[WikiEN-l] "Fair use" abuse on user pages

Fri Sep 23 01:30:30 UTC 2005

There *was* such a flow chart at one point, or an equivalent of one
(if it has this, go to B, if not, go to C; and in the end you'd end up
with "can use it" or "can't"). The problem was that it was confusing
and rarely ever used.

Thus was my impetus to re-write the tags so that they would be
self-defining. When incorrectly used they make it clear as such. It
seems to have been having some small effect, I've been told, but it's
hard to know for sure.

The problem of course is that there is not an easy way to write a
"blanket" tag -- I'm not at all sure how {{fairuse}} itself should be
rewritten, but it probably ought to be.

Some of what you're suggesting is currently on WP:FU, which was
recently rewritten.

One thought I honestly had on this was to write a little Wikibook on
fair use and copyright law -- it wouldn't be that hard to write a
basic primer that you could refer all people who just don't seem to
get it to. But I haven't had the time.

(And honestly, "reform" gets me down -- it is always met with strong
objections, some good and some less so, from people who do and do not
understand, and people who let the perfect get in the way of the good.
And a project where there is little authority and an emphasis on
consensus, it's hard to be successful at instituting big changes. But
this is hardly unique to just this little effort, which has been
considerably smoother than many others I'm sure. And, perhaps most
fortunately, there are others willing to take on the effort as well,
which really does make a huge difference on an individual level!)

FF

On 9/22/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was actually thinking to create a flowchart for people to easily determine
> the copyright status of images, but lacking the legal know-how, I haven't
> done it.
>
> Not only would such an aid in determining image status be helpful to people
> who are new to legal issues on this, it could also be used as an argument to
> not allow images that don't get through this process for being a copyright
> infringement or faulty fair use claim.
>
> We should also have a page saying how we should only have limited fair use
> images on articles (and not on userpages) where there's no other
> alternatives or 1 such image in an article when it explains a lot (again, if
> there's no other choice).
>
> --Mgm
>
> On 9/23/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 9/22/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > I agree completely. Last time I checked, the deletion policy is very
> much
> > > so
> > > biased toward keeping everything by requiring a supermajority to delete.
> > > It
> > > should be the other way around whenever a fair use claim is made.
> > >
> >
> > Remember that a fair use claim would come under the Copyright policy,
> which
> > being a key policy takes precedence over the deletion policy.
> >
> > In short, if someone makes a fair use claim they should need a consensus
> to
> > support it if anything.
> >
> > Under deletion policy, the rule is "if in doubt, don't delete." The
> > copyright policy should adopt the reverse approach. Wikipedia is known for
> > the quality of its product. Let's not ever risk it being known as a
> > purloiner of other people's hard work.
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