On 10/21/05, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
On 21 Oct 2005, at 13:49, Matt Brown wrote:
On 10/21/05, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
On 21 Oct 2005, at 12:24, Matt Brown wrote: The argument used is the converse - as we dont have a free picture we can tag anything fair use. Which is of course completely bogus.
Personally, if I cannot obtain a free picture, I do not consider "anything" usable as Fair Use, although I know that puts me in the minority! I do consider promotional pictures freely distributed to be usable under that doctrine, though, when used to illustrate the thing or person the promotional picture shows. Plus, in practice, we can consider promotional images to be used with permission - the Fair Use claim is only required by Wikipedia's policies.
Ah the can of worms that is promo photos. Almost none of them are promo photos at all. Its just another way that people can put non free pictures into wikipedia, as it is a blanket "fair use" category. As we no longer accept images with permission the whole category is very dubious. I listed one for ifd today, as the site it came from did forbid reproduction on the front page, and some will go when the other 8000 images with no source get deleted next week, but the category as a whole is very grim.
Justinc
Personally I think we should prefer images which are free to use without modification (such as CC-ND) over fair use. Yes, the ability to modify the image can be useful, but resolving the dubious nature of fair use is more useful, in my opinion. Both should only be used in situations where there is no other reasonable alternative, of course. I think we could convince a lot of people to release promotional photos under CC-ND. That'd be better than use with permission only for Wikipedia, and obviously better than using the same photo without any permission at all. Anthony