Comments:Wikimedia Foundation receives copyright infringement claim from Mormon Church

Kinda funny
This almost became a non-story and the Mormons turned it into one, smooth move on their part. ;) --TUFKAAP (talk) 01:31, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Their part might have been a mistake. :-P DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 01:37, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Streisanded (what is the post tense of streisanding?, that just doesn't look right ), I remember the original story was almost deleted on the grounds of being a non-story lol. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.35.192.193 (talk) 13:28, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * FYI, by "Streisanded", the previous commenter is referring to Streisand effect. Also, for some fun reading check out the front page of Slashdot.  Cirt (talk) 15:33, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Placing private material in an open forum appears, at first thought, to be a good thing. But with consideration and an understanding of humankind over the centuries, it is clear that doing so weakens the rights of individuals and organizations in the long run. Today it is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Tomorrow it will be you. It has been proven time and time again, that freedoms, once relinquished, for whatever reason, are extremely difficult to take back once given up. Usually these freedoms must be reestablished through the the loss of life through bloody battles. This is usually how the freedoms became available in the first place.

The rights that Wikki uses to publish this content are being eroded by the very actions Wikki imprudently presses forward with. Wikki, in the name of truth, is like the man hosing off the driveway of his sand castle, oblivious to the effects it is having on him. Wikki, by continuing this course of action, chillingly becomes that antithesis of it's stated goals and objectives.

All freedom loving people should be outraged by this blatant display of disrespect that has been masked in the name of truth. You don't have to be a Mormon, Catholic, Protestant, Scientologist, Satanist, Jew, Agnostic, Atheist, Black, White, Hispanic or any any other labeled group to see what is really going on here. This is an attack on freedom of speech by those who do not understand it and who have never had to give their life to obtain it. This behavior ultimately prevents people from speaking and publishing free thought, beliefs, and important private documents for internal use because it leads to intellectual terrorism.

As Pogo, the inventor of the Pogo Stick, so clearly stated, "We admit the enemy, and we is they!" Wikki is becoming it's own worst enemy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.14.99.13 (talk) 17:15, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

this is an attack on freedom of speech? can you elaborate on this a bit? i do understand the issue of intellectual property rights and privacy in this area, but i don't see how a document like this would qualify. i do not see this as a loss of rights on any level. -Imind (talk) 18:26, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this is an attack on freedom of speech.

It is an inherent right of all mankind to exercise the mind through thought and contemplation. Those thoughts are often published for any number of purposes and audiences. Sometimes the thoughts are written in a journal and are meant only for private consumption. A love letter, published on a piece of stationary and given to someone dear to your heart, is not intended for public consumption, but is published for a specific purpose and delivered to a specific audience. Human decency and etiquette would cause a person to restrain them self from publishing the love letter to an audience other than the intended recipient. Publishing the letter may lead to embarrassment, scorn, or harassment of the writer. Fear of these outcomes ultimately leads to self censorship in an attempt to avoid the possible painful results. Hence, expression is no longer free, absence of interference no longer exists, and the will of the individual who wrote the thought for a specific audience has been violated.

The people of the LDS church believe that God has revealed his will to them in the last days of the earth. They also believe that Jesus Christ has provided them with thoughts, revelations, and directions on how to manage his church until he returns. They have written them down and published them with the intended audience being Bishops and Stake Presidents (the leadership). These are private thoughts, revelations, and directions that have been written and published for a specific audience. It is the will of the church and it's leaders, that these writings remain only with the intended audience. There is nothing illegal in these documents. In fact, some have written that the content is actually mundane and boring. I would venture to say that if a law enforcement agency requested a copy to review the legality of what is being taught in the documents, that the church would happily provide a copy for review.

What we do not hold sacred (not secret) with respect to organizations, will eventually trickle down to the individual. If organizations fear the loss of control over their thoughts and contemplations, then the members that make up that organization will also eventually fear and self censor. It is human nature to reduce fear and pain. Self censorship will grow. Freedom of speech will wither and die.

This seems a small thing, but, drawing from the Mormon vernacular, one can say that through small and simple things, great (good or bad) things may be brought to pass.

And just to be clear, there is no distinction between protecting the will of an organization vs an individual. Organizations are a collective of like minded individuals, so different rules cannot be applied to organizations because it will effect the individuals in that organization.

Make no mistake, this is the back door to free speech terrorism.

It is unfortunate that our society has moved form decency and etiquette, and a persons word as their bond, to legal disclaimers, and having to use force of law to protect what is said in private. Now that is being threatened.

firstly, if i have edited your comments in any way i apologize, as i'm having difficulty with the page now and may have inadvertently deleted some of your comment.

while i agree it may show poor taste to publish works intended for private consumption, in some     instances, i still fail to see how how this is an attack on free speech, any more than any action that may potentially discourage one from expressing himself. that one's thoughts might be scrutinized, to any degree, is a fact of life, and this fear of scrutiny in no way forbids that expression. if we are going to concern ourselves with what might discourage expression, should we also not do away with any public critcism? again, i can see the benefit in protecting intellectual property, in the sense of disallowing others from obtaining financial gain from your ideas, but i cannot justify protecting those ideas from scrutiny, should they reach the public domain, and one should understand that writing these ideas down puts them at risk of exposure.

again, one could certainly argue that the release of this information is in poor taste, but i cannot justify making its release illegal, which i think is what you would want. please correct me if i'm wrong. how would one go about making this release illegal, and under what grounds? what if the information released indicated wrong doing by the party in question? should they then be able to keep it private simply becuase they don't want it released?

to reiterate, i do not see this as a loss of free speech, as the ability to express one's opinion is not being undermined.

- Imind (talk) 20:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)216.96.106.130 20:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

My opinion
As I added the 'infringing' link, I am putting my opinion on this incident here. Firstly, it is obvious that this is an incredibly short sighted move by the mormon church. The article was about to be deleted but now the original article was deleted and this article was written,

Secondly, the mormon church did not even file a proper DMCA notice. It was sent by Email!

Thirdly, our use was clearly fair use.

Anonymous101  17:50, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I thought the Handbook was in a downloadable file format. It needs to be disseminated before dissemination is quashed... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.160.242.195 (talk) 04:35, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

URL copyrighted?
I'm puzzled: how can the URL be copyrighted? As I understand matters, linking to copyrighted material on another site&mdash;whether or not that site has permission to host the material&mdash;is perfectly legal, otherwise websites like thepiratebay.com would have been taken offline years ago. So the claim can only be that the URL or the name of the link is somehow copyrighted, which as far as I'm aware isn't possible. Mike Peel (talk) 16:21, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Never mind: I found the Digital Millennium Copyright Act article. Crazy American laws. Mike Peel (talk) 18:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)