On 11/23/06, Bogdan Giusca liste@dapyx.com wrote:
What should we do with the screenshots taken from Google Earth? I see that more and more of them are uploaded on en.wiki, for example to illustrate things such as high-schools or cities. But, does the fair-use claim hold up?
Delete them all. Unless they're used in [[Google Earth]] to demonstrate how the program looks, there's simply no valid reason to include them when:
a) free alternatives are almost always available via WorldWind (especially for the US) b) the coordinates templates [1] allow people to easily look the same information up themselves, with only two clicks of the mouse, and with no copyright issues whatsoever.
Note that some of the images claim "PD".
In that case the uploaders need a stern talking to. It's hard to imagine that people don't realise that imagery from Google Earth is copyrighted when it's plastered all over the bottom of the screen, and appears in the screenshots.
-- (1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Coordinates_templates