Fastfission wrote:
Amen. This is the goal of Wikipedia's fair use
policy -- proper fair
use when necessary, well thought out, with the issues at stake well
understood.
A number of people have occasionally taken calls for a restricted fair
use policy to imply copyright paranoia or some sort of feebleness in
standing up for fair use rights. This is of course not anyone's goal.
In my mind, the more careful, deliberate, and (hopefully) informed we
are in the implementation of fair use policies, the more confidence we
can have in our use of fair use images, and the more empowered we
actually are in the end. Poor or pointless invocations of fair use
strengthen nothing but the arguments and hysterical claims of those
many parties out there whose goals are to make copyright law as
binding and restrictive as possible.
Absolutely. Unfortunately, there are extreme views at both ends of this
spectrum. The simple fact that publishing an image would somehow be in
the public interest is not enough to defeat someone's copyrights. On
the other hand it is also simplistic to say that because there is a
subsisting copyright the image cannot be used at all. "Fair use" is a
tool on the path to free use that can be used to great effect in the
right circumstances. By rejecting it completely we also make it easier
for those favoring more restrictive copyrights because they can now take
the abandoned ground unopposed.
Ec