Axel Boldt wrote:
Now, I don't think Wikipedia is at any risk
whatsoever: if somebody
complains about an image, we simply take it down. We don't have money,
so we won't get sued. The downstream users of our materials however may
not share these luxuries, and in addition may have commercial interests
which weakens their fair use defense considerably. In effect our fair
use images shut out large classes of potential users of the
encyclopedia.
I agree with this assessment. I would add to this a general concern
that our use of images under "fair use" prevents the rise of a
stronger demand for really free sources of images.