Bogdan Giusca wrote:
I think the first fair use criterium should be more clearly written: it seems that many people think that the part about a replacement which could be "reasonably be found or created" excludes the variant of getting out of the house and taking a picture. :-)
The following isn't entirely related to the above, but I'm quoting it anyway because it reminded me that I was going to mention this at some point.
So suppose an article has no picture, and a contributor wishes to add a picture to that one specific thing. What are the odds that this specific contributor gets a realistic chance of taking a photograph of the topic of that specific article, be it a celebrity, a sight or a building?
Take me as an example. I live in [[Cambridge]]. I'm not particularly interested in sight-seeing or architecture, so I know little about the sights and buildings in this city. However, I would be happy to take (free-license) pictures of something in this city and upload them to Commons (indeed I have already done so for some of the Colleges). The problem (for Commons/Wikipedia) is that I don't know, and don't have much interest or motivation in researching, what sights or buildings exist in this city that don't already have a free picture on Commons/Wikipedia.
Similarly for people. Imagine (hypothetically) that I'm planning to visit an event where I will likely see some celebrities. If there was a way for me to find out which OF THOSE celebrities don't already have a free picture on Commons/Wikipedia, it would be easier to know in advance which celebrities to focus on. The way it's now, however, I will likely just not care and only take images of things that /I/ want, not the things that Commons or Wikipedia needs.
So, in summary: Commons or Wikipedia needs an organised index or catalogue of things that don't have a free picture. Ideally, there should be somewhere I can click to list the things in Cambridge that don't have a picture.
Timwi