I've just removed two references to [[Image:Mac Internet Explorer.png]] and two to [[Image:XPlogo.png]] from user pages. While both of these images have a good argument for fair use on the appropriate articles about their related products, there is no fair use argument for placing these on user pages or in cutesy little "product endorsement" boxes (see [[User:NSR/userboxes]]) for people to put on their user pages. Wikipedia doesn't need to carry advertisements for anybody, especially not using copyrighted logos.
Kelly
On 9/20/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
I've just removed two references to [[Image:Mac Internet Explorer.png]] and two to [[Image:XPlogo.png]] from user pages. While both of these images have a good argument for fair use on the appropriate articles about their related products, there is no fair use argument for placing these on user pages or in cutesy little "product endorsement" boxes (see [[User:NSR/userboxes]]) for people to put on their user pages. Wikipedia doesn't need to carry advertisements for anybody, especially not using copyrighted logos.
I see this fundemental lack of understanding all the time. And it seems to be exacerbated with specific fair use tags.
One example I recently ran across was a user uploading a lot of porn and nude screenshots from various movies. I listed these on the copyright problems page. Instead of the images being deleted, the person processing the copyvios added a {{screenshot}} tag to a bunch of them. These were orphans. They had zero fair-use rationale. But what the hell, there was a {{screenshot}} tag to use.
I just ran across http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:JilKelly-BonitaSaint-DevenDavis-Perfect_P... morning and am wondering if it is even worth the effort to list on WP:CP.
On 9/22/05, Puddl Duk puddlduk@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/20/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
I've just removed two references to [[Image:Mac Internet Explorer.png]] and two to [[Image:XPlogo.png]] from user pages. While both of these images have a good argument for fair use on the appropriate articles about their related products, there is no fair use argument for placing these on user pages or in cutesy little "product endorsement" boxes (see [[User:NSR/userboxes]]) for people to put on their user pages. Wikipedia doesn't need to carry advertisements for anybody, especially not using copyrighted logos.
I see this fundemental lack of understanding all the time. And it seems to be exacerbated with specific fair use tags.
One example I recently ran across was a user uploading a lot of porn and nude screenshots from various movies. I listed these on the copyright problems page. Instead of the images being deleted, the person processing the copyvios added a {{screenshot}} tag to a bunch of them. These were orphans. They had zero fair-use rationale. But what the hell, there was a {{screenshot}} tag to use.
I just ran across http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:JilKelly-BonitaSaint-DevenDavis-Perfect_P... this morning and am wondering if it is even worth the effort to list on WP:CP.
No, that's a speedy delete, after you delete the user page references (which can never been fair use), the image has no use on Wikipedia, making it an unused fair use image, which is a copyvio. Jimbo gave us license to speedily delete copyvio images. Feel free to zorch it, assuming I don't beat you to it.
Kelly
This is a problem I've been thinking about fairly specifically as of recent. Specific fair use tags serve a number of useful functions -- they help categorize an overly large category, they help specify specific criteria for "fair use" images in that category (at least, in the rewritten ones), and they may at some point be able to be linked to specific fair use rationale pages (specific to that type of media).
The downside is that people read them (especially the old, non-rewritten ones) as being unlimited "get out of jail free cards". Which is dangerous and bad and promotes sloppy thinking.
One way to get around this is to of course modified the captions to say that they MUST be used in actual *articles* (i.e., in the article namespace). I might do that soon.
One of the big things which is a problem at the moment is that there are two or three different places to list CV/Fair use disputed images for deletion (WP:CP, WP:PUI, WP:IFD). This promotes confusion, lack of standardization, and long nasty debates with people who are sad that their favorite image of some supermodel is nominated for deletion (and they hastily try to insert it into articles to make it seem "used" and for "analysis", etc.). It doesn't make it easy to nominated copyrighted images for deletion, it makes it very hard in practice. Add the fact that there are a lot of people who are relatively clueless about copyrights, or have drastically divergent opinions about what is "fair" or not, and we get nothing but logjam.
