We are faced with an issue of convenience versus freedom when we talk
about licensing images. Because we are a nonprofit charitable
organization with an educational mission, we can easily get non-free
licenses to use images. Because we are a nonprofit charitable
organization with an educational mission, we can make heavy use of the
doctrine of "fair use" in the US.
But should we?
One of the things that our reliance on these alternatives does is work
to undermine our broader mission, by reducing the incentive for the
creation of free alternatives. It's more work to get those free
alternatives, but the result will be worthwhile, I think.
We can set aside most of the licensing and legal issues, because I
think we're fine there. Clause 7 of the license permits us to combine
independent works, even proprietary works, and this clearly includes
aggregating images and articles stored on the same server. For fair
use, the license isn't implicated or violated in any way.
So I think resting our rejection of licensed and most fair use images
on that argument is mistaken. I don't think that argument is valid,
but more importantly, I think that argument is too hyper-technical and
legalistic, implicitly assuming that it's o.k. for us to do it if the
license says it is o.k.
The moral argument is the one that matters. Should we make use of
materials that are available only to us because of our special
circumstances, or should we follow a purist GNU philosophy?
I think we all know what Richard Stallman would say, and I for one
will agree with him completely. The Wikimedia Foundation should be a
beacon of what is possible with copyright freedom, and we should not
allow anyone to ever point at our work and say "Yeah, they talk the
big talk about free licensing, but what would their site be without
all those proprietary licensed images and fair use exceptions?"
If that means less images for now, then it means less images for now.
It also means that we have a very strong incentive to develop free
alternatives.
--Jimbo
Imran Ghory wrote:
> I would like to propose the following:
>
>That any new image uploads should be required to give a source for the
>image (be it a URL, book or photographers name). Failure to provide a
>source should make an image a candidate for speedy deletion.
>
A required field in the upload page for source information is an
excellent idea. I would not carry it so far as to subject images without
source information to speedy deletion, at least not in the sense that is
practiced on en.wikipedia. Such images should go on VfD if there is
concern about the use, to allow time for us to track down the actual
source and investigate whether we can still use the image.
Improperly used and inadequately documented images are a big problem,
but there's also a danger of overreacting to the problem. Let's not
resort to draconian measures in solving it.
--Michael Snow
Hello,
My name is Joshua Holman, known on the EN WP as 'Hoshie'.
I have joined this list to offer input to make the WP better.
Joshua Holman
AKA Hoshie
Andrew Lih wrote:
>One of the most standard outlets for press releases is PR Newswire.
>It costs some money to put it on there, but we can investigate the
>cost and see if it's worth it.
IIRC, about two years ago it cost US$200 to post a press release to a website
like that. Even if it were twice as much now I think it would be worth it and
would more than pay for itself in donations.
-- mav
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Erik wrote:
>NO. Images are a far too sensitive issue to allow speedy
>deletion. There must be due process to prevent legitimate
>fair use cases or unrecognized PD works from getting deleted.
Hm. Good point. My intention with my las email was to point out that images are
rarely put through the amount of scrutiny that text is. Waiting 5-7 days is
good enough for me.
I still think there should be moratorium on all uploads until with get a handle
on the current situation.
-- mav
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Imran wrote:
>That any new image uploads should be required to give a source
>for the image (be it a URL, book or photographers name). Failure
>to provide a source should make an image a candidate for speedy
>deletion.
I agree with this 100%. There is no way a use can be considered fair without
such information. I also think that this is already implied by our current
policies against copyright infringement. We have just been way too lax on the
issue.
--mav
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Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Michael Snow wrote:
>
>>Well, you've had disagreements with at least two so far.
>>Though of course, lawyers frequently disagree with each
>>other, too. It's sort of an occupational requirement.
>>
>>
>Actually I agreed with and helped to defend most of Alex's positions -
>including most of his views on using fair use materials in Wikipedia. Our only
>major disagreement was the last one (which turned out to be a misunderstanding
>
Many disagreements are really misunderstandings. Ours was to some extent
as well. It doesn't mean that we will always disagree any more than you
and Alex would. Points of agreement generate less discussion--if I had
agreed with you initially, I wouldn't have piped up at all. Anyway,
disagreement is not the same as disrespect, and you have treated me
respectfully throughout this discussion. I hope you would say the same
of me.
