group. Thanks! -- Tryptofish ( talk) 00:28, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Welcome!
Hello, Geoffbrigham, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a
Wikipedian! Please
sign your messages on
discussion pages using four
tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out
Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}}
before the question. Again, welcome!
Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (
talk) 19:32, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
I have a new idea for the page edit notices. Nathan2055 talk - review 20:59, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Dear Mr. Brigham:
At a recent RfC on allowing non-administrators to view deleted pages, you stated that the proposal would probably create legal problems in the short run (and Congressional acts as a possible longer-run consequence).
“ | I've been asked to step in and give the Foundation's legal view on this question. My view as the Foundation's general counsel is essentially the same as that outlined by Swatjester [below]. Allowing non-administrator users to have access to deleted pages would vastly increase the frequency and volume of legal complaints. (It could have even worse consequences than that in the long term, up to and including corrective legislation by Congress, which would be a disaster.) It is difficult to overstate how much legal and practical difficulty this would cause the Foundation. To be frank, community adoption of such a disastrous policy would create an actual emergency that would likely require Board intervention. I normally favor and support community-driven initiatives, so please believe me when I say I am not raising this set of concerns lightly. The current system is not broken -- so the best advice is 'don't fix it.' MikeGodwin ( talk) 13:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC) | ” |
— 13:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC) Mike Godwin, legal counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation |
“ | I have been asked a couple of times whether, as WMF's present general counsel, I share Mike's view as expressed above. I can confirm that I fully agree with Mike's assessment. Geoffbrigham ( talk) 02:18, 27 August 2011 (UTC) | ” |
— 02:18, 27 August 2011 (UTC) Geoff Brigham, general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation |
Your response provokes me to ask two questions:
Thank you for your attention. (I would understand if you would prefer not to state anything at the present time or here.)
Sincerely, Kiefer. Wolfowitz 11:16, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
FYI, on my talk page, editor Malleus Fatuorum whether the WMF legal team know that 1500 English administrators (many of them minors) have access to deleted content. Kiefer. Wolfowitz 22:01, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at
Wikipedia:OTRS_noticeboard#Idea:_OTRS_feedback_board.
MorganKevinJ
(talk) 19:48, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
We have set up a local protest site and made a banner for the german Wikipedia that could be used as it is. Do you have any suggestions for things we should do? -- Liberaler Humanist ( talk) 23:04, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
RE: "Definition: Foreign Internet site used to conduct business directed to U.S. residents OR that otherwise demonstrates the existence of minimum contacts sufficient for the exercise of personal jurisdiction over the owner or operator of the Internet site consistent with the U.S. Constitution; according doesn’t not cover such sites as .com, .org, .biz, etc.; "
PS: Sorry, but could only post here, as blog comments are closed.
Thanks for keeping us all informed! Wikicat ( talk) 22:16, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
I discussed your role the blackout (critically) in a blogpost here. If I have made any errors in fact I welcome correction.-- Brian Dell ( talk) 08:22, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Can an image that contains a screenshot of copyrighted software be released as CC-BY-SA? For example, a picture of a turned on computer, with the screen showing copyrighted software such as File:MicroDigital Mico running RISC OS 4.03.jpg or a tv screen showing a logo such as File:Pace DSL4000.jpg. Could you point me to any guidelines regarding such uploads? I am asking as there are a number of such images as part of the Commons:Chris's Acorns batch upload. Smallman12q ( talk) 23:12, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
The terms of service (tos) of Discipline Global Mobile ( DGM, a record company) expressly prohibit links to any page except the DGM homepage. The tos warns that copyright violations will be pursued legally with tenacity. There is discussion at the talk page of WP's article on DGM's founder, Robert Fripp:
Thank you for any attention.
Sincerely, Kiefer. Wolfowitz 21:56, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Per subject. The Rambling Man ( talk) 21:19, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
Hi Geoff,
I hope you don't mind, but I've made a few changes to your user page, which you can view in this diff. My edit summary should explain most of what I've done, but well done on managing to use the template, it can be quite complicated to understand templates at first. When we link "internally", that is, to other Wikimedia wikis, we use something called Wikilinks, as opposed to external links (that you place in single square brackets, for example [http://www.google.com This link to Google] will produce This link to Google).
I've left
User:Geoffbrigham/Info as it is for now, but if you'd like for it to be deleted (so that you or another member of staff don't use it accidentally!), I can delete it, as can
other,
admins that you just might be more acquainted to.
