Short quotes of text also tend to be the kind of fair dealing which is broadly accepted by all countries and is essentially indistinguishable from "not copyrighted".
Perhaps. Certainly no-one will object that a particular article contains, say, a short quote from a particular Bible translation. But when you pile up articles like that in an organized way you essentially enable people to read the whole translation. Start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_1:1
Read the KJV translation of the verse. Then click on next verse and the read the KJV translation of that. Proceed until you run out of verses.
I understand that the copyright of the KJV is enforced in Britain. Would this series of articles be in violation of British law? Mostly an academic question, I think, but you get my point. It's probably no coincidence that the translations chosen for this Bible verse project are (almost everywhere) in the public domain.
- - -
A few months back we established here on the mailing list that our use of this featured picture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:LindisfarneFol27rIncipitMatt.jpg
is in violation of British law. In fact a great many images where we rely on Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. could not be legally used in a Wikipedia published outside of the United States of America.
A Wikipedia which restricted itself to content which is free to use by everyone in every jurisdiction would have to let go of a lot of good stuff. It would be a very painful sacrifice and I doubt it would be worth it.
My guess is that the blasted GFDL is currently causing more problems for reuse than fair use content is.
Regards, Haukur