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

Fri Jul 8 17:30:21 UTC 2005

Jimmy:

> I am happy to contribute a photo of Mickey Mouse which I took myself
> while visiting Disney World in Florida.  While there might (conceivably,
> but doubtfully) be some complex issues related to copyright in the
> character, I think this is a very very "clean" fair use as compared to,
> for example taking a scan of a drawing directly from Disney or (worse)
> simply downloading an image from a Disney website.

Yes, that's probably true. Disney got a lot of press when they went 
after bakeries selling Mickey Mouse cakes. However, it is still fair use 
- many Wikipedians seem to believe that a photo of a character, a 3D 
figure, or similar can somehow be GFDL. That is not the case. While I 
believe in limits to fair use, I think in cases where we will never 
conceivably get a free image (high profile cartoon characters being the 
best example indeed), fair use needs to remain a legitimate course of 
action.

My favorite example of circumventing copyright is still this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Micky.jpg

Maybe we need to talk to WikiProject archaeology. There must be a Bart 
Simpson in Pompeii somewhere. :)

> It is my position, speaking generally, that we ought to crack down quite
> a bit on "fair use", not because there are any legal problems with what
> we are doing now, but because it makes it harder for people to reuse in
> jurisdictions with bad fair use provisions, and because an excessive
> reliance on fair use tempts us to be lazy about creating freely licensed
> alternatives.

Strongly agree with the laziness argument. Unfortunately, cracking down 
on fair use without prohibiting it entirely is very tricky. Various 
approaches have been tried. It would probably be best to give users a 
preselection of a number of reasons, and to not allow fair use beyond 
that (the number of reasons could be expanded and restricted as we learn 
more).

> But for now, I think the first campaigns for cleanup should be (1) any
> remaining untagged images and (2) the elimination of non-free (such as
> "by permission") images.

That makes sense.

Erik