[Foundation-l] Re: Copyright issues...walking on thin ice

Mon Aug 9 23:26:03 UTC 2004

Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Dietrich von Hase <hase at akademie.de> wrote:
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>>....
>>As cameras are around today nearly everywhere and it is easy for 
>>everybody to make photos and there is also much open content or public 
>>domain material around - I personally think that it would not harm the 
>>success of Wikipedia in any way when fair use images are no more 
>>included. The growth rate of the number of images published on Wikipedia 
>>is about 25% a month - much larger then the growth rate of articles.
>>    
>>
>
>Until time machines are created so that the cameras you talk about could be
>used to snap photos of people now dead, events now past, and places now gone,
>we will continue to need to use low resolution versions of these images. 
>  
>
You are completely right, sorry, I forgot this aspect of possible topics 
and it will still take some time until time machines get public 
utilities for all Wikipedians ;-).

Nevertheless there is a vast number of images in public domain for these 
times either because copyright has already run out or because it is 
public domain material anyhow for time periods where at present the 
usual copyright period exists for copyrighted material.

It would be interesting to know whether Wikimedia ever really had to 
deal with a copyright violation legal case regarding pictures published 
or individuals publishing images in Wikipedia under fair use. If it is 
really more a theoretical then a practical question to deal with today - 
then it may be better to wait until  a real case happens.The potential 
financial damage could not be overwhelming if its only one picture which 
is under discussion.

Dietrich

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