[WikiEN-l] Common sense exceptions to our copyright policy.

[Anthony]

On 7/27/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/27/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
> [snip, out of order]
> > In my view, establishing clear ground rules for votes to change policy
> > is a better way to deal with the problem than delegation of authority.
> > It allows for community consensus processes (and indeed requires them
> > to be tried first), brings out as many arguments and solutions as
> > possible, and enables everyone to share the responsibility, credit and
> > blame for the result.
>
> The current image use policy reflects the position of the active
> editing base and is result of a fairly strong consensus, not merely
> the mob rule of a majority wins vote.  There is no substantial desire
> to change our policy.
>
> The challenge is that only a bright line policy can protect us against
> a "slow and often intensely frustrating process" for each of tens of
> thousands of images per month. But a bright line policy will exclude
> things which common sense would permit.  I'd like to discuss ways we
> can accept such exceptions without breaking the well functioning
> policy and without creating a slow and intensely frustrating process.
>
Where is it that you see the current image use policy as ambiguous?
I'd actually say it's fairly clear.

I could see the benefit of having a relatively small number of people
decide what the policy says about a particular image, as it's a much
more efficient than voting, but I wouldn't want to give them the power
to make exceptions.

Policies should reflect common sense.  If common sense tells us to
permit an image but policies tell us not to, then the policies should
be fixed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Fair_use&diff=23405949&oldid=23358627

Looks like policy was fine until September 2005.  It should probably
be noted that the explanation of the policy change ("Because "fair
use" images are only not copyright infringement on Wikipedia when used
for strictly encyclopedic reasons, their use in other contexts on
Wikipedia is most likely copyright infringement.") is blatantly
incorrect.

Anthony