[WikiEN-l] Images on Wikipedia

[Justin Cormack]

On 31 Oct 2005, at 23:58, Tom Cadden wrote:

> Wikipedia clearly has a problem with copyright images,
> but the way some users are dealing with this has
> infuriated many people. Part of the problem is that
> the details of what is now needed to define fair use
> has now been changed and more categorisation is
> required. Thousands of perfectly valid images were
> uploaded before this change. Users put in the
> information they thought were required at the time.
> Now they discover that they are in effect being
> accused of not giving enough information and the
> images are being deleted, without checking if the
> people who uploaded them can supply more information
> or a clearer categorisation as NOW required.

Since then the deletion policy generally requires users
to be notified (in many cases at least).

> One user seems to be intent on pissing off most of
> Wikipedia with his approach. Furious users have left
> messages on his talk page saying such things as
>
> - We have gone through a long process to get a formula
> for these photos which clears them for use and which
> has been approved by Mr Wales. I suggest you visit
> Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board and
> raise any concerns you have before taking action which
> will make a lot of people angry.

The "agreed" formula is permission, non commercial, which
only applies to images uploaded before May, not anything
since then.

> - your unilateral action is making a lot of people
> very angry
>
> - If you look at his "contributions"  you'll see he's
> been doing this to a lot of templates lately where
> it's quite clear (IMO) fair-use allows the images to
> be used. And yes, it's very unilateral: as far as I
> can tell he's acting nearly independently, and reverts
> edits back without any (or very little) discussion or
> consensus.

No it is not clear. Fair use outside article space is
very dubious, and it is agreed policy that they wont be
used in templates.
>
> If people don't know what they are doing they
> shouldn't be doing it. And if they aren't legally
> trained they should take more care rather than
> dreaming up their own idiocyncratic frequently
> ridiculous interpretations of the law. Unless someone
> tells them to (i) be a bit more careful, and (ii)
> check with the original downloader before dumping
> images, Wikipedia is going to both lose a lot of
> perfectly valid images just in need for more
> information and find itself with a lot of pissed off
> users whose work is being destroyed by people who seem
> in a lot of cases not to know what they are doing and
> are making a complete mess of articles which for no
> good reason end up stripped of their images.

Wikipedia unfortunately has tens of thousands of non free
images, which we tolerate rather more than we should. The
fair use categories are alas dumping grounds for copyright
violations.

Justinc