More wiki
Two new wikis based on areas of law came across my attention today:
ukpatents and eppatents
These two site, both hosted on wikispaces, look like they concentrate on collecting the statutes themselves, rather than being a place for discussion and articles on the law of patents in the UK and EPC. Though useful, and certainly (in the UK) until the Statute Law Database extremely necessary, I wonder about how these will work out as a usable resource.
I’ve always thought it best to consider exactly what you want to get out of a wiki and how you are going to get it, rather than just jumping in and creating one (not to say that is what happened here). What process at these sites ensures that the law is what the site says it is? If the accuracy can’t be guaranteed, then what good is it? Statute law must be precise in order to be useful as a reference source.
Perhaps the rise of the ‘expert wiki’ is at hand? Limiting who contributes could be a partial solution to these problems.
In contrast to concentrating on statute law, the Personality Rights Database Wiki will collect articles and case briefs about Personality Rights from around the world. Though we certainly do not make any guarantees as to its accuracy, the point is to give a starting place for research — especially by simply collecting citations to articles and books on the subject. It will be a discussion place for what the law should be, not necessarily just what it is.