In a project of this sort, it should be *easy* to delete copyrighted material. The difficulty should be in defending them from deletion. The burden of proof should be heavily on the person to convince that it is *not* copyright infringement. All use of non-free images should be considered copyright infringement *by default*, and only considered otherwise after convincing reasoning. It's a place where "assume good faith" is a bad idea (I've had people criticize me for not "assuming good faith" when people just label images as PD without providing any explanation and I ask for some reasoning) because there's more at stake here than a user's desire to help the project (i.e. a user's understanding of the copyright categories they are dealing with).
I don't have the slightest idea how to change this though, at least not from my level of things (I have absolutely no authority, either on Wikipedia or by means of claiming to be a lawyer or expert, neither of which I am). But I think it's a general problem at the moment, one which hinders intelligent reform quite a bit. Someone with some sort of authority (on Wikipedia or in a legal/expertise sense) could probably do a big favor by trying to work this out in an intelligent way. I don't think it's something which lends itself to collective discussion and decision, because of the ambiguity of the legal issues.
(Of course, in the absence of said Voice-on-High, I'm happy to mull about as usual. Something is better than nothing. I think we're doing some good work at WP:WPFU, getting a much better understanding of the salient issues at the very least, and are being forced to confront a lot of assumptions and find good ways to talk about them. Much better than nothing.)
I'm *almost* inclined to suggest that we just NOT accept "fair use" images at all. Not because our use of them is likely "unfair", or even dangerous, but because this is a legal problem beyond the knowledge base of most of our users, and we leave most of the impetus on *them* to figure out what's legal or not. Almost inclined... but not completely. It would simplify things, but we'd be poorer for it, as an encyclopedia, and we'd also look like we were copyright paranoid or cowed, neither of which is a good reputation to have. But it's a thought.
FF
On 9/22/05, Puddl Duk puddlduk@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/20/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
I've just removed two references to [[Image:Mac Internet Explorer.png]] and two to [[Image:XPlogo.png]] from user pages. While both of these images have a good argument for fair use on the appropriate articles about their related products, there is no fair use argument for placing these on user pages or in cutesy little "product endorsement" boxes (see [[User:NSR/userboxes]]) for people to put on their user pages. Wikipedia doesn't need to carry advertisements for anybody, especially not using copyrighted logos.
I see this fundemental lack of understanding all the time. And it seems to be exacerbated with specific fair use tags.
One example I recently ran across was a user uploading a lot of porn and nude screenshots from various movies. I listed these on the copyright problems page. Instead of the images being deleted, the person processing the copyvios added a {{screenshot}} tag to a bunch of them. These were orphans. They had zero fair-use rationale. But what the hell, there was a {{screenshot}} tag to use.
I just ran across http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:JilKelly-BonitaSaint-DevenDavis-Perfect_P... morning and am wondering if it is even worth the effort to list on WP:CP. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 9/22/05, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
One way to get around this is to of course modified the captions to say that they MUST be used in actual *articles* (i.e., in the article namespace). I might do that soon.
I would greatly approve of that. IMO there is no fair use for a nonfree image outside of article space (excluding the temporary use of one in a user sandbox for an article under development). I've been very aggressively deleting references to nonfree images in user space lately. There has been some whining but nothing major.
Several of us are now speedily deleting nonfree images that have no article references on the grounds that an image that is not being used logically cannot be being used as fair use. I am also aggressively tagging nonfree images that are used in articles which reasonably can be replaced by free alternatives (e.g. photos of buildings that are still standing, or of common objects like late model cars) with {{fairusereplace}}. And images which do not appear reasonably replaceable and which are being used are being tagged as {{fairuseverified|article}} (with datestamp) to indicate that someone has looked at the image and its use and verified that its use *in that article* is likely to be fair use.
I'm being somewhat bold in doing what I'm doing, but based on what Jimbo's had to say to the list lately and based on my discussion with other admins, this is what we need to do. A lot of images are going to get deleted during this cleanup -- including a great deal of softcore porn that's currently linked only to user pages -- and I suspect quite a few editors will get ruffled feathers when some pet image or another gets either tagged or deleted.
