I can understand that using images willy-nilly in articles to which they bear only the most lateral of relationships might well give rise to a real problem, and I have no argument with the idea of removing such uses.
However it would appear that some people are taking the argument to rather silly extremes. I have just discovered the school of thought that believes that including an image in a category contravenes the "Fair Use" principle because displaying the image on the category page amounts to using the image in an unfair way!
Is it me, or is this just plain silly? A category is simply an organisational tool, not an article. Surely a case can be made that the proper categorisation of images within an encyclopedia is essential to using those images correctly.
I was under the impression that ideally, **all** images should belong to at least one category, depending upon their licensing status. Obviously there are those who disagree.
On 9/26/05, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
I have just discovered the school of thought that believes that including an image in a category contravenes the "Fair Use" principle because displaying the image on the category page amounts to using the image in an unfair way!
Is it me, or is this just plain silly? A category is simply an organisational tool, not an article. Surely a case can be made that the proper categorisation of images within an encyclopedia is essential to using those images correctly.
As I understand it, if the image is not being used for the purpose of education, satire, or review, we have no fair use claim to it. This is not the same as saying it is not a "fair" use of the image, which is a subjective judgment anyway. Put another way, "fair use" does not mean "whatever is useful to us". We may only use it in a few specific contexts. Using them as organizational tools for meta pages about the encyclopedia doesn't qualify; therefore, such use would constitute copyright violation.
- Ryan
Nobody would ever claim that it means "whatever is useful to us." But I think the "nature of the use" aspect of the "fair use" clause would come into play here: the nature of the use is, simply, to help make sure that our use of the images in the articles (which is clearly their primary use) is properly done, and it allows us to take inventory of all such images. The effect upon any copyright holder of such tiny images being arranged in such a way would be marginal. You might as well argue that the use separate "Image:" pages for images is a fair use violation, since on those pages the actual image file is not being used under narrow "fair use" provisions.
I think any judge would buy the argument that the real "fair use" question is how they are used in the primary content of the encyclopedia.
In any event, "fair use" is legally rather ambiguous -- I think though that this is a fairly "low risk" version of "fair use", that is, it is unlikely to make anybody think that they would have a very good case for suing us. Categorization helps us find, avoid, and change "high risk" and "medium risk" cases (for example, in retagging all images with a {{poster}} tag to new use- and content-based poster tags, a large effort which was recently completed), which are the ones to worry more about. In my non-lawyerly opinion.
FF
On 9/27/05, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/26/05, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
I have just discovered the school of thought that believes that including an image in a category contravenes the "Fair Use" principle because displaying the image on the category page amounts to using the image in an unfair way!
Is it me, or is this just plain silly? A category is simply an organisational tool, not an article. Surely a case can be made that the proper categorisation of images within an encyclopedia is essential to using those images correctly.
As I understand it, if the image is not being used for the purpose of education, satire, or review, we have no fair use claim to it. This is not the same as saying it is not a "fair" use of the image, which is a subjective judgment anyway. Put another way, "fair use" does not mean "whatever is useful to us". We may only use it in a few specific contexts. Using them as organizational tools for meta pages about the encyclopedia doesn't qualify; therefore, such use would constitute copyright violation.
- Ryan
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 9/27/05, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
I can understand that using images willy-nilly in articles to which they bear only the most lateral of relationships might well give rise to a real problem, and I have no argument with the idea of removing such uses.
However it would appear that some people are taking the argument to rather silly extremes. I have just discovered the school of thought that believes that including an image in a category contravenes the "Fair Use" principle because displaying the image on the category page amounts to using the image in an unfair way!
Is it me, or is this just plain silly? A category is simply an organisational tool, not an article. Surely a case can be made that the proper categorisation of images within an encyclopedia is essential to using those images correctly.
I was under the impression that ideally, **all** images should belong to at least one category, depending upon their licensing status. Obviously there are those who disagree.
Hi, it's sometimes confusing since "fair use" is something only the US and Philippines has. One of the provisions for fair use is - "purpose and character of the use."
If you write an article on the [[Ford Mustang]] and you use a photo from ford.com claiming fair use, that's one thing.
If you use that same (or smaller) Ford Mustang picture on the [[Category:Rear wheel drive vehicles]] page as an icon for the page, that is gratuitous use. When used a navigation aid, a badge or a symbol for Wikipedia's sake, we are appropriating their work for our convenience, and not to educate.
And because this is case law, there are no precise guidelines about this, but the precedent for this is pretty substantial.
