[Foundation-l] Celebrity pictures

Sun Aug 27 20:08:20 UTC 2006

Garion96 wrote:

>I think, but I might be wrong, that something coming from the foundation
>would lead to better results.
>
Please define the demarcation between what should be foundation policy, 
and what policy should be in the hands of any given project.  Except for 
absolutely essential policies, most of it should be in the hands of the 
projects, and one needs to accept that any two projects can have 
different policies, including ones relating to fair use.

>To quote from anthony's mail. "Wikimedia is "powerful enough now that we can
>insist on [free images], and get it, from just about any celebrity".  Joe
>Schmoe Wikipedian is not, and if a dozen people contact someone claiming to
>be acting on behalf of the foundation, even that power is quickly going to
>dissipate."
>
The fact is that when you are determining whether an image is free there 
is a huge grey area.  The grey area includes a lot of images that would 
be free if people ever bothered to put in a little effort to make them free.

>I just now and then get discouraged when I see the fair use images mess on
>en.wikipedia. I do like it that we can use fair use though but it seem to
>be used too easily. If some good responses come from this, it would diminish
>a bit the excessive fair use there.
>
So what's wrong with having fair use images, as long as they really are 
fair use images.  Excessiveness has nothing to do with it; establishing 
quotas for the number of fair use images would open up the question of 
whose fair use to use.  It's good that you accept some fair use images 
but what makes the use excessive?

Ec