[Wikipedia-l] Re: nonfree.wikipedia.org

Sat Feb 21 04:44:00 UTC 2004

Brion Vibber wrote:

> What I'm envisioning is an associated site to which non-PD non-GFDL 
> but-probably-ok-under-fair-use-for-a-non-profit-encyclopedia could be 
> uploaded and linked _from there_ to Wikipedia article names. The page 
> display on *.wikipedia.org could see when there's an associated page 
> and include a more or less prominent link to the photo/media page. 
> (For those familiar with Ward's Wiki, this would be similar to how 
> SisterSites links work.)
>
> To summarize:
> * images which can only be justified as "fair use" (for some uses, in 
> the US only) would not be uploaded to Wikipedia itself, embedded in 
> Wikipedia articles, or included in basic Wikipedia page/media dumps
> * but those images could be made available through Wikimedia's sites 
> (for acceptably fair use, in the US) and hyperlinked to Wikipedia 
> articles (not inline)
> * redistributors who determined the images were ok could still take them
> * redistributors who might not be able to use them don't have to mess 
> with it
>
> Would this be acceptable from legal, moral, and other standpoints? 

 From a legal standpoint, a separate site might be okay. To be safe, I 
would avoid anything that allows non-GFDL images to be printed or 
downloaded together with GFDL text.

It probably satisfies most moral concerns, but some purists might still 
say we're being intellectually inconsistent by promoting free content 
and using non-free images in any form.

 From a practical standpoint, shouldn't our energies be focused more on 
finding images that qualify as free content, rather than keeping images 
we can't use right now? Also, I doubt the site would get used much at 
all. Many users would continue with the default of uploading directly, 
even if we decide to segregate fair use images elsewhere.

Why not just tell people that if they have non-GFDL images, use an 
external link? We already have quite a few of these for paintings and 
other museum-type content. A lot of the pictures are from the Internet 
anyway, and there are other places to host stuff besides Wikipedia.

--Michael Snow