[Wikipedia-l] What would Richard Stallman say?

Fri Feb 20 05:08:34 UTC 2004

Stan Shebs wrote:

> Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
>
>>> There is clearly no consensus to delete images we have permission to 
>>> use.
>>>
>>
>> But we obviously don't. I can't legally print it with the article and 
>> sell it,
>> so it's not acceptable.
>>
> What makes you so sure about that? Are you a copyright expert, or have 
> you
> gotten a statement to that effect from a copyright expert?

I'm not a lawyer, but that interpretation seems consistent with the "do 
fair use images violate the GFDL?" discussion.  Fair use images, it 
appears, do not in fact violate the GFDL, because they're a special case 
of conditionally-public-domain material, so the GFDL doesn't apply, 
because copyright law does not apply.  But with special-permission 
images, copyright law *does* apply.  And the GFDL explicitly prohibits 
editing a GFDL work by inserting non-GFDL'd components.

There is the aggregation defense that has been alluded to, but I think 
inserting an image in-line in an article is clearly making it part of 
the article as one work, not merely distributing it on the same medium.  
If all the images were on separate pages (as in an appendix, perhaps), 
then that'd be another matter.

So, in my non-legal opinion, I don't think we can legally include 
special-permission images in GFDL'd articles, as doing so is a violation 
of the GFDL's "all edits must also be GFDL'd" requirement.

(Again, fair use and public domain images excepted.)

-Mark