[WikiEN-l] Non-free images, there has to be a better way

Fri Jul 8 16:30:09 UTC 2005

As to the question of "where" it applies -- I'm under the impression
that it applies wherever we could be taken to court. Since the
Wikipedia servers are in the U.S., then we are primarily under U.S.
law, yes? Could someone in the U.K. take us to court if we have a
branch set up there? The question of jurisdiction seems important in
something like this where it is a very country-by-country question...

The problem with treating copyrighted images the same way as
copyrighted text is that not all media react the same way under
copyright law. Copyrighted text can be easily turned into free text
through rephrasing and citation. Copyrighted images cannot so easily
be transformed in this way (some, such as diagrams, can, but
photorealistic images, not so easily), so copyright laws hold them in
a much tighter noose.

Which is to say -- I think we should treat infringment of copyrights
on images which as much suspicion as we would copyrights on text, but
unfortunately in many cases that simply means we will be hurting for
images, whereas for text it just means we have to get creative. But
such is a small penalty -- most encyclopedias don't have one tenth the
images we have on here, reducing them a bit won't put us any worse off
in the long run.

FF

On 7/8/05, Theo Clarke <wiki at tignosis.com> wrote:
> It seems to me that we need a much clearer and exclusive explanation of fair use. I believe that the prevalence of copyright images with inappropriate fair use tags arises from a widespread misunderstanding of the concept.  I recognise that some people are waging war on copyright but I think that this is a small minority and most misuse is unconscious.  The example of the news photos from other sources being reproduced on our stories about the subject is just one instance. We have copyright portraits illustrating biographies under a fair use banner, copyright landscapes illustrating topographical articles, and so it goes on. Furthermore, given that fair use is an essentially US construct, it seems inappropriate to apply it to images from elsewhere. Fortunately, the UK and most Commonwealth nations have a similar "fair dealing" construct so legitimate use of many images remains viable. Ultimately, however, I believe that we should  accord copyright images the same respect that we do copyright text.
> 
> Theo
> 
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