[WikiEN-l] Re: [HelpDesk-l] permission

[Brown, Darin]

Jimbo said:

> Fair use is a good legal doctrine.  It says "look here, the extent of
> copyright has limits".  We should support that and rely on it as needed.
> 
> We should also reward people emotionally for doing great original work
> and releasing it for free.
> 
> --Jimbo

I agree that there is a lot to be gained by rewarding people for original
work.  Still, I think each case should probably be decided on its own
merits, case by case. I can imagine a case where there was a free image
available, and also a clearly superior fair use image where the fair use
issue was not in doubt. In that case, I would find it hard to justify using
an inferior free image simply because it was free? I know this runs counter
to pure open-source thinking, but I keep thinking our primary goal is to
make the best encyclopedia possible, and if that means occasionally favoring
fair use to free images, then I don't see a problem. But if the images are
even roughly equivalent in quality, certainly the free should win out.

darin