On 5/24/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Maybe it's time for commons to decide not to concern itself with copyright issues when they only impact certain types of commercial use, and do not prohibit the uses of such images even in a commercial encyclopedia.
No, this is not the purpose of commons. The purpose of commons is to be very restrictive and narrow so that a huge range of people who would like to feel comfortable reusing our work can do so. There will of course be borderline cases, but unlike the other projects, commons should come down firmly on the side of caution.
Not only did you take my quote out of context, but you responded with a point which is completely tangental to the comment I was making. I agree that the purpose of commons is to be very restrictive and narrow. But if you're going to allow items which are non-free due to trademark law, then the decision has already made not to insist on absolute restrictiveness.
Indeed, by doing so, we make all the more clear what is broken about aspects of current copyright law worldwide.
Who are you going to make it clear to? Most of the world *supports* copyright when it comes to blatant commercial non-educational use. Considering the reluctance of Wikimedia to release its own logos under a free license I would assume Wikimedia itself even supports this. Those people who are completely anti-copyright in all situations, well, I don't think they need anything made more clear.
Anthony