--- Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)bomis.com> wrote:
There are currently 3 images on the page, all taken
from
indymedia.org. Two of them are likely taken by
IndyMedia activists,
They may even be Reuters, XingHua, or Agency Presse,
or other photos -- thought I was careful to select the
ones that were not explicitly labeled as the others.
Indymedia isnt very clear or concerned with proper
attribution, -- they arent making product - they
report news (or make news, depending on who you ask.
;)
The map is problematic, and it should be removed
before too long. (before someone copies it under
GFDL.) (BTW, why do some 4reference articles (WP
content) show up better than WP? )
fair use doctrine or no. IndyMedia is an extremely
political website
whose views are, ahem, quite different from my own,
but nonetheless I
suspect that they have no beef with our NPOV policy.
From what ive seen, Indymedia is slowly increasing it
standards becoming moderated -- they were hurt
severely when an anti-semitic post got them booted off
the Google wires -- but they still show up there
(marginally). The POV aspect of Indymedia is offset
however by the fact that they report on things that
mainstream media completely ignores. Until the 13,
hardly anyone in the US reported on the massacres --
let alone things like "15 soldiers executed for
refusing to fire on crowd" -- Its more than validity
and verification -- its plain news prioritation, that
more and more people are understanding as a thing WAY
out of whack in US media. (its why I decided against a
journalism carreer --in days before web pub'ng.)
It *does* strike me as likely that they would object
vociferously,
though, to re-use by potential re-licensees, and I
No, but we better get some communication with them to
get the facts straight. I dont think they are
concerned with copyright or left at all -- to they
point that they even ungratuitously boost content from
other newssources. I'm going to talk to someone there
--Im also curious about their technology --it would
seem that their whole process is gettig an overhaul
but there is no consensus on which direction. If they
were *talked* into using Mediawiki (instead of dead,
dead Twiki) it may score some more developers for
Mediawiki. (Im just getting into the IM thing... )
"The Independent Media Center is a network of
collectively run media
outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and
passionate tellings
of the truth. We work out of a love and inspiration
for people who
continue to work for a better world, despite
corporate media's distortions and unwillingness to
cover the efforts to free
humanity."
They are not too dissimilar.
Their efforts in this area, as far as I've been
able
to determine,
mainly consist of promoting tyranny around the world
as an antidote to
the problems of freedom and prosperity. ;-)
I disagree. Solidarity with the working man ain't
tyranny. Solidarity with Stalinist apologists is just
stupidity of course (or just part of the any warm body
welcome policy ). John Stossel has a nice new
editorial on this whole "do protestors help at all"
question.
But my
own political
leanings aside, it *does* seem likely to me that the
IndyMedia people
could be quickly convinced to adopt a policy
consistent with their own
stated goals, i.e. to release all their images under
a free license.
And to perhaps adopt NPOV too! ;) -- Super LPOV seems
to be shooting themselves in the foot in some ways. I
think some of them recognize it -- others well...
theyre just angry and angrier reactionists. Bakunin:
"Given six months, and the revolutionary will become
worse than the Czar himself."
If they could be so persuaded, then there would be
no problem at all
with our use of their images. They would achieve
some of their goals,
Let the GNUtually beneficial dialogue begin !
And here's where I think a too-easy reliance on
the
crutch of "fair
use" can be harmful. We have an opportunity before
us to encourage a
likely receptive audience to engage in free
licensing, and yet we have
passed on that because it's just too easy to take
their content and
mumble and wave our hands about fair use, knowing
full well that they
probably won't complain anyway.
So... you *have* been thinking along these lines for a
while...
Fair use is a dangerous crutch, and I *really* think
we need to start reforming our fair use practices
to be
*much* more
strict.
Or loosy-goosy. It may be that the goals of an
increasingly transparent and highly fast turnover news
site are simply incompatible with the goals of making
stuff to hold onto forever --They can always say
"sorry -- we'll take it down." By the way, Im going
to start doing some illustrations for some of the
articles -- with a request list.
Fair use is an absolute necessity for us in some
contexts. But it should be used judiciously and
with great > care, and only
when every
other (freely licensed) alternative has been
exhausted.
This kind of contradicts what you just said before.
Either fair use is a defense, or it is not. Where that
slider is set, is going to be harder to explain than
GNU is.
In this case, I think that hasn't happened. We
used
the images (well, Stevertigo did) because they were
good, > and because it was
easy.
All too easy -- but I guess that's the point.
~S~
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