Kelly
On 22/09/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
I would greatly approve of that. IMO there is no fair use for a nonfree image outside of article space (excluding the temporary use of one in a user sandbox for an article under development).
Oh, there's *probably* some plausible uses in Wikipedia: space, but in the general case I concur.
Several of us are now speedily deleting nonfree images that have no article references on the grounds that an image that is not being used logically cannot be being used as fair use.
Stupid question: I'm purging my merry way through the {{poster}} categories (sorting them into movieposter, &c); is there a tag I can slap on images to say "is fairuse, is not linked to anything, Someone Do Something About This"?
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
On 9/22/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 22/09/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
I would greatly approve of that. IMO there is no fair use for a nonfree image outside of article space (excluding the temporary use of one in a user sandbox for an article under development).
Oh, there's *probably* some plausible uses in Wikipedia: space, but in the general case I concur.
Several of us are now speedily deleting nonfree images that have no article references on the grounds that an image that is not being used logically cannot be being used as fair use.
Stupid question: I'm purging my merry way through the {{poster}} categories (sorting them into movieposter, &c); is there a tag I can slap on images to say "is fairuse, is not linked to anything, Someone Do Something About This"?
{{db|orphaned non-free image}} works for me.
Andrew Gray wrote:
On 22/09/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
I would greatly approve of that. IMO there is no fair use for a nonfree image outside of article space (excluding the temporary use of one in a user sandbox for an article under development).
Oh, there's *probably* some plausible uses in Wikipedia: space, but in the general case I concur.
I remember chasing up whoever it was that put the graffiti image on [[WP:VIP]] because it didn't have an info on copyright, and it turned out to be a {{CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat}} (effectively, CC-BY).
Kelly Martin wrote:
Several of us are now speedily deleting nonfree images that have no article references on the grounds that an image that is not being used logically cannot be being used as fair use.
I would appreciate it if you would take the trouble to see whether an image was uploaded in anticipation of article use. For instance, I often upload postage stamp scans in batches, and it may be a period of weeks before I write all the articles that will use the uploaded scans. You're not doing anybody a service by deleting these beforehand, nor are you incentivizing me to create the articles more quickly or to write first and upload later - more likely I'll just stop writing.
Stan
How would we know if it was uploaded in anticipation? Why do you insist on having it your way?
On 9/22/05, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
Kelly Martin wrote:
Several of us are now speedily deleting nonfree images that have no article references on the grounds that an image that is not being used logically cannot be being used as fair use.
I would appreciate it if you would take the trouble to see whether an image was uploaded in anticipation of article use. For instance, I often upload postage stamp scans in batches, and it may be a period of weeks before I write all the articles that will use the uploaded scans. You're not doing anybody a service by deleting these beforehand, nor are you incentivizing me to create the articles more quickly or to write first and upload later - more likely I'll just stop writing.
Stan
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You could always ask, and if there are those for whom my upload gallery is not blindingly obvious as a holding/tracking area, I could certainly add a note to the top of it. Seeing as how I'm the person doing the physical labor of preparing the scan and postprocessing the image, I don't think it's too much to ask that my process be accommodated, rather than "assuming bad faith" as was suggested. I've been very conservative on deciding whether any given stamp image was PD or fair use - just deleted all the Israeli stamps on commons after researching their copyright status for instance - so it borders on the insulting to suggest that I don't take any of this seriously.
Stan
Phroziac wrote:
How would we know if it was uploaded in anticipation? Why do you insist on having it your way?
On 9/22/05, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
Kelly Martin wrote:
Several of us are now speedily deleting nonfree images that have no article references on the grounds that an image that is not being used logically cannot be being used as fair use.
I would appreciate it if you would take the trouble to see whether an image was uploaded in anticipation of article use. For instance, I often upload postage stamp scans in batches, and it may be a period of weeks before I write all the articles that will use the uploaded scans. You're not doing anybody a service by deleting these beforehand, nor are you incentivizing me to create the articles more quickly or to write first and upload later - more likely I'll just stop writing.
