[WikiEN-l] Uploading images should be a privilige, not a right

Fri Jul 21 23:45:03 UTC 2006

On 7/21/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> We could always go the German way and prevent all non-copyleft images.
>
> PS. I just wanted to check I was accurate in making this statement. I
> decided Coca Cola would be a good article to use to check
> (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_Cola) as they are presumably unable
> to display the logo. They do show the logo in the form of photographs
> of the side of lorries showing the logo and practically nothing else.
> Surely such a photo can't be claimed to be copyleft?

This is a complex issue involving a lot of handwaving and bullshit.

In germany they have a legal concept called "right of panorama" which
appears to be intended to address cases of incidental inclusion (as
we'd know them in the US).  The idea is that the fact that the
populated world is saturated with copyrighted works shouldn't inhibit
you from taking pictures in public...

However, when you turn around and use such an image as a direct
replacement for the copyrighted work which you, presumably, couldn't
use there is no way that you'd be able to claim incidental inclusion
in the US.  I'm not qualified to say what the decision would be in
Germany, but I'd really be surprised if it were any different.

Legally Wikimedia is likely okay because these works would easily be
considered fair use... But they aren't free content when used in the
capacity... but use adds a whole extra dimension the people would
rather ignore.

At least dewiki has stopped trying to call the tightly cropped logo
images which were nearly indistinguishable from a normal image of the
logo free images. :)