I'm not an
attorney, but U.S. copyright law, as spelled out in 17 USC
107, says that
"fair use of a > copyrighted work...for purposes such as
criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching..., scholarship, or
research, is not an infringement of
copyright." It goes on to specify
the following criteria to be used in
judging whether the use made of a work
constitutes fair use:
You seem familiar with copyright law. I have considered making Wikipedia a
little prettier by finding suitable pictures for some articles. If I find
a photograph of, say, a koala, and I want to add it to [[Koala]], is that
permissable (if I can attribute the photo)?
Probably not. I am not a lawyer, but the criticism and comment part of fair use
is criticism or comment about the work in question--that is, you can quote
part of
a novel in a review of said novel, or a photo of a koala if you're writing
a critical
article about the photographer's work.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr(a)redbird.org