On 24/02/2008, WJhonson(a)aol.com <WJhonson(a)aol.com> wrote:
If, in a biography of Patti Smith, we have no free
images of Patti Smith,
but we have a book cover of her biography writen by John Brown or whatever, and
that book cover, is in fact, a photograph of Patti Smith, we can and should
use it in the article. That photograph enhances the project, harms no one,
and is fair use. Rejecting it for bureaucratic reasons, making the *rule* more
important than the participants, is not in the best interests of the
project. I'm not suggesting we have a rule for not using book covers. I'm
suggesting that those people who interpret our policy to state that, are harming the
project.
How exactly would you defend that under the doctrine of fair use? I
really can't see a way to do it.
Some editors place the rules as gods over the
community, without realizing
that it is the community which made the rules. Some editors place such a high
reliance in their personal interpretations of general policy, to fit
specific situations, that they cannot comprehend how harmful their actions are to
the project, when they create such a level of internal discord, and when the
end-result denigrates the project without creating any enhanced value.
Our copyright policy was for the most part put together by people who
have at least a passing knowledge of copyright law. So fair you have
failed to show that you do.
The removal of all fair use photographs does nothing
useful for the project.
The project is to make a free encyclopedia.
It does however harm it, by removing useful
illustrations from articles
that could use them,
So far for your chosen example this does not appear to be true.
replacing their removal with a vacancy filled by
nothing.
That isn't progress.
Will Johnson
Experience suggests that nothing is more likely to be replaced by a
free image than an image with a really really weak fair use claim.
--
geni