On Fri, 29 Feb 2008, Matthew Brown wrote:
Unfortunately, most of the time, arguments on
Wikipedia aren't about
the actual case in front of us, but between bands of people afraid of
precedent being set, or wanting precedent to be set. There's a
reasonable 'thin end of the wedge' worry that if we add a subjective
criterion to the current policy on when fair use images are
acceptable, some people will take it and run with it and before we
know it, there'll be a hole in policy big enough to drive a truck
through.
But in this case, the policy says "where no free equivalent is available".
In other words, the policy *already has a subjective criterion in it*.
It's not someone refusing to add a subjective criterion, it's someone
refusing to use the one we already have.