As an aside, I'm heartened to see photos tagged with "Fair use image replacement request" to try to be less dependent on their use.
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
"Andrew Lih" andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote in message news:2ed171fb05092701414ca01dbd@mail.gmail.com... [snip]
If you write an article on the [[Ford Mustang]] and you use a photo from ford.com claiming fair use, that's one thing. If you use that same (or smaller) Ford Mustang picture on the [[Category:Rear wheel drive vehicles]] page as an icon for the page, that is gratuitous use.
No argument.
However this is not what I am referring to.
If you add [[Category:Pictures of Ford cars]] to that page, the picture will then appear on the appropriate page **as a member of that category**. Not illustrating the category...not describing it...simply as a **member** of the category.
Some people seem to think that our Fair Use policy should be so draconian that this kind of picture should not be allowed to belong to any category, simply because the automatic display of the image's thumbnail on the associated category page constitutes violation of Fair Use.
So if we attach a category to the {{Fair Use}} template (say [[Category:Fair Use Images]] for the sake of argument), we are apparently committing an offense by simply retrieving the category to inspect what images have been described as "Fair Use" for the purpose of verifying that the description is correct.
This is the kind of nonsense up with which I am not inclined to put.
I would like clarification or I will have to stamp my foot and pout.
On Tue, 2005-09-27 at 11:30 +0100, Phil Boswell wrote:
"Andrew Lih" andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote in message news:2ed171fb05092701414ca01dbd@mail.gmail.com... [snip]
If you write an article on the [[Ford Mustang]] and you use a photo from ford.com claiming fair use, that's one thing. If you use that same (or smaller) Ford Mustang picture on the [[Category:Rear wheel drive vehicles]] page as an icon for the page, that is gratuitous use.
No argument.
However this is not what I am referring to.
If you add [[Category:Pictures of Ford cars]] to that page, the picture will then appear on the appropriate page **as a member of that category**. Not illustrating the category...not describing it...simply as a **member** of the category.
Some people seem to think that our Fair Use policy should be so draconian that this kind of picture should not be allowed to belong to any category, simply because the automatic display of the image's thumbnail on the associated category page constitutes violation of Fair Use.
Its a process of working out a policy, rather than the current no policy at all. No one is deleting stuff yet, just small amounts of things being experimented for discussion reasons.
Some legal input would be very helpful right now.
The current situation is that fair use has got silly. And it has caused a culture of pretty much anything is fair use. This has led to the situation where even if you argue individually that one item is fair use, you have now collected a database that in its entirety cannot be argued to be fair use.
Justinc
On 9/27/05, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
If you add [[Category:Pictures of Ford cars]] to that page, the picture will then appear on the appropriate page **as a member of that category**. Not illustrating the category...not describing it...simply as a **member** of the category.
Some people seem to think that our Fair Use policy should be so draconian that this kind of picture should not be allowed to belong to any category, simply because the automatic display of the image's thumbnail on the associated category page constitutes violation of Fair Use.
Again, fair use law has nothing to do with what we, personally, find unreasonable or draconian. If it is the case that having images listed in a category is incompatible with the law, then we shouldn't do it, period. You would have to show why this practice constitutes a fair use and the burden of proof would be squarely on you. As it happens, I think that whoever is raising this issue is making a pretty good point.
- Ryan
On 9/27/05, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
Again, fair use law has nothing to do with what we, personally, find unreasonable or draconian. If it is the case that having images listed in a category is incompatible with the law, then we shouldn't do it, period. You would have to show why this practice constitutes a fair use and the burden of proof would be squarely on you. As it happens, I think that whoever is raising this issue is making a pretty good point.
- Ryan
Isn't there a way to use the softwear to prevent the images appearing in catigories?
-- geni
Fair use is not a question of whether it is a black and white "compatible with the law" or "incompatible with the law". Fair use comes down to a weighing of factors and intent by a judge, and that only if you end up court. Hence I sometimes find it more useful to think about "fair use" in terms of "risk factors", for lack of a better phrase. "High risk" fair use claims are ones which could easily incite a copyright holder to sue Wikipedia, in part because the copyright holder would have a good reason to think a judge would be sympathetic to them. "Low risk" fair use claims are one which are not likely to ever get in front of a judge, because a copyright holder would find our fair use claims sufficiently robust as to not guarantee any easy legal battle. Hence the goal of articulating clearly our fair use rationale and claims -- the better articulated they are, and the more legally savvy they are, the more work they will do for us in reducing our general risk.
