[WikiEN-l] In defence of properly-used fair use images (was Image:Wp ayb.gif)

Fri Jan 20 15:35:20 UTC 2006

Chris Jenkinson wrote:

>Wikipedia should rely upon the contributions of its editors, not on
>material others have created, if possible. Of course it's impossible to
>get a new photo of a historical event, taken by a Wikipedian, but we
>should make sure that all fair use images which aren't of past events
>should be replaced with new images which Wikipedians have contributed.
>That's what Wikipedia is about to me.

I concur.

I definitely don't want fair use images to go from en: completely. My
favourite article with heavy use of fair use images is [[Xenu]]. One
is the cover of "Dianetics", illustrating a point in the article about
Scientology book covers after the Xenu story was put into Scientology;
one is the [[Sea Org]] logo, which also comes from the Xenu story; and
one is a sample of L. Ron Hubbard's handwriting, showing the only
known example of the word "Xenu" in his own handwriting. None of those
three are particularly replaceable. But their use in that article is
pretty clearly academic fair use, and I did run them past Jimbo before
it was made a front page feature, given Scientology's famously strong
legal defence of anything it sees as a copyright or trademark
violation. So far we haven't heard a peep out of Scientology on the
matter, and they're well aware of the article (and at least one staff
member has edited it), so I would presume they accept legal action on
the matter would be a losing proposition (though I believe they have a
few years before we can be sure laches has kicked in).

- d.