[pydotorg-www] [PSF-Board] Nonprofit Academic Permission Request ::wpmc::10-17250

[Jeremy Baron]

On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 13:21, Radomir Dopieralski <sheep at sheep.art.pl> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 18:36, "Martin v. Löwis" <martin at v.loewis.de> wrote:
>> In the future, we may hint potential copiers that it may be easier to
>> ask for forgiveness than for permission. I doubt any contributor would
>> go after somebody making a mirror or an offline copy. But as for giving
>> permission: here I really hesitate without a lawyer telling me that I
>> can give such permission.
>
> IANAL, but as far as I know, copyright infringement is prosecuted only
> at the request of the injured party. So as long as you don't plan to
> sue them, they should be fine...

I think the concern was that there might be more than a few copyright
holders with unclear (or at least not obvious to someone new to the
site) records about who holds the copyright for which pieces. That
combined with the lack of a license or copyright grant (but IDK for
sure that one doesn't exist, just guessing from the thread) means
there's a lot (potential) of copyright holders to worry about. Even if
only using a part of the site or a part of the wiki.

A single copyright holder or a small group of them saying they won't
sue just applies to whoever said it (not to mention whether it's
binding); the total number of copyright holders could be far larger
than the group that made a statement.

-Jeremy