[Foundation-l] Fair use images

Wed Mar 8 16:06:33 UTC 2006

GerardM wrote:

>Hoi,
>Your plea is not well targeted. Commons our principal resource for the
>storage of media does not allow for "fair use" images. You describe a
>problem that is different depending what resource you target, many
>projects have different rules as to "fair use". The rules of new and
>the existence of "fair use" material differ as well. These rules have
>changed over time consequently pictures that complied with the rules
>at that time would not comply anymore.
>
>So yes, there is a problem. What is the problem that you want to
>address. What do you propose to do. Who do you want to do this?
>
>It is not as if people are not aware of it. It is not as if people are
>not actively dealing with it. My point is that we need people to DO
>things and not to cry wolf.
>
>Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
>On 3/8/06, ! Chris Sherlock <ta.bu.shi.da.yu at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>Short and sweet: we have too many of them, most of them aren't being used as
>>"fair use" images, many don't have sources, almost none have fair use
>>criteria, and more than a few are being used in articles that have no real
>>need for them.
>>
>>May I suggest that we start taking action on this issue? IMO they are a
>>ticking time bomb waiting to go off. Not only that, but they are diluting
>>the "freeness" of the project and causing problems for those who want to use
>>our material unaltered.
>>
>>TBSDY
>>    
>>
I think Gerard is dead on with this one.  Is it en.wikipedia that is 
having a serious problem?  Policies and guidelines within Wikipedia are 
fairly explicit about what is permitted and what is not, although it 
does take some digging around to find the policies.  For en.wikipedia, 
you have:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AFair_use

which BTW is just a "guideline" but does cover some of the reasons to 
have fair-use content on Wikipedia.  Another page to look at is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AFair_use_criteria

which is "policy" but does seem to duplicate much of the previous page.

For en.wikibooks, due in part to some recent discussions here on this 
mailing list, I started the following policy with a solicitation request 
for comments:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks%3AFair_Use_Policy

It is on the fast track to becoming an enforced policy, and by using 
these guidelines it is proposed that we delete content that may even be 
legal for us to have from a strict interpretation of fair-use laws but 
from the standpoint of project policy it would be unacceptable.  Noted 
especially is parody applications of fair-use which is going to be 
explicitly prohibited from Wikibooks, and a recommendation to use 
Uncyclopedia if you really care to parody something.  The other point is 
that if the use of the image is not explicitly permitted under the 
fair-use policy, it is considered a copyright violation (barring content 
acceptable to Commons).

BTW, I want to thank the administrators of the Italian Wikipedia for 
showing me their policy on this issue, which the Wikibooks policy was 
adapted from.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning