On 5 Dec 2006, at 01:18, Steve Bennett wrote:
On 12/5/06, Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
That's not what's being enforced here. If someone is a noted recluse and the only available picture is a fair-use one, then the image passes FUC #1. On the other hand, if someone makes weekly appearances in front of tens of thousands of people, there's no reason to use a non-free image of him.
If we don't *have* a free image of someone, why should we not use a non-free image? This is the bit I don't get. Yes, by all means, someone should go out and photograph Mr John C Popular Esquire. But until they've done that, why deprive ourselves of the fair use image?
If it's just about motivating someone to go and do it, isn't that a separate problem?
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.
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.
Justinc