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

Wed Nov 15 20:21:17 UTC 2006

Fastfission wrote:
> 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.

I actually raised the question of this (the "realistically replaceable"
part, to paraphrase) at the talk page, and was surprised to find out that
this had nothing to do with possible legal ramifications, but rather just
to direct behavior.  Obviously, available free > fair use, but I'm not
convinced such activity is in the best interests of the encyclopedia. 
Fair use = better than nothing, as long as the rationales are clear and
we're not put in legal hot water.

-Jeff

-- 
If you can read this, I'm not at home.