[Foundation-l] Fair use being badly abused on en.wikipedia

[Wily D]

It may be worthwhile for all involved to review fair use under
American law  http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html - the most
relevant point is probably "quotation of excerpts in a review or
criticism for purposes of illustration or comment" which covers almost
everything that's legitimate under Wikipedia's policies on what's
allowable - obviously violations occur.

Of course, I say this as a private citizen living in Canada, and as
such someone who's essentially incapable of violating copyright laws.
Your mileage may vary.

Cheers
WilyD

On Jan 7, 2008 1:06 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> Your aim is different from the stated aim of producing a product that is
> freely licensed and everything to its content is permitted as per the
> license. Both the GFDL and the CC-by-sa explicitly allow for the commercial
> application of our products. This is stated policy and when fair use is
> incompatible with this purpose, fair use is not defendable.
> Thanks,
>      GerardM
>
>
> On Jan 7, 2008 6:19 PM, Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Some people, myself included, want to create the best possible no-cost
> > encyclopedia.  From that point of view, copyleft and free content is a
> > means
> > to that end.
> >
> > Other people (including much of the WMF Board apparently) feel creating
> > free
> > content is an end in itself that justifies sacrificing some encyclopedic
> > coverage and limiting our exercise of fair use rights to a much narrower
> > set
> > of circumstances than allowed by law.
> >
> > I can understand that point of view, even though I don't agree with it.
> >
> >
> > However, I do think we need a different set of language here.  Despite the
> > title of this thread, there is a NOT an abuse of fair use here.  The
> > situation being described is exactly the kind of situation for which fair
> > use rights were created, e.g. identifying subjects of academic discussion
> > in
> > a non-commercial, non-competitve setting.
> >
> > It is, arguably, an abuse of non-free content under Wikipedia/Wikimedia
> > policy, but abusing non-free content with respect to Wikipedia is very
> > different than abusing fair use.
> >
> > That said, policy is the creation of Wikipedians/Wikimedians.  It evolves
> > with time and often has fuzzy edges.  It's limits are, more or less,
> > whatever it is that we agree to enforce.  Appeals to absolutes like "if
> > you
> > truly care about free content, we must limit fair use usage" is not very
> > helpful, since we already do limit fair use quite substantially, both in
> > policy and in practice.
> >
> > -Robert A. Rohde
> >
> >
> > On Jan 7, 2008 8:01 AM, Brian Hammer <hammersoft123 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > The mission of Wikimedia is to generate "neutral educational content
> > under
> > > a
> > > free content license". The Foundation's resolution from March 2007
> > states
> > > that EDP use must be minimal, within narrow limits.
> > >
> > > Subsequent to the resolution being passed, a number of efforts were
> > > undertaken to limit fair use usage on en.wikipedia. This affected
> > > discographies, episode lists, and character lists. A *huge* number of
> > > debates erupted over these removals. One such debate was covered at
> > >
> > >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-05-07/Fair_use
> > > .
> > > The disputes have never ended. For discographies and episode lists,
> > > the
> > > debate has simmered down for the most part, with occasional flare ups.
> > For
> > > character lists, the debate is still raging.
> > >
> > > What has been the rule of thumb in removing the images is that an image
> > of
> > > the character being used for depiction of that character only is
> > allowable
> > > on that character's particular article, but not on articles collecting
> > > multiple characters into a single article. The rationale here is that if
> > a
> > > character is notable enough for an article, they're notable enough for
> > an
> > > image, and vice versa. Allowances have been made for "cast" type images
> > > showing multiple characters in a single image from the copyright holder
> > > (not
> > > montages made by editors).
> > >
> > > Nevertheless, the debate has raged endlessly, and has recently exploded.
> > > It
> > > stands now on a precipice, and it is highly likely that fair use
> > > inclusionists will 'win' in that per-character images are going to be
> > > permitted on character articles (for example, see
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogwarts_students ).
> > >
> > > Some discussion exists currently at
> > >
> > >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Fair_use_war_being_lost
> > > and scattered through a variety of sections of
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content
> > >
> > > If Wikipedia is truly a free content encyclopedia, if you truly care
> > about
> > > free content, we must limit fair use usage per the Foundation's
> > > resolution.
> > > As it stands now, this debate is lost in favor of people who are more
> > > focused on whether something is suitable as a guide than focused on
> > being
> > > a
> > > free content resource.
> > >
> > > A strong voice from the Foundation would be appreciated, most especially
> > > in
> > > favor of a new section added to clarify the local EDP at the second
> > > paragraph of this version of the guideline:
> > >
> > >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Non-free_content&oldid=182482742#Unacceptable_images
> > > (paragraph since removed in an edit war)
> > >
> > > Thank you,
> > > Hammersoft
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
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> > >
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