[WikiEN-l] "Fair use" images of living people

Wed Nov 15 20:16:50 UTC 2006

Our fair use policy states -- correctly, I think -- that we should not
use fair use for generic images and should remove any non-licensed
images which can be reasonably re-created as free images. The goal
behind this was to discourage unnecessary invocations of the fair use
clause, as well as to encourage free content to be created whenever
possible.

That's all well and good. But does this mean that NO images of people
who are currently alive can be used under "fair use"? After all, if
they are alive, potentially one could take a picture of them and
license it as GFDL.

It sounds like an absurd interpretation of the intention of our "fair
use" policy to me, but this is how people have been insisting on
interpreting it at the Wikipedia:Fair Use talk page. I think this is
foolish on many levels -- it has absolutely nothing to do with either
legal issues or free content, it effectively results in the
jettisoning of many perfectly fine "fair use" images which just happen
to be of living people, and it focuses people attention on the most
immaterial fact-y aspects of "fair use" policy rather than trying to
actually understand how to implement it or why it works the way it
does. I think it is a policy which will cause more trouble that it
will benefits.

That particular interpretation of the policy slipped into the main
policy without any discussion.

I've given up on trying to participate in this discussion, though, as
it has, in my opinion, been hijacked by people who really just see
this as a way to get rid of "fair use" media on the English Wikipedia.
While I can see the ups and downs of "fair use" usage, I think that's
a separate issue that should not be what comes into play in
discussions of policy implementation. If the explicit desire is to get
rid of fair use alltogether, this should be handled in a direct
fashion, not in these indirect, five-and-dime approaches.

I'm just posting it here so that people who care about either our
"fair use" policy or about whether Wikipedia has sensible policies or
not can participate either way on the discussion. What disturbs me the
most about it is that many of these changes which will have vast
effects on the use of "fair use" media on Wikipedia are only being
discussed among a very small group of very interested people. In my
opinion if one is to make such a draconian rule as "no living people
allowed", one must gain a certain amount of legitimacy for it, either
by showing it to be in accord with a substantial popular opinion or
from our non-popular authority structures (i.e. by fiat of a
recognized authority).

Just FYI. Discussions taking place at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Fair_use
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Images_of_living_people

The criteria in question is FUC #1:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fair_use_criteria

You can find a long rant from me about it -- with more eloquence than
this little note here, in my opinion -- at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Fair_use_criteria#FUC.231_and_people

At this point I don't care either way about it as I've gotten really
sick of even trying to participate in en policymaking especially in
the "fair use" area, as it has gotten clogged with extremists of all
opinions and nobody seems to have much of an interest in creating
sensible, rational policy (I'm aware not everyone will share my
interpretations or cocerns). I just want to open up the discussion a
bit so that people won't be surprised when the day comes that when
five people at WP:FU change our policies and start deleting images
left and right.

I don't think Wikipedia is a waste of time but it certainly caters to
those with time to waste.

FF