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

Wed Jan 18 17:09:47 UTC 2006

On 1/18/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> 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.
>
It may or may not vanish, depending whether or not you use the image
on that user page for educational purposes.

But anyway, what about the image page itself, i.e.
[[Image:Tianasquare.jpg]]?  Is *that* a use for educational purposes?

Of course, bad example, since Wikipedia has explicit permission to use
that image.

> 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