You know, this just reinforces my belief that companies these days are either unable or unwilling to accept the fact the Internet has fundamentally altered the economical reality of this day and age by proving that a beta form of "enlighten socialism" can in fact exist in this day and age. Companies across the world need to accept that for the first time in history humanity need not pay for information, goods, services, or other material that can be freely acquired on the internet. The fact that companies would sue simply to retain their misconceived and now obsolete economic ideologues demonstrates to me that these people can not be trusted with the future that our generation is building. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:40, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What a sad commentary of the times, and I am very glad to see that Wikipedia is supporting these two volunteers. It's a sad state of affairs when one gets sued for trying to help mediate in a Wikipedia discussion, which in my opinion is generally a thankless activity anyway, somewhat akin to getting on your knees and scrubbing out the toilets. Jane (talk) 08:35, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's reasonably clear to IB that Wikitravel is a lost cause; the purpose appears to be to intimidate volunteers on their other sites from daring to do the same - David Gerard (talk) 12:00, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The headline is too sensational. The volunteer has not even been served. And there will be a long time and many hurdles before any "trial." "Sued" yes, "facing trial", no. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:00, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's odd: the title of the summons is "Internet Brands, Inc. ..., plaintiff v. William Ryan Holliday, ... and James Heilman, inclusive, defendants." And see "JURY DEMAND" after paragraph 58: "Plaintiffs request a jury trial on all claims so triable." And Paragraphs 3(a) and (c) on p. 9 both refer to "trial". The title of this article is framed "set to face", not "face". Tony(talk) 14:17, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, I think you're off base here, Tony... One is not "set to face trial" if one has not even been served papers... One is "set to face trial" as soon as a court date for a trial is set... "Wikipedia volunteers face potential trial" is about as far as I'd go. Carrite (talk) 17:44, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It was reverted by Tony, but I agree that the title is misleading. My impression from the title was that the trial date was already set. This should be retitled "Wikipedia volunteers sued", which is entirely factual and not subject to misinterpretation. —howcheng {chat}17:47, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The deeper underlying issues here is about collaborative communities.
Communities like those writing Wikimedia and Wikitravel are purely members of the public. They write content in the same way they go to a local jazz or story-writing club. They are bound to the websites as much as a group of individuals is bound to stay with a club venue it habitually visits (ie not at all).
They have the right to decide individually or en masse that they don't like how a club is changing, or to decide to explore going to another club instead.
They have the right to have other people suggest other clubs to them or demonstrate that their wishes for a club are better met with another club than their present one.
It is allowed whether or not the "others" are affiliated with or socially members of another club.
It is allowed commercially in a free market (eg, when a telesales person suggests to many people they change car insurers or a business targets a competitor with an offer) although this is not the situation here. It is not "interference" to compete or be able to meet someone's needs better when they are dissatisfied. It is normal social activity and commercial activity to do so.
Either way it is very clearly allowed.
So the issue here is that many members of the public writing Wikitravel content wish, for whatever reasons, to consider moving their "writing club" elsewhere.
They have the absolute right to do so.
They have the absolute right to discuss such a move as members of the public with a common social activity, and no legal obligation not to.
They have the absolute right to have other sources of hosting and services liaise, open dialog, or respond to dialog with them, much as if a new club venue is considered.
And, because their entire writings to date are CC-by-SA, they have the absolute right to export the existing text if done correctly - which was never IB property.
Unfortunately the state of the law is such that one cannot compel any distributor of content to continue to distribute it, even if it is to facilitate migration to a new site. This is why it is critically essential for backups of the entire state of a site to be continually created and archived in a peer-to-peer fashion by its members, or by a trusted third party like Internet Archive. If dumps or an API aren't provided, then web scraping can be developed. Some content distributors attempt to quash such attempts at preservation in their terms of service by failing to provide dumps and disallowing web scraping, etc. - any such distributor should be quickly abandoned in favor of one that provides positive migration rights. I'm only too familiar with this from my experience with TV Tropes, which had no qualms about killing entire sections of their site just to make their ad sponsors happy, with no warning (see TV Tropes deletes every rape trope; Geek Feminism wiki steps in). I believe WMF has clauses in its terms of service relating to smooth migration in the event of a shutdown (someone fact check this?), but not all providers are so generous. Dcoetzee20:56, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is disappointing that Wikipedia and Wikitravel didn't try to work out a way to synchronize their Wikis so that the two sites could function in unison, which would have been an opportunity to expand the functionality of Wiki software. I suspect there are niches for private companies in Wiki content generation - for example, professional administration, paid positions to handle backlogged tasks, smart and safe handling of ads carefully solicited to add value to entries. But when this company claims that people contributing their content under a CC license are in fact assets, property of the site owner, and that the right of people to speak with them can be legally circumscribed - that is far beyond the pale. Wnt (talk) 02:21, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Internet Brands wouldn't be interested in such a scheme: they are—like patent trolls—a non-practicing entity; doing little to develop the intellectual property they bought, only collecting the advertising revenues. Their downfall will fortunately be that they only own the Wikitravel trademark and not its community or content. —Ruud17:29, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the comments above that it might be best for the headline ("set to face jury trial") to be rephrased. There are many possible scenarios, such as IB's case being dismissed on a motion to dismiss or on summary judgment, in which the case would not go to trial. Without getting into the merits of this specific case, as a general statement, only a small fraction of all civil cases filed in American courts actually wind up going to trial. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:24, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree with the arguments concerning the original title of the piece, but I'm not going to argue further and have changed the title in accordance with the objections.
We might consider avoiding bad grace about the company (which made a business error in purchasing a trademark almost entirely reliant for its profitability on content it didn't and can't purchase). One might hope that the company affords the community and the foundation the good grace we might show it. More importantly, we need to encourage support for the two editors who've been caught up in this unpleasant scenario.
On a positive note, we need to start thinking as individuals about the challenges of starting the new sister project, which will stimulate our best minds. If it's done well, it could be a great service to the global public and could set new standards for travel information. I can think of a number of policies and guidelines that might need to be adapted for the specific environment of an educational travel wiki; in particular, how to deal with product placement will be an issue.
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