Regardless of the strictness of the upcoming official statement from the
Foundation, I think our local fair use policy should stipulate that fair use
should only be used when absolutely necessary AND when no PD/copyleft
equivalent exists. Images with stipulations that restrict re-use should also
be disallowed. If someone is creating an image specifically for a Wikibook
it should be released under the GFDL to ensure the maximum compatibility.
I don't think we should go all the way and insist on Commons only, as this
would make many history books difficult to write--it's unlikely some dead
German general is going to claim copyright over a photograph of himself, but
if Commons was the only way such images would be impossible.
The goal is to find a happy medium, and watch non-free uses closely. Other
sites have had trouble with people tagging fair use images as PD or
GFDL-self, so we'll need to watch for that too. I don't think this is an
impossible goal, however.
--Garrett (I almost signed with ~~~~)
On 17/02/07, Iamunknown <iamunknown(a)gmail.com> wrote:
What I consider terrifying is the fact that the statute of limitations
for copyright infringement in the United States is very ambiguous:
technically, it is only three years, but there are numerous
contradictory cases.
Consider this example. I publish a book in August 2005. Another person
copies an entire chapter in December 2005 without permission and for
profit, directly infringing upon my exclusive right to the material,
including it in their book. Their book is published September 2006. A
second edition is published September 2007. It is still on the market
for several years to come. Courts might consider the December 2005
copy the original date of infringement, others might consider the
September 2006, the 2007, or even the later dates when the book is
still being published. Furthermore, there is ambiguity as to whether
one can sue for damages only based on the past three years, or on the
entire time the infringement (in this case) was in print.
I know that it is pure speculation and copyright paranoia, but it is
frightening. Also, I want to say that even if we decide what we would
like to limit (or outright ban) regarding fair use, we should: (1)
wait for the official statement from the board and (2) get help from
foundation-l or more qualified legal personnel. But I would certainly
support discussion about what we would like to allow or disallow.
Also, I think we should seriously consider cleaning out our fair use
archives...I can testify from roving through the subcategories of
[[:Category:Wikibooks images]] that we have a lot of things that
should never be considered fair use.
-Iamunknown
On 2/16/07, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
It's more then just our legal risk in keeping
those images and text.
Under
US copyright law, we should be legally allowed to
use some copyrighted
material under fair use guidelines without causing any problems. There
are
several problems with fair use:
1) Fair Use only applies in the US and a small handful of other
countries.
In countries where fair use is not legal, all
instances of it are
considered
copyright infringement. In these countries, it is
not legal to print or
distribute wikibooks containing fair use media.
2) Fair use, or other limited licensing (such as "the author allows this
image to be used on wikibooks only") reduces our ability to print,
distribute, and modify our texts. Derivative works, a cornerstone of the
GFDL are not compatable with fair use, and using two incompatable
licenses
on a single aggregate project (such as a
wikibook) is simply not
possible.
3) Many people assume that text or an image can
be released under fair
use
when it can't be. Images that are uploaded
under "fair use" are usually
(as
you pointed out) not properly tagged or
referenced. These instances of
misuse do constitute copyright infringement, and that could bring
lawsuits.
We allowed fair use for a pretty long time on our
project, but it isn't
the
kind of fight that we should be pursuing any
longer. There are too many
problems with it. -
--Andrew Whitworth (Whiteknight)
From: "Matthew Benedict"
<mattb112885(a)gmail.com>
Reply-To: Wikimedia textbook discussion <textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>To: textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] Textbook-l Digest, Vol 33, Issue 8
>Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:07:29 -0500
>
>Now that I have thought some more about it, I do feel that the use of
>fair use images should be limited, but the problem is where do we draw
>the line? We'd have to ask ourselves if the value of using the images
>in the book outweighs the legal risk of listing it under fair use,
>especially if the books will eventually be published in some manner,
>as I presume is one eventual goal for any book on the project. I think
>that only in extreme cases (such as maybe those european history
>images) should fair use be presumed, and these cases should be clearly
>defined, perhaps on a case-by-case or strict categorical basis.
>
>As for textual quotations, I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that the
>presumption of fair use for these (provided they are properly cited of
>course) is more common than the presumption of fair use for images. If
>we're going to do that we'll need some kind of standard method to
>describe the rationale for the fair use argument, like wikipedia has
>for images (i.e. this is a screenshot used only for illustration, this
>is a low-res company logo used to show what it looks like, etc).
>
>Speaking of citation, one problem with current fair use images is that
>a lot of them don't really cite the source properly; i.e. who created
>it? From what source was it derived? This information should be in the
>image page, but often they just have descriptions of what the image
>is, not where it came from or who the current copyright holder is,
>which can cause problems of its own.
>
>Regards,
>
>Mattb112885
>
>
>On 2/16/07, textbook-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org
><textbook-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > Send Textbook-l mailing list submissions to
> > textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >
> > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> >
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
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> >
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> > than "Re: Contents of Textbook-l digest..."
> >
> > Today's Topics:
> >
> > 1. Regarding fair use (Iamunknown)
> >
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Iamunknown <iamunknown(a)gmail.com>
> > To: textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 00:52:49 -0700
> > Subject: [Textbook-l] Regarding fair use
> > I really don't want fair use to go totally away, but I agree that it
>should
> > be significantly limited. The clause, "Because of our commitment to
free
> > content, this non-free media should not
be used when it is
reasonably
> > possible to replace with free media
that would serve the same
>educational
> > purpose," in Kat Walsh's statement comes to mind. While I have
expreseed
> > concern on-wiki and on-mailing list
before about unlicensed images,
many
> > which, if licensed properly, would
remained unlicensed and used
under
>fair
> > use, I think that we should not outright ban unlicensed content used
>under
> > fair use. In particular, we should allow very very limited use of
>non-free
> > media when it would be practically impossible to use free media --
the
media
used in the European History wikibook comes to
mind -- and for small
textual
quotations. What are everyone else's
feelings?
-Iamunknown
--===============8126416904983688626==--
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