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

Thu Nov 16 03:01:37 UTC 2006

On 11/15/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> First, cases where the copyright holder doesn't care about the content
> being in Wikipedia are primary candidates for obtaining free licenses.
> I mentioned this in the part above the cutline. A primary objective of
> our project is increasing the free content of the world. By accepting
> non-free material from friendly copyright holders we are failing at
> that important goal.
>
Greg, I'd like to make a point about how difficult it can be to comply
with the image policies. I'm also confused as to whose interests we're
acting in when we insist on using only freely licensed material.

The usual response when I write to a living person to ask for a freely
licensed image of them is 'Yes of course you have my permission,"
followed by how much they love Wikipedia. I have to write again
explaining about our policies, our aim of making freely licensed
material available, the need not to rule out commercial use etc.
Sometimes they get it the second time. Often they reply: "I hereby
license the image for anyone to use with no restrictions, for
educational purposes." I have to write again and tell them "for
educational purposes" is a restriction. I usually have to give them
the precise words they need to say in order to release the image
entirely.

By the time this is done, I feel very exploitative of them. I want
their image on WP, they want it on WP, and the article is more
informative for having it. So it's win-win. And yet I have to insist
that they abandon all rights before that win-win situation can be
acted upon. It feels irrational.

My question is: who are we doing this for?

Any responsible publisher who wants to use our material will check the
copyright situation for themselves; they won't rely on us saying we
have an e-mail releasing all the rights. The release of images isn't
like the release of text, where all Wikipedians release their work by
virtue of editing. Images releases are done one-to-one, different
editors use different approaches, and the copyright holder only has to
say they didn't understand what they were agreeing to for the license
to be invalid.

As for irresponsible publishers, they won't care whether we have a
free license or not; they'll use our stuff regardless.

So what kinds of publishers are the potential beneficiaries of our
image policies?

I'm not asking this in a spirit of opposition, by the way, in case
it's taken like that. I'm genuinely confused.

Sarah