Fastfission wrote:
Frankly, I think I might be done trying to work on fair use policy on Wikipedia. Whether people think that's a good thing or a bad thing, I don't think anyone can say that I didn't at least try and keep every discussion, every rationale, and every change as open and publicly available and transparent as possible. My goal was to come up with an intelligent, legally thoughtful, and frankly workable approach to fair use on Wikipedia (and, long-time list readers will recall, that I originally started out by thinking that all fair use should be removed from Wikipedia; once it was clear that this was the path to go, I devoted my efforts to figuring out how to make our policy a sane one), and think some good steps towards that were accomplished. But if people can be so supportive of efforts to circumvent such policy, without so much as discussions of changing it, then apparently my efforts are better spent elsewhere.
I've certainly appreciated your efforts to work out ways to take a more serious approach to fair use. I think it's unfortunate that some have turned it into a jihad where the images are a problem that has to be solved Right Now in whatever way first comes to mind. The TIME case is especially comical in that the copyright holder has even been contacted about our "flagrant theft of their property!", and their official response is rather less histrionic than some of our admins on the subject - one even gets the impression that TIME wouldn't mind much if every WP article included a relevant cover (hey, cheapest ad space in the world :-) ).
I think Jimbo may have to take a little heat, in adopting an ambiguous position. On the one hand, he abjures us to believe in eventualism, assume good faith, practice wikilove, etc, then turns around and makes blanket statements about killing all fair use images, which are then taken by frustrated admins as license to shoot wildly in all directions. If we've adopted a goal of limiting fair use, and really believe in our community's ability to develop good process, then we *will* get there.
In case anyone has forgotten, image handling has improved radically; three years ago it was atypical for an upload to have any source or copyright info at all, and now only a couple percent of our half-million images remain undescribed, with the forecast predicting the remainder to be fixed up within the next couple of months.
Three years from now, I expect that all the upset over fair use will be something that only the oldtimers remember.
Stan