[Wikinews-l] Discussion about Images on Wikinews

Sat Apr 23 14:01:48 UTC 2005

It is true that the English Wikipedia is currently falling down on the 
permissive side of the fair use spectrum, often to the detriment of the 
search for free content. It is a legitimate question whether a fair use 
implementation is possible that does not open the floodgates to non-free 
content.

One idea that came up on the German Wikipedia, which faces a similar 
problem, is to have the upload link in the sidebar point to the Commons, 
and to only have Special:Upload (for local uploads) linked to from some 
policy page where the purpose of local uploads is explained. Through 
this simple "security by obscurity" measure, lazy uploads could perhaps 
be prevented.

The current proposed fair use policy also seeks to address the concern 
by being very explicit in that "logos and publicity shots" can be fair 
use, but most other images can't, specifically no photos by other news 
organizations. I don't know how enforcable that is in practice.

Erik