[WikiEN-l] Re: yet another image lost for posterity

[Kelly Martin]

On 11/28/05, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I do not understand well how you make the difference between
> "unlicensed" and "licensed".
> Afaik, fair use is licensed. No tag is unlicensed. No ?

Fair use is NOT licensed.  Fair use is a doctrine under which
copyrighted content may be used without obtaining a license.  There's
a big difference.

Let me repeat that again for the bystanders: Fair use is not a license.

Media used on Wikipedia pursuant to a license allowing the use (e.g.
the GFDL or CC-BY-SA, or some other free or nonfree license) is
licensed.  Media that is used on Wikipedia not pursuant to a license
but instead either a claim of fair use, or invalidly as a copyright
infringement, is unlicensed.  We are strict on the use of unlicensed
media because the distribution of unlicensed media content is a
copyright infringement unless privileged under fair use.

> I have the feeling that in one year or so, freely licensed orphan images
> will indeed be deleted on the english wikipedia. That would be well
> within what I currently observe.

I see no reason to share your pessimism.

Kelly