On 02/03/2008, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/03/2008, WJhonson@aol.com WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
"Replaceable" is a very tenuous term. If we have no free-use image, we should be and are free to use a fair-use image *until* such time as we do have a free-use image.
We tried that. Our living people bios ended up lousy with copyvios with fair use tags and no one really looked for free replacements.
Indeed. Whereas no non-free images on living bios (with some very rare exceptions in the cases of noted recluses, e.g. [[J. D. Salinger]]) and placeholders saying "Replace this image" has gotten us at least usable and, in some cases, high-quality promotional images (e.g. [[Vox Day]] releasing one of his promo images under GFDL because he saw the placeholder on his article).
So a fairly hard-arsed policy of (almost) no non-free images on living bios notably works to get us, and hence the world, more free content, often quite good free content. And once it's free content, it's free forever [*].
[*] barring retrospective changes to copyright law, e.g. theft from the public domain by means of term extension.
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