The Helpful One 23:34, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Hi Geoff; maybe you could chime in over at Commons, commons:Commons:Village_pump/Copyright#German stamps again - quick action needed? - there are currently thousands of stamps from Germany at Commons, labeled as being in the public domain, which doesn't seem to be the case according to the Loriot decision, so what should Commons admins do now? Gestumblindi ( talk) 21:47, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
There is currently a dispute between one user versus some of us sysops over our recent blacklisting of nfohump.com to prevent people from linking to it in Wikipedia articles. The rationale for blacklisting is that because nfohump.com is a warez related site, and Wikipedia servers are located in Florida, then linking to any warez-related site site would be considered a form of contributory infringement in the United States ( Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry).
MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#nfohump.com has the discussion that resulted in the blacklisting.
User:Ondertitel challenged the blacklisting in a section further down the page (see MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#.nfohump.com), stating that nfohump.com only makes .nfo files (information text files) available from each release by a warez group, and in no way facilitates access to any illegal content, and removes any crack codes from the .nfo files prior to publishing them. After looking at a few samples on nfohump.com, I agree that these .nfo files are pretty benign, typically containing an ASCII-art banner from the cracker group accompanied by a rude message or shout-out to their buddies.
I declined the request to remove from the blacklist with the reasoning that, while I myself don't personally see anything amiss, it is better to err on the side of caution and blacklist it, and defer to someone who can offer a legitimate legal opinion. If you wouldn't mind, browse a few links on www.nfohump.com and respond here on your talk page or at MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist. Thanks. ~ Amatulić ( talk) 20:39, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Hello Geoff. I believe there are legal implications involved in the issue raised at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 108#"Speedy deletion wiki". Best regards-- Fuhghettaboutit ( talk) 19:16, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
A user who asked to have one of his pages deleted was puzzled to find a copy of it still on http://en.wikipedia.g-webs.com/wiki/. I know they are quite entitled to copy WP content, but are they allowed (a) to use the logo and (b) to use a web address that starts "en.wikipedia"? The whole layout is so similar that it seems deliberately deceptive. JohnCD ( talk) 00:17, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
I just got a complaint about this rather different site (warning, many rude words). This one is much more difficult to misinterpret, but it does have the "a Wikimedia Project" button in the bottom right, and a messed-around version of the trademarked globe in the top left, as well as the statement "PULP-PEDIA® IS A FAGGOT REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF THE SHITTY PULP-MEDIA FOUNDATION, INC!", with the latter being a link to www.wikimedia.org ... and also lots of basically unattributed Wikipedia content (presumably dynamically generated.) -- Demiurge1000 ( talk) 21:15, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi, would it be possible to get a statement regarding the issue described in Wikipedia talk:Pages needing translation into English#Copy of Google translate = copyright violation?? If machine translations create a copyright of the translator (e.g. Google) on the translated contents, then WP has a big problem to sort out since that happened frequently so far. If not, then everything is fine from a legal point of view. Thanks El reggae ( talk) 14:56, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
There is currently a mediation case open to determine the proper use of the band name, "The Beatles" or "the Beatles" in running-prose. As the issue of trade marks has come up, I wondered if you could shed any light on the issue for us. As both "Beatles" and "The Beatles" are trade marked, is wikipedia in any way forced to use "The Beatles" mid-sentence, or is "the Beatles" acceptable in the legal sense? Thanks for you time. ~ GabeMc ( talk| contribs) 01:36, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
Also, if editor "A" says, "Remember, 'The Beatles' is a registered trademark of Apple Corps Ltd.", isn't this tantamount to a legal threat? Afterall, the point of the above statement seems to be "if we don't cap all the definite articles in Beatles related pages then we might get sued by Apple." Any thoughts? ~ GabeMc ( talk| contribs) 22:29, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
I've been advised to bring this to you. I've found that grimepedia are using the tern 'Grime Wikipedia' in their site. I couldn't find any contact info but you can see one example at http://grimepedia.co.uk/wiki/Add_Yourself_To_The_Grime_Wikipedia and there are a few more in the site. I found this by accident (not being even sure what 'grime' music is) in the course of an AfD, while establishing that it isn't a reliable independent source. They are probably unaware that Wikipedia is a trade mark, so I had thought of sending a message sort of friendly, like... But couldn't. Probably better through you, anyway. Peridon ( talk) 18:40, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
http://wikipediawriters.com -- Orange Mike | Talk 01:57, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Could you comment on whether we need to make disclosures of commercial conflicts of interest a hard requirement to comply with recent FTC regulations? There is a discussion with links here. This has been prompted by the recent German court decision against a corporate COI Wikipedia editor. The German court found that even talk page disclosure of COI wasn't enough, since consumers likely wouldn't read the talk page. I don't know if we need to go that far here, but our current COI policy of "gently encouraged disclosure" probably doesn't go nearly far enough to protect us from potential liability. Gigs ( talk) 21:46, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
I hope that the response below is helpful. I apologize, but I'm afraid I do have to include the following disclaimers:
The Foundation does not need to make disclosures of commercial conflicts of interest a hard requirement. The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has extremely limited jurisdiction over the activities of nonprofit organizations. The FTC Act gives the FTC authority over “persons, partnerships, or corporations.” ( 15 U.S.C. § 45(a)(2)). The Act defines “corporation” as any company, trust, or association, incorporated or unincorporated, “which is organized to carry on business for its own profit or that of its members.” ( 15 U.S.C. § 44). The Wikimedia Foundation does not fit within this definition.
