[WikiEN-l] Non-free images, there has to be a better way

Mon Jul 4 17:08:36 UTC 2005

On 7/4/05, Haukur Þorgeirsson <haukurth at hi.is> wrote:
> > Mark, the goal of the project is to make a free encyclopedia. When we
> > speak of free we speak of freedom and not price.
> > There are already many good unfree encyclopedias, and you can even
> > obtain access to them at no cost.
> 
> Wikipedia has passed the stage of being comparable
> to other encyclopedias you can access at no cost.

It's an encyclopedia. It's always comparable.
... and just as is the case for any other encyclopedia, the world
doesn't end because we can't include some images.

> This argument is getting a bit tired. Do you have an
> [[IBM 360]] in your backyard? Do you have a [[Z machine]]?

Funny you should ask that...  
I don't actually have a IBM360, but I have at various times had a
number of large vaxen, and a few flavors of PDP.
I've also had in my garage at various times, an airport style x-ray
machine, several multiwatt lasers, the complete line of NeXT
computers, a large optical jukebox, several hundred Sun workstations,
and many other things.

So, no, I don't have a IBM 360, but people have a lot of equipment
that you wouldn't expect.. If not at home then at work... I'm willing
to bet some other Wikipedia user does, but they aren't likely to shoot
pictures of it if there is already an unfree image on the page.

In the cases of historical objects the lack of an image can be a good
opportunity to invite more specialists into our community.  Why take
in image from "Joe's web museum of old computers" when we can just get
joe to upload them himself, and perhaps improve the articles as well?

You picked a fairly bad set of examples in any case.. The [[IBM 360]]
page has images which were granted under a free license, the sort of
used with permission we don't object to... and the Z machine is a
perfect example of something where we can probably get a grant under
CC-BY or GFDL.

> > If Wikipedia isn't getting enough photographs, we should reach out and
> > encourage more photographers to join our community.  A lack of content
> > isn't an excuse to break the law.
> 
> No-one is suggesting we do.

Yes, actually people are... or rather there are some suggesting that
images they've found on the internet should be acceptable for us to
use.

> It is a simple matter for downstream users
> not to include images tagged used-with-permission.
> Wikipedia articles very rarely rely on the images
> in their main text.

Actually, it's a pain in the butt to remove the images because of the
way we store the tagging.. once you mix in the inconsistency of the
tagging it becomes impossible.

The vast majority of the images going up on WP:PUI are images that are
likely copyvio for even for us to use.. and are not examples of used
with permission.

> And I can sympathise with people who don't give a
> rat's toenail for the current downstream users,
> much as I believe in the GFDL.

Sympathize as much as you like. Preserving freedom downstream is a
goal of the project. Downstrem users doesn't just refer to random
useless mirror on the internet, but also refers to people publishing
printed works, and to other sister projects like wikibooks.

> This is confusing to me. It's *fair use* that's currently
> allowed - and *that* only works in the US. It's
> *used-with-permission* that's forbidden and that
> will work anywhere in the world. I'd argue fair-use
> is much more dangerous to world wide publication
> than used-with-permission is.

I brought up fair use because it is almost universally the response to
complaints that images are unfree.

> And, sadly, it seems that Jimbo's fatwah against UWP has
> increased the number of far-fetched rationalizations for
> fair use on Wikipedia.

I'm am strongly against abuse of fair use.  I haven't noticed WP:PUI
accepting images as fair use which shouldn't be... can you cite some
examples?

Yes people claim fair use incorrectly.. they claim a lot of things to
keep images they found via a google image search or that they didn't
obtain with sufficient permission. That doesn't mean we shouldn't
remove unfree images of all types as we are able.