Nobody would ever claim that it means "whatever is useful to us." But
I think the "nature of the use" aspect of the "fair use" clause would
come into play here: the nature of the use is, simply, to help make
sure that our use of the images in the articles (which is clearly
their primary use) is properly done, and it allows us to take
inventory of all such images. The effect upon any copyright holder of
such tiny images being arranged in such a way would be marginal. You
might as well argue that the use separate "Image:" pages for images is
a fair use violation, since on those pages the actual image file is
not being used under narrow "fair use" provisions.
I think any judge would buy the argument that the real "fair use"
question is how they are used in the primary content of the
encyclopedia.
In any event, "fair use" is legally rather ambiguous -- I think though
that this is a fairly "low risk" version of "fair use", that is, it
is
unlikely to make anybody think that they would have a very good case
for suing us. Categorization helps us find, avoid, and change "high
risk" and "medium risk" cases (for example, in retagging all images
with a {{poster}} tag to new use- and content-based poster tags, a
large effort which was recently completed), which are the ones to
worry more about. In my non-lawyerly opinion.
FF
On 9/27/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 9/26/05, Phil Boswell
<phil.boswell(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I have just discovered the school of thought that believes
that including an image in a category contravenes the "Fair Use" principle
because displaying the image on the category page amounts to using the
image
in an unfair way!
Is it me, or is this just plain silly? A category is simply an
organisational tool, not an article. Surely a case can be made that the
proper categorisation of images within an encyclopedia is essential to
using
those images correctly.
As I understand it, if the image is not being used for the purpose of
education, satire, or review, we have no fair use claim to it. This is not
the same as saying it is not a "fair" use of the image, which is a
subjective judgment anyway. Put another way, "fair use" does not mean
"whatever is useful to us". We may only use it in a few specific contexts.
Using them as organizational tools for meta pages about the encyclopedia
doesn't qualify; therefore, such use would constitute copyright violation.
- Ryan
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