I see this as pretty low risk, myself, for reasons already articulated. We are not using them in a way which generates us any profit; our use of them is strictly for indexing and sorting purposes; and the thumbnail images are of such low resolution that they, in and of themselves, could not possibly compete with any existing market. A better cause for argumentation (one which I think is still not a problem) would be image description pages, which can be accessed as "separately published content" from the article pages themselves, devoid of content alltogether in many cases. But I feel this is getting all too academic; none of this takes into account that most likely any judge would be quick to recognize that such things are simply technical hurdles necessary for the primary and most important use of the copyright image, which is part of our self-described "content". The low resolution of the thumbnail images would also surely be considered enough of a transformation to render them grossly less useful than the original copyrighted work in every respect. There has been at least one case which, though its circumstances were in some ways different, had this as an important element in the granting of a "fair use" decision.
If there are reasons to think that this would not be a very "low risk" fair use claim, I'd be interested in hearing them. So far I've only seen "used in an article about the subject of the image" invoked which is less of a legal stricture than a Wikipedia policy used to make sure that "fair use" images are not applied willy nilly to things they should not be. It is a nice conservative policy which I on the whole support, but I think this interpretation of it is a little batty. Another similar Wikipedia policy which is not directly a legal one is the "don't use fair use if there are free alternatives." This is not because there is any law which says "if there were alternatives, you get no fair use claim," it is because if possible we'd like to avoid being at any risk at all, avoid even asking the question.
I wanted to also note that most of the fair use image categories are not oriented around a single copyright holder, as "Pictures of Ford cars" would likely be. They are things such as "Pictures of political posters" or "Pictures of DVD covers" and things of that sort. Whether or not this difference is substantive or not depends on how you reason it, but I think it makes it clear that their arrangement in the category pages is simply indexical and is not about any systematic attempt to make further copyright violations easier.
Again, this is just my reasoning on it. Not a lawyer, etc.
FF
On 9/27/05, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/27/05, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
If you add [[Category:Pictures of Ford cars]] to that page, the picture will then appear on the appropriate page **as a member of that category**. Not illustrating the category...not describing it...simply as a **member** of the category.
Some people seem to think that our Fair Use policy should be so draconian that this kind of picture should not be allowed to belong to any category, simply because the automatic display of the image's thumbnail on the associated category page constitutes violation of Fair Use.
Again, fair use law has nothing to do with what we, personally, find unreasonable or draconian. If it is the case that having images listed in a category is incompatible with the law, then we shouldn't do it, period. You would have to show why this practice constitutes a fair use and the burden of proof would be squarely on you. As it happens, I think that whoever is raising this issue is making a pretty good point.
- Ryan
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Who is advocating this? I haven't seen anybody saying this on the talk pages for WP:FU or WP:WPFU. None of the people I've seen who have been involved in discussing fair use policy and tagging seem to be advocating this in the slightest.
Anyway, the categories serve important organizational purposes which outweight their very marginal danger of being related to any sort of "fair use" problem in and of themselves. We need the categories to assess and review "fair use" media in the first place -- the danger of not having them (which would make monitoring impossible) is far greater than the danger of having them. Categorization is just a form of indexing, it is not the primary "use" of the images and I'm willing to bet any judge with half a brain would know that. But again, I haven't seen anybody honestly advocating this.
I doubt anybody would sue by saying "well, sure it's fair use in the *article*, but the tiny icon-sized version they use to sort the licensing status, that's what we think is infringing on our copyright." They'd be laughed out of the courtroom, and they would know that.
FF
On 9/27/05, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
I can understand that using images willy-nilly in articles to which they bear only the most lateral of relationships might well give rise to a real problem, and I have no argument with the idea of removing such uses.
However it would appear that some people are taking the argument to rather silly extremes. I have just discovered the school of thought that believes that including an image in a category contravenes the "Fair Use" principle because displaying the image on the category page amounts to using the image in an unfair way!
Is it me, or is this just plain silly? A category is simply an organisational tool, not an article. Surely a case can be made that the proper categorisation of images within an encyclopedia is essential to using those images correctly.
I was under the impression that ideally, **all** images should belong to at least one category, depending upon their licensing status. Obviously there are those who disagree. -- Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 27/09/05, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
Who is advocating this? I haven't seen anybody saying this on the talk pages for WP:FU or WP:WPFU. None of the people I've seen who have been involved in discussing fair use policy and tagging seem to be advocating this in the slightest.
It seems to have been a passing comment on WP:CP - end of the Sept.25 entry.
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk