[WikiEN-l] Fair Use suppression getting silly

Tue Sep 27 07:06:35 UTC 2005

On 9/26/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have just discovered the school of thought that believes
> that including an image in a category contravenes the "Fair Use" principle
> because displaying the image on the category page amounts to using the
> image
> in an unfair way!
>
> Is it me, or is this just plain silly? A category is simply an
> organisational tool, not an article. Surely a case can be made that the
> proper categorisation of images within an encyclopedia is essential to
> using
> those images correctly.

As I understand it, if the image is not being used for the purpose of
education, satire, or review, we have no fair use claim to it. This is not
the same as saying it is not a "fair" use of the image, which is a
subjective judgment anyway. Put another way, "fair use" does not mean
"whatever is useful to us". We may only use it in a few specific contexts.
Using them as organizational tools for meta pages about the encyclopedia
doesn't qualify; therefore, such use would constitute copyright violation.

- Ryan