Stan
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I did not mean to imply that one should "assume bad faith" in every instance, of course. Yours sounds like a specific and worthwhile task, one which could likely be identified as one which could fall into a "good faith" category.
I'm talking mostly about the many users who upload likely copyrighted media and plop some sort of PD or fair use tag on it without labeling the source, and may or may not insert it into an article, and likely have not searched for "free" alternatives of any sort.
And though I am very much against a media-centric mode of thought in terms of fair use, I don't think US postage stamps are very high on the list of copyright dangers. "Assuming bad faith" in terms of copyright would only mean, as I propose it, assuming that, *in absence of other reasons to think so*, users who upload copyrighted materials are likely committing copyright infringement. I think what you are describing is well within the bounds of the "other reasons to think so", especially if you explained it to an inquisitive editor in as sensible a way as you did on this list.
FF
On 9/22/05, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
You could always ask, and if there are those for whom my upload gallery is not blindingly obvious as a holding/tracking area, I could certainly add a note to the top of it. Seeing as how I'm the person doing the physical labor of preparing the scan and postprocessing the image, I don't think it's too much to ask that my process be accommodated, rather than "assuming bad faith" as was suggested. I've been very conservative on deciding whether any given stamp image was PD or fair use - just deleted all the Israeli stamps on commons after researching their copyright status for instance - so it borders on the insulting to suggest that I don't take any of this seriously.
Stan
Phroziac wrote:
How would we know if it was uploaded in anticipation? Why do you insist on having it your way?
On 9/22/05, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
Kelly Martin wrote:
Several of us are now speedily deleting nonfree images that have no article references on the grounds that an image that is not being used logically cannot be being used as fair use.
I would appreciate it if you would take the trouble to see whether an image was uploaded in anticipation of article use. For instance, I often upload postage stamp scans in batches, and it may be a period of weeks before I write all the articles that will use the uploaded scans. You're not doing anybody a service by deleting these beforehand, nor are you incentivizing me to create the articles more quickly or to write first and upload later - more likely I'll just stop writing.
Stan
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On 9/23/05, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
You could always ask, and if there are those for whom my upload gallery is not blindingly obvious as a holding/tracking area, I could certainly add a note to the top of it. Seeing as how I'm the person doing the physical labor of preparing the scan and postprocessing the image, I don't think it's too much to ask that my process be accommodated, rather than "assuming bad faith" as was suggested. I've been very conservative on deciding whether any given stamp image was PD or fair use - just deleted all the Israeli stamps on commons after researching their copyright status for instance - so it borders on the insulting to suggest that I don't take any of this seriously.
Stan
Phroziac wrote:
How would we know if it was uploaded in anticipation? Why do you insist on having it your way?
On 9/22/05, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
Kelly Martin wrote:
Several of us are now speedily deleting nonfree images that have no article references on the grounds that an image that is not being used logically cannot be being used as fair use.
I would appreciate it if you would take the trouble to see whether an image was uploaded in anticipation of article use. For instance, I often upload postage stamp scans in batches, and it may be a period of weeks before I write all the articles that will use the uploaded scans. You're not doing anybody a service by deleting these beforehand, nor are you incentivizing me to create the articles more quickly or to write first and upload later - more likely I'll just stop writing.
Stan
You could just add a note to those images to let others know about your plans and more importantly tell about the copyright status of the image. If both of those are mentioned, deleting admins will check with you before deleting anything.
Sometimes a quick look into the contributor's track record will help. Ec
Phroziac wrote:
How would we know if it was uploaded in anticipation? Why do you insist on having it your way?
On 9/22/05, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
Kelly Martin wrote:
Several of us are now speedily deleting nonfree images that have no article references on the grounds that an image that is not being used logically cannot be being used as fair use.
I would appreciate it if you would take the trouble to see whether an image was uploaded in anticipation of article use. For instance, I often upload postage stamp scans in batches, and it may be a period of weeks before I write all the articles that will use the uploaded scans. You're not doing anybody a service by deleting these beforehand, nor are you incentivizing me to create the articles more quickly or to write first and upload later - more likely I'll just stop writing.
