On 9/27/07, Nick heligolandwp@googlemail.com wrote:
I'd imagine we'll be pretty safe as long as we don't accept seriously substandard photographs of celebrities
I think you're rather off base with regards to defamation. A shot doesn't have to be great to not be defaming. Average quality, or even below average quality, are fine. There MIGHT be an issue in certain jurisdictions if we deliberately used a picture that makes someone look truly awful or suggests something about the person that is malicious, but that's a hard bar to clear against editorial content.
People who want to use publicity shots on Wikipedia to replace free-content fan-provided shots tend to use this kind of argument, which is inaccurate.
-Matt