[Foundation-l] Celebrity pictures

Sun Aug 27 21:09:16 UTC 2006

On 8/27/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> 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.

I agree with that. Fair use is something each language wikipedia decides for
themselves. But since this would (positive thinking, if it succeeds) benefit
all wikipedia's, commons and the like, I thought it was fitting for the
foundation.

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 know, I try do to it myself all the time (well...now and then anyway).
Sometimes with success, sometimes not.

>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?

As long as they are really fair use images, nothing wrong of course. Like
the stereotypical examples of the flag of Iwo Jima, the Kim Phuc Phan Thi
image, album covers and many others. I just seems to me that fair use is
used too easily. Grab a picture from the web, upload it, add a fair use tag
and you're done. I just prefer if more was free as in free content. Which is
just my opinion btw.

Garion