On 9/22/05, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
I would appreciate it if you would take the trouble to see whether an image was uploaded in anticipation of article use. For instance, I often upload postage stamp scans in batches, and it may be a period of weeks before I write all the articles that will use the uploaded scans. You're not doing anybody a service by deleting these beforehand, nor are you incentivizing me to create the articles more quickly or to write first and upload later - more likely I'll just stop writing.
The policy Jimbo set out allowed a seven day window for a use to be found for a nonfree image. If you need an image held longer, I suggest putting a comment on the image description page so that patrollers know that is what's going on.
Kelly
Kelly Martin wrote:
On 9/22/05, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
I would appreciate it if you would take the trouble to see whether an image was uploaded in anticipation of article use. For instance, I often upload postage stamp scans in batches, and it may be a period of weeks before I write all the articles that will use the uploaded scans. You're not doing anybody a service by deleting these beforehand, nor are you incentivizing me to create the articles more quickly or to write first and upload later - more likely I'll just stop writing.
The policy Jimbo set out allowed a seven day window for a use to be found for a nonfree image. If you need an image held longer, I suggest putting a comment on the image description page so that patrollers know that is what's going on.
I've pondered on this a bit, and it occurred to me that there is an easy expedient that I think could be raised to the level of policy - namely, to have the image description page contain wikilinks to every article that the fair use image is intended to illustrate. Reviewers can then compare those to the image's "what links here" to see that they match, while as-yet-unwritten articles appear as red links.
To take an example, suppose we have an Israeli stamp depicting Ben-Gurion. Fair use might mean that we can use it to illustrate articles on Israeli philately, but not as a substitute for a free photo in Ben-Gurion's bio. So we make the description page have a link to [[Stamps of Israel]]; if the article is yet to be written, the link is red indicating that it's a future plan. If the link is blue but the page doesn't show up in "links here", or vice versa, something is wrong; the image is used in an article where it shouldn't be allowed, or perhaps the article has been edited to take out the legitimate usage - maybe a free image is now available, in case we can safely discard the fair use version, or maybe the article has been vandalized, and we want to respond by fixing the article, rather than deleting the apparently-orphaned image.
With a bit of formalized structure for this data, it might even be possible to write a script that verifies correct usage, and only warns about suspicious "fair" uses.
Stan
Well, this is the hope of the "verified use" template -- it would list specifically *which* articles were independently confirmed as "fair" uses. But of course this would only come up on contentious uses (that is, when there was a complaint or a request for review). It's hard for me to imagine anything else along these lines which would be practical -- I have a hard time imagining a good hardware solution to this which wouldn't involve radically rewriting the code or requiring armies of human monitors.
I think it *would* be very nice to have a robot which would scour the "fair use" categories for orphaned images, and mark them with a little remark which said, "If this image is not used in a week, it will be deleted. If you object to this, simply edit this image description -- if this robot is not the last editor of the image description, it will just be flagged for review." or something like that. After a week the image would go through the list again, delete as noted, or flag as noted. It would clean up the categories quite a bit, I think. Perhaps I'll propose this on one of those bot-related pages, see if one of the existing bot scripts could be adapted by someone knowledgeable in the art of bots...
FF
On 9/23/05, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
Kelly Martin wrote:
On 9/22/05, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
I would appreciate it if you would take the trouble to see whether an image was uploaded in anticipation of article use. For instance, I often upload postage stamp scans in batches, and it may be a period of weeks before I write all the articles that will use the uploaded scans. You're not doing anybody a service by deleting these beforehand, nor are you incentivizing me to create the articles more quickly or to write first and upload later - more likely I'll just stop writing.
The policy Jimbo set out allowed a seven day window for a use to be found for a nonfree image. If you need an image held longer, I suggest putting a comment on the image description page so that patrollers know that is what's going on.
I've pondered on this a bit, and it occurred to me that there is an easy expedient that I think could be raised to the level of policy - namely, to have the image description page contain wikilinks to every article that the fair use image is intended to illustrate. Reviewers can then compare those to the image's "what links here" to see that they match, while as-yet-unwritten articles appear as red links.
