On 7/21/06, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
Aren't the images are still stored in Florida so are covered by US law? Why is German law at all considered?
:) Indeed. Because the uploader is in Germany.. It's messy. It's not a problem because these images are likely legal in the US.
Legally Wikimedia is likely okay because these works would easily be considered fair use... But they aren't free content when used in the capacity... but use adds a whole extra dimension the people would rather ignore.
To be OK don't we have to attach a fair use rational to these photographs?
The law doesn't require us to attach a fair use rationale. Policy on enwiki does. It would be required, were we ever to use fair use as a defense (it's not a permission it's a defense), that we provide a rationale... Doesn't mean the image must have one now.
So long as we don't run into an image which would likely be illegal in the US but is legal in De, I don't think it's worth dealing with this mess. :)