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Stephen Streater wrote:
Given that Fair Use is a US construct, does this mean Wikipedia can never have access to England-generated content which is available under non-commercial terms, such as shots of a Royal Park?
It would be breaking English law to put it up under a free licence or under Fair Use, and external linking of media on Wikipedia is being phased out, so I couldn't link to an external website hosting it either.
Is there a way around this?
Well, short of allowing noncommercial licences, no. Since Wikipedia requires that all media is released under a 'free content' licence (GFDL, CC-Att-SA, whatever), it by definition cannot include content which cannot be licenced in such a way. In other words, because of the legal restrictions the author does not have the legal power to grant a commercial use licence, and therefore Wikipedia can never acquire a valid commercial use licence.
Cynical