[WikiEN-l] Re: Fair use images on user pages and enforcement

Wed Jan 18 15:37:11 UTC 2006

Suppose that an image can be considered fair use because it is used  
for educational purposes, say in the article Tiananmen Square  
protests of 1989 where the image Image:Tianasquare.jpg

is said to be fair use under the following rationale:

The use of this historic photograph in Wikipedia is claimed to be a  
fair use of the image under United States copyright law for the  
following reasons:
This photograph depicts a non-reproduceable historic event.
The image is used for educational purposes only in a non-profit  
encyclopedia.
The image is no larger and of no higher quality than is necessary for  
the illustration of an article.
The use of the image on Wikipedia is not expected to decrease the  
value of the copyright.

If you put that image on a user page, easy to imagine someone doing  
so, the the educational purpose which is the foundation of the fair  
use justification, vanishes.

That said, this is a tempest in a teapot in most cases. Except for  
rare instances, no one is complaining and there is a lot of bad  
feeling as getting after the fair use images on someone's user page  
feels like you are getting after them personally.

Fred

On Jan 18, 2006, at 7:55 AM, Fastfission wrote:

> I'm not sure about this. If it is fair use in one instance, it  
> should be
> fair use in all instances. I don't think there is a legal  
> difference between
> having one fair use magazine cover and having 200, providing each  
> use meets
> the fair use standards. In cases where multiple-sources from a single
> copyright holder were held not to be fair use (i.e. Twin Peaks) it was
> because the sum collection of the uses really did take away from  
> the use of
> the original source (i.e. was basically a detailed plot abridgment  
> and could
> be read without watching the shows). I don't think that's the same  
> thing as
> using a large number of completely separate magazine or DVD covers. At
> least, that's my understanding of it.
>
> FF
>
> On 1/18/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 17 Jan 2006, at 17:26, Phil Boswell wrote:
>>
>>> If you were to upload one fair use image per day, complying
>>> properly with
>>> the rules for each one, you would have 365 after a year, having
>>> broken no
>>> laws.
>>>
>>
>> Not if they were from the same source.
>>
>> I can use one sentence of your book as fair use, but if I use them  
>> all
>> one at a time its not fair use any more, as I have copied the entire
>> book.
>>
>> Similarly one Playboy magazine cover is probably ok, but the number
>> we have
>> probably isnt.
>>
>> Fair use has to be considered as a whole.
>>
>> Justinc
>>
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