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

Wed Nov 15 23:41:00 UTC 2006

On 11/15/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> There are two more angles that are of significance:
>
> 1) The legal.
> 2) The ethical.

[discussion of each snipped]

I think that the vast majority of these 'fair use' images are not
images in either problem category.  Most that I've seen are
fundamentally images whose licenses/permission would permit them to be
used on Wikipedia - in other words, we won't be sued for using them,
nor will their creators have an issue for them to be used here.  The
issue is that the licenses, while permitting use on Wikipedia, don't
count as sufficiently free to be acceptable.

In other words, 'fair use' is being used as an end-run around the
prohibition of non-free with-permission.  The only conflict is with
Wikipedia policy, not the law or general ethics.

-Matt