Alphax wrote:
Michael Snow wrote:
The problem overlaps somewhat with the problem of including images in templates, when those images are not truly free in every sense. For instance, consider the popular user boxes that are cropping up all over the place (for some examples, see [[User:NSR/userboxes]]). Many of these include images that are tagged as fair use.
For the most part, they *are* fair use - they illustrate the product.
Illustrating the product is hardly a free ticket to fair use, even if that's what the images do here. I don't particularly buy that either; the images are logos that identify the user with the product, not actual illustrations of the product. Also, fair use arguments for user pages are a serious stretch. In most cases, the use has no relationship to the purposes enumerated in the Copyright Act (criticism, comment, scholarship, research, etc.).
The only one which has serious copyright concerns is the Wikipedia/Firefox "logo", which infringes two trademarks (and some people are claiming is a "parody"). If someone will draw their own version of this, please do so and put it on commons, it's quite cute...
It may be cute, but as I understand it such images aren't eligible for inclusion on Commons, nor do I get how you think that someone "draw[ing] their own version" will avoid the legal problems.
--Michael Snow