The FTC’s jurisdiction does extend over certain nonprofit entities. But the Wikimedia Foundation does not conduct the types of activities that would expose it to FTC jurisdiction. The FTC has jurisdiction over any nonprofit association that “provides substantial economic benefit to its for-profit members.” ( California Dental Ass’n v. FTC, 526 U.S. 756 (1999)). Thus, a nonprofit trade association organized for the profit of a particular industry would be subject to the FTC’s jurisdiction. The Foundation does not exist for the benefit of any profit-seeking members and is not the sort of nonprofit organization that would be subject to FTC jurisdiction.
Further, the recent FTC regulations do not contemplate liability for organizations such as the Foundation. The Foundation is not an “advertiser” or “endorser” as defined in the recent FTC guidelines. See 16 CFR § 255.
Companies that endorse or advertise products through Wikipedia must keep in mind that both U.S. and foreign laws may apply to their actions. According to the recent FTC guidelines, “[w]hen there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), such connection must be fully disclosed.” 16 FCR § 255.5. If a company posts information about its own products or services on Wikipedia (or if an advertiser or marketing agency is being paid to post such information), the connection should be fully disclosed. -- William Kelly, Legal Intern, WMF —Preceding undated comment added 22:30, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi,
It would be greatly appreciated, if as the WMF's legal expert you were able to assist Wikipedians in providing an appropriate response in relation to a number of articles covering the recent 'child abuse' allegations in the UK. From what I can gather certain claims were made in various media outlets (and in other on-line but unreliable sources), which resulted in a senior political official who was wrongly identified having to issue a strongly worded denial. The same senior official is apparently now considering legal action to get various internet posts that wrongly identified them and linked them with the ongoing abuse allegations. At some point, these claims (or the denial of them) were mentioned in Wikipedia articles, although in respect of one article these were revison deleted per the existing BLP policy.
It would be appreciated if acting in your role as General Counsel, you could begin a dialogue with the named official's legal representatives,with a view to ensuring Wikipedia's coverage is fair, accurate and proportionate. Sfan00 IMG ( talk) 13:45, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
FYI: a new user, Shadow003 ( talk · contribs), has said that this article "contained false and slanderous information, and it has been formally contested by Mr Briatore’s lawyer with a letter of formal notice to the Wikimedia foundation." See WP:ANI#Legal notice, WMF involvement? and WP:BLPN#Flavio Briatore. Regards, JohnCD ( talk) 13:46, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
Some information for you:
Uncle G ( talk) 16:54, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
Hi Geoff. I'm on the board of the above. In this comment, Bence of ChapCom says, "WMF will not provide any recognition or trademark permission until Wiki Med Foundation changes its name legally to another name that is acceptable to AffCom and WMF Legal." I was already aware of AffCom's view regarding our name, but I wasn't aware until he posted that comment that you'd offered advice on the matter. Could you please confirm that you have advised the Foundation not to recognise us under the above name?
I should point out that the board is very attached to the existing name and it is highly unlikely to change the name without good cause, and none of us believes the present argument from AffCom (that it may be confused with Wikimedia Foundation) has any merit. Some view AffCom's stance on this as being a simple exercise in dominance. (We incorporated without involving AffCom.) I have no view on the latter point. If it is your advice that we must change our name before the Foundation recognises us, it is highly unlikely that recognition will ever happen, and I would consider that to be a less than ideal outcome.
This discussion between Bence and some project members six months ago, and this earlier discussion between Bence and James Heilman, our chair, over the recognition process for Wikimedia Canada cover some of the background of the present situation. -- Anthonyhcole ( talk) 14:16, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
Hi Geoff, I'd like to draw your attention to a particular discussion. The point at issue is whether this article about a website should include a link to the subject website, in line with our usual practice for articles about websites. I don't mean to draw you into a content dispute, but several editors have claimed that there is a legal issue here that the WMF will have an opinion on, possibly including an office action to prohibit the link from being included in the article, and at least two editors claim that they have already contacted the foundation. I'm all for involving the WMF when appropriate, and as an administrator I'm happy to enforce any WMF rulings and office actions, but in this case there are two meta-issues that concern me:
Thanks, Bovlb ( talk) 05:45, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
Hi Bovlb,
Thank you for contacting us about this issue. We have looked into this matter and believe that the decision as to whether the linked website in question should remain linked from Wikipedia is one that lies with the community. We trust the community's judgment here and do not believe this matter rises to the level of an office action at this time.
