[Wikipedia-l] What would Richard Stallman say?

Thu Feb 19 17:42:52 UTC 2004

On Thursday 19 February 2004 12:34 pm, Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Sascha Noyes wrote:
> > > Like when can't we avoid using "fair use" images ?
> > > It's actually very simple to do - just don't use them.
> > > You can still write good article without a few images.
> >
> > Have a look at [[My Lai Massacre]], [[Donald Rumsfeld]], etc. There are
> > plenty of historical events that have copyrighted pictures, where there
> > is no possibility of replacing them with free ones. (Unless, of course,
> > you have a time machine)
>
> They are easy to replace with nothing though. I think it's worth it.

Obviously we could just throw them out. That'd be exceptionally stupid, 
though. Why is taking away relevant material from our readers good? In my 
other email I've stated that the "maximum reusability" argument fails if we 
package our material carefully. The only other argument I see is that we 
somehow want to be "pure", and free from fair use images. In my valuation, 
giving our readers relevant material that is nearly impossible to give under 
the gfdl counts for more than gfdl "purity".

Best, 
Sascha Noyes
-- 
Encryption key available from http://www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc