[Foundation-l] "fair use" tail chasing

Brian Hammer hammersoft123 at gmail.com
Thu Oct 30 13:30:23 UTC 2008


A debate has erupted on en.wiki regarding the use of a particular montage of
38 fair
use images being used as a navigational aid on an article. The image in
question
is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Companions.jpg
The article it is used on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companion_(Doctor_Who)
The debate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Images_and_media_for_deletion/2008_October_23#Image:Companions.jpg

Of particular note relevant to the Foundation is a proposal late in the
debate to
approach the Foundation regarding the issue in abstract. See Masem's 00:33,
30 October 2008 (UTC) comments, and my response.

In a nutshell, the situation is that the debates regarding fair use image
use
on the local en.wiki project have been going on virtually ceaselessly for a
very, very long time now. There's little in the way of consensus on fair use
issues. Probably the only absolutely consensus is that there is no
consensus.

It is recognized that the Foundation does not get involved in local project
policy
debates. It is also recognized that the local project ArbCom does not get
involved
in such policy debates either. This results in a situation of perpetual tail
chasing
that has never shown any signs of ending, nor is it likely to.

This is damaging to the project in a number of ways:
 - Huge amount of wasted effort debating fair use
 - Inconsistent application of what policies there are
 - Due to inconsistent application, lack of adherence to the Foundation's
stance at
   http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy

I do not propose any solutions here, but would like to hear some input on
the
abstract issue.

-Hammersoft


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