Bryan Derksen wrote:
Pedro Sanchez wrote:
Fair use depends on what specific use it is being put to, so there's no
one universal "yes" or "no" answer.
This is exactly why fair use presents us with such difficulties. There
are many instances where uses that would likely be recognized as fair
use by the courts, are not acceptable as fair use in Wikipedia. This is
a matter risk tolerance, and how much of a safety margin some of us feel
comfortable with. Naturally, that varies with the individual.
it's used
on a bazillion userpages
Fair use of images on user pages is never permitted, in accordance with
item number 9 at
[
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fair_use#Policy]. This image
appears to be so widespread in userspace because it was in a userbox at
[
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:1ne/Userboxes/User_abstractions] so
I've removed it from there.
They are never permitted on the English Wikipedia. The rule could be
different in the Portuguese Wikipedia.
To be valid fair use the article should be about that specific image in
some significant way. If there was a paragraph or section of the article
addressing it, perhaps - though in that case it would make more sense to
have the image presented individually in that paragraph or section. I'd
say it's best to assume not when the case is in doubt.
This, of course, reflects the English Wikipedia subset of fair use rules.
Some editors are hypersensitive about this sort of
thing. I still can't
figure out why the original image of the O RLY? owl isn't fair use in
the article [[O RLY?]], but endless battle isn't worth it.
This photo may be in the public domain by abandonment. This would
happen when an otherwise copyright item has been widely re-distributed
for a long time, and the copyright owner does nothing about it. This
photo was taken by a professional wildlife photographer who should have
a basic understanding of the rules. He uploaded the photo himself. Is
there any record of his complaining about its general use?
This is an argument that I would use with extreme caution. I would
define "long time" in this to be at least three years, that being the
U.S. statutory limitation period for launching copyright infringement
complaints in the courts.
Ec