[Foundation-l] a new free image!

Wed Feb 28 19:22:53 UTC 2007

teun spaans wrote:
> I still havent read any good argument for allowing fair use, except that the
> english wiki is using it en masse. Which sounds like a very strange
> argument, it is like saying: it is forbidden to spit, but as everyone spits,
> we allow it. If everyone would be indulging in PAs on the english wiki,
> would we allow them too
I fail to see what the problem is with very narrow categories of image 
types that may not be strictly available under a FLOSS license.  I would 
count among those types of images that are reasonable applications of 
fair use would include:

* Official government seals and symbols, including flags
* Official government documents such as passports, stamps, currency, 
banknotes, etc.
* Corporate Logos and trademarks, where their usage is directly tied to 
content specifically about that organization

All of these sorts of images are routinely used by major publishers 
under fair-use provisions, where formal permission is not usually 
granted by the various corporations and government entities.  All of 
these sorts of images, however, have been banned on Commons.  I'm not 
here to change commons policies, but these sorts of images can make or 
break some Wikibooks or Wikipedia articles, and I have seen all of these 
used in commercial encyclopedias as well.  Imagine what a book about 
stamps would be like if you couldn't show the actual stamp.

It should be noted that all of these kind of images do fall under some 
sort of perpetual protections where copyright as it is usually defined 
doesn't normally apply.  And unless the company goes bankrupt or the 
government of the country whose symbols you are showing ceases to exist 
due to warfare or cataclismic disaster, they will never ever be free in 
the FLOSS sense of the term.  Perhaps a *very* enlightened group might 
grant logos under the GFDL or something similar, but look even to the 
WMF to see how likely that would be.  The only "free" logo I know of is 
the GNU Gnu of the FSF and I'm not even sure about that.

Another very legitimate application of fair use is to quote text 
verbatium, provided you distinguish it somehow (such as put it in block 
quote area or use quotation marks) and cite the source as a 
bibliographic reference.  This is indeed fair use rationale in nearly 
every case where it is used, and one of the reasons explicitly why the 
fair-use doctrine was codified into the United States Code.  There are 
extreme cases of textual quotation that does go over the top as well, 
but generally it is obvious enough when that happens that most people 
can come to a concensus and say "let's chop this quote down" or rework 
the lengthy quotation.

The problem is that happens with photographs and rendered graphical 
images is that the rationale for fair use is very, very weak, and 
unfortunately the current internet user culture is such that most people 
think that once you have "obtained" an image, that you own it and have 
unlimited reproduction privileges on it.  We all know this (at least on 
this list) to be a completely incorrect viewpoint, but the academic 
standards for including images just havn't been pushed into our heads to 
the same degree that similar duplication of textual material would have, 
even if we have a strong respect of copyright as a general philosophy.  
Modern textbooks, magazines, and newspapers hardly help either when it 
seems as though large portions of the content are displayed in photo, 
charts, and other graphical images.  Some children's textbooks in 
America have so many photos that you start to wonder where the actual 
content of the textbook itself might be found.  It is no wonder that a 
Wikipedian upon looking at a well developed article that would otherwise 
be a feature article candidate looks empty and missing something when 
there are no images to be used with the text.  Most of the project users 
have grown up with the multi-media barrage in daily life and simply 
expect it to be there.

I support severe limitation on the use of fair-use material within 
Wikimedia projects, but I think that a complete and total ban is simply 
too much.  There are legitimate applications of fair use, and the 
question that really confronts us is to define just how tight we want to 
draw that line.  Unfortunately, with the diversity of people 
participating in these projects (especially Wikipedia), it seems very 
unlikely that you are going to come to a general agreement about where 
that line ought to be drawn even by those who might want to put some 
strong limitations on fair use content.