On 12/5/06, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
Thats no different from saying if we dont have an article on Mr John C Popular Esquire why dont we just copy the one from the Encyclopaedia Brittanica until we get around to writing one. Yes it makes us look better but it doesnt belong to us. This copyright theft is "justified" as "fair use" because we allegedly dont steal too much from one place at a time, eg we only have pictures of all the Pokemon charcaters, so each one is fair use.
I've been assuming that the policy about not applying "fair use" for these photographs was entirely of Wikipedia's design, and is not really related to copyright law. You're suggesting that we're actually breaking copyright law if we do use "fair use" for promotional photographs instead of going out and taking a new photo. Does anyone know either way?
And if we had copied all the articles from EB and hadnt got sued, so you think we would be where we are today? People improve things where there are gaps, and stolen images are not gaps.
Can you steal a promotional image which some B grade hollywood star desperately wants everyone to use at any opportunity? I certainly agree with you about people filling gaps - I've taken quite a few "gap-filler" photos myself - but taking good photos of celebrities is pretty hard. Here's an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Jerry_Seinfeld_%281997%29.jpg
We're not even sure that this *is* a free image, and this is at the better end of the scale of the free celebrity photos we have. And do you think Seinfeld, his publicist, us, or anyone is really happy that we have a crappy photo of him rather than a professionally executed publicity shot? This is sort of the opposite of the victimless crime - the beneficiary-less act of kindness.
Steve