On 1/12/06, Chris Jenkinson <chris(a)starglade.org> wrote: I think your idea of having a page to explain this is a good idea, Chris, then users violating the policy (if it is a policy) could be directed there, and asked in the first instance to consider removing the image themselves. That would reduce a lot of the ill-feeling this issue is otherwise generating. Then if after a suitable period, the image is still there and fair use is still being claimed, it could be removed by others. Sarah

On 1/12/06, Stan Shebs <shebs(a)apple.com> wrote: Perhaps it might also be worth mentioning that Wikipedia is *lucky* to be able to use material under fair use at all. In the UK you wouldn't be able to, nor in most other countries. Copyrights is an are where we have to be particularly careful. IAR just cannot apply to it (though I have seen someone trying to), because there is enough confusion as it is and selective application of copyright law is plainly not going to help that. Copyrights is a fundamental policy, on a line with NPOV and that whole "you can edit" madness. Choosing when to apply NPOV would be asking for trouble. Choosing when to apply copyrights policies would certainly not be quite on the same scale, but it would have extremely unpleasant results. I really do think that the only way people will not say "but $reason means it's alright" would be a blanket ban. As this is not about to come from our community, which is very fractured over this issue, it can only come from above. This would be an ideal time for a fiat. :=) -- Sam

Is it technically possible at the moment to prevent images marked as fair use (ie, with a fair use template) from being used in user space? If so, is there a good reason for not enforcing that? I suspect it's not possible because images are marked by using templates rather than, say, categories, but that could fairly easily be changed, no? Steve

On 1/12/06, Sam Korn <smoddy(a)gmail.com> wrote: Everyone "qualifies" for fair use. The fact that Wikipedia is an educational resource is *one factor* in whether or not its use of certain images in certain ways is fair use. In general most userpages have a lessened educational purpose than articles. I wouldn't go any further than that. I certainly wouldn't say "userpages are just not educational". You definitely read it wrong. Wikipedia userpages are, in general, very different from the average geocities website. Image use can and often does qualify as fair use there. The only reason I can see not to use fair use images on user pages is that it is never necessary. So rather than waste time arguing case by case with each other you just ban it completely. Anthony

On 1/13/06, John Lee <johnleemk(a)gawab.com> wrote: Actually, neither are publishers anyway, they are ISPs, so they don't have to justify fair use to anyone - they just have to take the content down if they receive a DMCA takedown notice. But the two are different because the purpose of Wikipedia userpages is to help build an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not a webhosting project - Geocities is - in my opinion that makes the two extremely different.

On 1/13/06, Sam Korn <smoddy(a)gmail.com> wrote: Being an educational resource is a factor, but it's only one. And being a free resource seems to me to provide as much of an argument against fair use as for it, as it means the distribution is much more widespread. Being nonprofit counts for something though, although userpages are pretty much always nonprofit as well as articles. I think there's also some confusion over who is asserting fair use. It isn't really "Wikipedia", but rather the person who is using the content. They're pretty much all educational to some extent. Just picking one randomly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BrainyBroad. That's educational. Also, if I'm not mistaken, the rule applies to the entire namespace, including subpages. Subpages are quite often educational in purpose, in fact many subpages either used to be or will be an article (actually more than one *userpage* wound up being turned into an article as well). I explained in another post, but the biggest difference is that Geocities is a personal homepage provider, and Wikipedia:ISNOT. The whole purpose of the user pages is to facilitate the production of an encyclopedia - that's very different from the purpose of Geocities pages. Fair use is fairly liberal. The fact that the image is being distributed on a personal website isn't really a factor. What matters is how the image is being used. Well, there's a flipside to that argument, though, and it goes back to my previous statement that "what matters is how the image is being used". The fact that one namespace is considered out based on horribly flawed legal reasoning only serves to confuse people into thinking that another namespace (the article namespace) is OK. The fact is that what namespace is being used is irrelevant, and even just the fact that Wikipedia is an educational website is only *one factor*. Anyway, I think what's important is that things are explained right. All the other Wikipedias are doing fine without fair use, surely the English Wikipedia could do so as well.

John Lee wrote: If you plan on putting that in article space some time, do it. [[WP:NOT]] a webhost... -- Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

John Lee wrote: In that case, you'd better not have "Fair Use" images on it ;) -- Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP