[Foundation-l] Fair use being badly abused on en.wikipedia

Mon Jan 7 19:17:59 UTC 2008

On Jan 7, 2008 2:12 PM, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:

> Wouldn't it make sense to enforce the restrictions on non-free images
> prior to upload rather than after, when its become viewed as 'content'
> part of an article and folks are distressed about deleting it?
>
> If the object is to use non-free content only where we have to and
> until we no longer have to (which it is) then each instance of
> non-free content should be reviewed against this rubric before being
> uploaded into the article space. By a person, or a group of people.
> This may create a different sort of backlog than what we've got, but
> at least it is a review/inclusion backlog rather than a deletion
> backlog.
>
> Uploading is easy - making a superficially sufficient fair use
> rationale is easy. Finding and deleting these images once they have
> been uploaded is difficult, and the images are a risk and a violation
> of our license while they remain. Therefore, the logical response is
> to make uploading non-free content harder.
>

I'd be for that. There would be problems with people falsifying licenses,
but that's probably more manageable than the current situation. Right now,
fair use abuse creeps into the project over time, and the tools to manage it
are woefully inadequate to that task. An approvals board would go a long,
long way (possibly all the way) to halting this problem in its tracks.

Hammersoft