The Foundation has actually drafted some guidance on linking liability consideration, which you may find useful.
As to your second question, with rare exception (such as execution of a formal DMCA takedown notice), the community is free to work within ordinary community processes in evaluating content, even if there is a legal issue involved. That said, if any user believes there is a legal issue involved, they should feel free to contact the Foundation's legal team. We are always happy to take a look at these kinds of issues.
Hope this helps! Michelle Paulson (WMF) —Preceding undated comment added 18:17, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the swift response Michelle. That's very helpful. Bovlb ( talk) 05:42, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Hey I have had a heated discussion with editors and administrators regarding the fact that the logo of the 2018 Olympic Games is in Commons. I am concerned that the IOC being very protective of its brands, some persons could believe that they are free game in good faith reading Commons, start using these logos for their own purposes and get into trouble with the people from Lausanne. Thanks for the consideration you grant to my request. Hektor ( talk) 08:27, 22 May 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.147.45.90 ( talk)
Hi MR Brigham. I think my question for you is a simple one:
Serial sockpuppeteers are a major timesink for Wikipedia, inhibiting the ability to work on articles as much as we'd like to. Can WMF issue some sort of cease-and-desist order to the ISPs of serial sockers? I'm assuming that repeated use of Wikipedia against WMF's TOS is itself a violation of the TOS of most ISPs, which I'm guessing means that individual ISPs can then either decline service entirely, or filter Wikipedia out for individual subscribers. Can WMF do this, and would WMF do this to protect the project? And if not, why? Thanks, — The Potato Hose 19:40, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
Please take a look at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Is Wikipedia subject to gags by British courts? It seems that in the case of one of the articles police have already forced an admin to do certain edits. Both matters involve publishing the identities of crime victims. Roger (Dodger67) ( talk) 10:39, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
In a discussion with Jimmy Wales on the moral rights of the photographers and the personal rights of the subjects, he said "I think that the commons community has gone down a very sad and disappointing path with respect to ethical matters. My views on this are not new, and are well known. Our project is a grand humanitarian effort. That it has been hijacked by people who do not share our values is something that needs to be fixed."
We further requested him to bring this matter to the attention of WMF and make a resolution or something to force Commons make enough policies to protect our rights as a photographer and our commitments to our subjects. He replied: "I am just one board member on this issue. I will continue to call this to the attention of the board and staff, but I need help from the community to illustrate that this is a problem that concerns many of us."
So we would like to bring that discussion to the attention of every member on board. J Kadavoor J e e 11:17, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Even, when a 16-years old kid hounded by a bully admin under an indifferent watch of the WMF and the Arbcom feels like killing himself? Wont to see the links? I would have provided you with some, but I am trying to protect the kid here. 76.126.32.64 ( talk) 23:15, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
Not that I want to use it or anything like that. Just saw it and wondered. Perhaps this specific image could be "grandfathered in". Smallbones( smalltalk) 15:18, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
Hi, sorry to bother you. I recently changed Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks ( diff) to try to reduce our potential liability for defamatory statements republished by third parties. My concern is simply that we shouldn't make blanket claims about republishing being "legal". I don't know if that's really a problem, but I suspect that anyone who finds themselves libeled in any Wikipedia article that was "legally" republished in my (British) jurisdiction would attempt to sue the republisher who might then claim against WMF etc. Anyway, over to you. - Pointillist ( talk) 21:34, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
I have found some of my articles being sold through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. as books (See [1]). It appears that there are fake reviews that help deceive customers that these are valuable items rather than merely reprints of wikipedia articles (See [2]). All of this activity seems to be done by VDM Publishing. Does wikipedia have any particular stance on VDM Publishing?
Hi Geoff. You undoubtedly know that the subject of this Wikipedia article has begun legal proceedings against some Wikipedia editors. For info, I've just closed an RfC to do with the article: Talk:Yank_Barry#RfC:_Should_Barry_be_characterized_as_a_former_member_of_The_Kingsmen.3F. Thanks. Formerip ( talk) 22:54, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
Hello,
I've recently noticed that Wikimedia Commons contains at least one, and probably more, classified documents from WikiLeaks. I posted to Commons' village pump to ask how such material can be legally hosted on Commons, and was told that the matter is somewhat unclear. Do you (or anyone else at the WMF) know if there is or should be a policy or law forbidding classified material on Wikimedia projects? Thank you for your time,
-- Jakob ( talk) aka Jakec 18:58, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
There's a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Harassment#Example 3 where I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts, or those of anyone from the WMF Legal group. Thanks! -- Tryptofish ( talk) 00:28, 10 February 2016 (UTC)