>>We would have to make sure we mention the source
>>and the name of the author.
>>
>>
>Exactly! We have WAY too many images that don't have this type of information.
>IMO, we should stop all uploads and launch a tagging effort. Once that is fully
>underway a form should be added to the upload page that would force uploaders
>to enter text into author, source, and license fields. I consider the current
>situation to be untenable and dangerous to the long term viability to the
>project.
>
Now this, I agree with almost totally. I'm not sure it's necessary to
actually stop uploads completely--that feels really drastic, and perhaps
we could develop the upload form first and then go back and tag the old
images that predate the form.
>To even have a chance of being considered fair, the use *must* give author
>info, no?
>
The way I read the Berne Convention, yes. Fair use law in the US doesn't
necessarily require attribution, because US copyright law historically
has shown less concern for the "moral rights" of authors.
>>I think this can pretty much resolve the issue for text, and
>>an argument can be made to apply it to images and sounds
>>as well.
>>
>>
>Yep. That is my IANAL interpretation. Has this been tested for non-text
>content?
>
I'm not aware if relying on Article 10 has even been tested in the
courts for text. As a practical matter, copyright holders often
calculate that it's not worth the effort to go after this kind of use.
The use may well be considered legitimate, and it tends to be on a
low-level scale anyway.
--Michael Snow
Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Michael Snow wrote:
>
>>My criticism was primarily out of concern
>>that people might read your statement as
>>reflecting the actual state of the law,
>>
>>
>Well IANAL but I do often agree with them and their reasoning.
>
Well, you've had disagreements with at least two so far. Though of
course, lawyers frequently disagree with each other, too. It's sort of
an occupational requirement.
>>especially coming from such a widely
>>respected source.
>>
>>
>I wish everybody would just take my statements at face value and not add
>special significance (good or bad) to what I say just because I said it.
>
I doubt that's completely possible for you anymore here. You're not
Jimbo, but most regular users probably know who you are. I expect Jimbo
probably avoids expressing his personal opinions in some situations,
just because people might attach too much weight to them.
>>Ultimately, the GFDL and fair use are incompatible.
>>
>>
>
>No they are not - not any more than any other set of license terms. It doesn't
>matter what license terms you have on a work - if you strip away everything but
>the fair use content then the use is no longer fair (whatever the license). The
>fact that the GNU FDL is involved is irrelevant.
>
I consider it both relevant and different from other licenses. The GFDL
is a form of copyleft, and in my opinion, you can't copyleft something
if you don't own the copyright. We don't own the copyright to our fair
use materials (not when considered separately), yet we appear to be
licensing their use under copyleft. It's quite different than if we were
licensing our content under terms that were designed to limit everybody
else to fair use as well. However, if you feel that our disclaimer of
warranties shifts the obligation to downstream users, making it their
job to determine what they can legally copy, that's a reasonable
position to take.
>Otherwise we could not even have small quotes from copyrighted works.
>
As I have pointed out in some of my other posts, there are other legal
justifications for quotation besides fair use under US copyright law. I
believe we should shift our reliance to Article 10 of the Berne
Convention, which specifically allows quotation of published works. We
would have to make sure we mention the source and the name of the
author. I think this can pretty much resolve the issue for text, and an
argument can be made to apply it to images and sounds as well. In any
case, the Berne Convention has much wider international acceptance than
fair use.
--Michael Snow
You created a statu of bureaucrat so Wikipedias are not any more need to
request the developers to ratify the vote of the new administrators, but the
only user who has this statu on French Wikipédia is a user that don't taking
part in French Wikipedia and who don't speak French. Can you make some
French-speaking bureaucrats?
Aoineko
Hi,
I've noticed that several articles on broad topics are actually
massive collections of links to subtopics. (Look at many of the
topics in the "Encyclopedia" section on the main page. [[History]]
is a good example.) IMHO this should be improved, because it puts
off the reader who is not an expert in the field. So I suggest
that we make a conscious effort to describe the field at a basic
level in entry-point articles. [[Philosophy]] looks very good to me.
Comments?
Arvind
--
Its all GNU to me