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

Wed Jan 9 02:25:27 UTC 2008

Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Hoi,
> It is not the Wikimedia Foundation that operates on the assumption that Fair
> use and the GFDL are incompatible, it is the English language Wikipedia that
> does. The board of the WMF has been explicit in its choice of the license
> and has voiced it wish to do away with fair use. This has been roundly
> rejected by enough en.wikipedians, I can understand how this point be
> argued, and consequently putting a brave face on it, the board has allowed
> for a policy whereby it can be phrased under what conditions exception can
> be made.
>
> The way the policy is phrased is that for *every *project there has to be
> such a policy. This means that the assertion that Fair Use helps in
> disseminating knowledge is wrong; it only helps when a project has such a
> policy in place. Several Wikipedias have not and cannot. This means that
> Fair Use is mainly argued for English language content. The value of Fair
> Use is therefore not as great as the proponents want us to believe.
I don't dispute that the pro-fair use arguments are primarily from the 
English language projects, but as much as anything else that reflects 
traditions of English common law.  The idea that "Fair Use helps in 
disseminating knowledge" did not originate with WMF policy; it's a 
philosophical underpining which did not just begin with the US 
Constitution  Eighteenth-century books from the continent depended more 
often on the approbation of the king, something which was not a 
requirement in the English speaking world.

Ec