Ray Saintonge wrote:
Wily D wrote:
On 9/27/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/27/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
We do not tolerate unfree text to any significant extent. We do tolerate a level of unfree media. Thus we put free media behind other content.
This is simply not true; we have significant (important informational content, useful) quotations from other works sprinkled liberally throughout the Encyclopedia.
And this is a good thing.
And this is entirely and unquestionably (by any reasonable person) legal under fair use
Indeed, the whole reason fair use (or for example, in my jurisdiction fair dealing) exists is because governments recognise we cannot do things like write encyclopaedias or newspapers without invoking the principle of fair use.
That's probably worth repeating.
We cannot hope to write an encyclopaedia without invoking the principles of fair use, or fair dealings. Doesn't mean we need to invoke it to the maximum extent provided for by law, but without any at all, we cannot hope to write an encyclopaedia.
Certainly. And one reason why this debating topic never seems to end is that we have people who take extreme views on both ends of the spectrum. On the one hand we have those whose only excuse for a fair use rationale is that they like the picture, and on the other hand those whose free site purism verges on paranoia. The mantra of fair use from those who know nothing else about copyright gets tiresome.
The answer should be somewhere in the middle, and somehow we should also make accommodation for the fact that "free" is also a verb, and that it implies the need to make an effort to make something free even if it isn't free now. As long as we keep mucking about arguing about inconsequential specifics we'll never take Wikipedia to the next level.
Somehow we have ended up accepting responsibility for what everybody else does with Wikipedia material. We have no real control over how others use Wikipedia material. We have no real control over what sites that we link to include; those sites must accept responsibility for what happens there. It is not up to us to go into great detail about whether theirs is an infringing site. If they get forced to take down the material the link will simply not work anymore.
We should be looking for ways to legally expand our holdings, not restrict them.
Ec
Ray,
I agree with everything you say. But which are the "inconsequential specifics"?
Is using a fair use image of a very public living person a good thing, or is it better to remove that image so that there is more incentive for someone to obtain a free image? Or is this question an "inconsequential specific"?
I'm asking, because I really don't know. I know what my opinion is on that specific question, and it seems to be the current practice to reject fair use images in those cases.
It seems to me that *ideally* at least, we should come to some sort of consensus on the question, so there isn't this continual battling.
-Rich Holton