[Foundation-l] Fair use images

Thu Mar 9 20:33:16 UTC 2006

Ray Saintonge wrote:

>W. Guy Finley wrote:
>
>  
>
>>I think the first step is that any unlicensed image being uploaded as fair
>>use and does not have a source and fair use rationale should be speedied.  I
>>bet that's more than half of them right there.  The process of tagging them
>>as no source and then waiting a week is just way too long and too
>>susceptible to error.  It's the UPLOADER'S duty to make sure he/she is
>>meeting license requirements, if they aren't met the image should go.  It
>>shouldn't be the duty of the reviewer to prove it and that's usually the
>>perception.
>>
>>    
>>
>When you consider that some of these have already been here for a long 
>time without attracting attention, one more week is obviously a very 
>short time to wait.  It avoids the error of creating unnecessary 
>confusion.  Nobody's challenging the uploader's duty, or passing that 
>duty on to the reviewer; your unique perception does not make it so.  
>There's no reason to panic about this.
>
>Ec
>
>  
>
Keep in mind that many of the oldest images were uploaded before 
explicit licensing was required, and a general assumption that the 
content was uploaded with licensing under the GFDL.  That assumption has 
since been proven to be inaccurate in many cases, and a reason why this 
is no longer taken at face value.  Still, going after older unlicensed 
images is hardly a good policy, especially when the uploader didn't know 
they were supposed to provide licensing information.  For new images and 
recent uploads, yeah, you need to meet the licensing requirements.  And 
copyright enforcement is done on most images that are recent uploads.

I believe that Commons has been cleaned up of this older content, but 
en.wikipedia has a huge backlog of content review that may take years to 
go through before it is completely cleaned out and all of the older 
images have been verified (as much as reasonable) for copyright 
violations, and several other Wikimedia projects may have problems in 
this area as well.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning