On 1/18/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> wrote:
Suppose that an image can be considered fair use
because it is used
for educational purposes, say in the article Tiananmen Square
protests of 1989 where the image Image:Tianasquare.jpg
is said to be fair use under the following rationale:
The use of this historic photograph in Wikipedia is claimed to be a
fair use of the image under United States copyright law for the
following reasons:
This photograph depicts a non-reproduceable historic event.
The image is used for educational purposes only in a non-profit
encyclopedia.
The image is no larger and of no higher quality than is necessary for
the illustration of an article.
The use of the image on Wikipedia is not expected to decrease the
value of the copyright.
If you put that image on a user page, easy to imagine someone doing
so, the the educational purpose which is the foundation of the fair
use justification, vanishes.
It may or may not vanish, depending whether or not you use the image
on that user page for educational purposes.
But anyway, what about the image page itself, i.e.
[[Image:Tianasquare.jpg]]? Is *that* a use for educational purposes?
Of course, bad example, since Wikipedia has explicit permission to use
that image.
That said, this is a tempest in a teapot in most
cases. Except for
rare instances, no one is complaining and there is a lot of bad
feeling as getting after the fair use images on someone's user page
feels like you are getting after them personally.
Fred