To take an example, suppose we have an Israeli stamp depicting Ben-Gurion. Fair use might mean that we can use it to illustrate articles on Israeli philately, but not as a substitute for a free photo in Ben-Gurion's bio. So we make the description page have a link to [[Stamps of Israel]]; if the article is yet to be written, the link is red indicating that it's a future plan. If the link is blue but the page doesn't show up in "links here", or vice versa, something is wrong; the image is used in an article where it shouldn't be allowed, or perhaps the article has been edited to take out the legitimate usage - maybe a free image is now available, in case we can safely discard the fair use version, or maybe the article has been vandalized, and we want to respond by fixing the article, rather than deleting the apparently-orphaned image.
With a bit of formalized structure for this data, it might even be possible to write a script that verifies correct usage, and only warns about suspicious "fair" uses.
Stan
On 9/24/05, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps I'll propose this on one of those bot-related pages, see if one of the existing bot scripts could be adapted by someone knowledgeable in the art of bots...
FF
Could be done in theory but there is no way you are going to get support for a bot able to delete images. There is at the current time one bot on wikipedia that uses admin powers and that one only gets away with it because we were out of other options. -- geni
I didn't realize that, but that's understandable. You could replace "delete" with "list for deletion" and it would work probably just the same, without admin ability. I actually hadn't really thought about the mechanics of actually deleting the images, it was more of an abstract notion.
FF
On 9/23/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/24/05, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps I'll propose this on one of those bot-related pages, see if one of the existing bot scripts could be adapted by someone knowledgeable in the art of bots...
FF
Could be done in theory but there is no way you are going to get support for a bot able to delete images. There is at the current time one bot on wikipedia that uses admin powers and that one only gets away with it because we were out of other options. -- geni
On 9/23/05, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
I think it *would* be very nice to have a robot which would scour the "fair use" categories for orphaned images, and mark them with a little remark which said, "If this image is not used in a week, it will be deleted. If you object to this, simply edit this image description -- if this robot is not the last editor of the image description, it will just be flagged for review." or something like that.
I've started writing that robot, but ran into a problem with the pywikipedia framework and [[Category:Fair use images]]. It seems that there are more than 200 images in the category indexed under "Upload" (due to a now-fixed bug in MediaWiki from last April and May), which causes the category enumerator in pywikipedia to loop endlessly. Once I've manually touched enough of the images which are indexed under "Upload" to drop that count below 200, the bug will clear and I'll be able to use the robot to enumerate the category and do the orphan check on a periodic basis.
If you want to help, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Fair_use_images&from=... and make null edits on the images listed therein. This will cause them to be reindexed properly and fix the indexing problem with the Category. There's a lot of them.
Kelly
Just as a note:
Just a day after I posted this as at the /Todo page at WP:WPFU, the amazingly wonderful [[User:JYolkowski]] has gone through them one by one and has now reported it as completed. The selflessness at which people will apply themselves to such tasks for the good of a greater project -- even the most dull and boring -- is really quite stunning and impressive. Of course, this comes as no surprise on Wikipedia, but I thought it deserved to be noted once again.
FF
On 9/23/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
I've started writing that robot, but ran into a problem with the pywikipedia framework and [[Category:Fair use images]]. It seems that there are more than 200 images in the category indexed under "Upload" (due to a now-fixed bug in MediaWiki from last April and May), which causes the category enumerator in pywikipedia to loop endlessly. Once I've manually touched enough of the images which are indexed under "Upload" to drop that count below 200, the bug will clear and I'll be able to use the robot to enumerate the category and do the orphan check on a periodic basis.
If you want to help, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Fair_use_images&from=... and make null edits on the images listed therein. This will cause them to be reindexed properly and fix the indexing problem with the Category. There's a lot of them.
Kelly
--- Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
In a project of this sort, it should be *easy* to delete copyrighted material. The difficulty should be in defending them from deletion. The burden of proof should be heavily on the person to convince that it is *not* copyright infringement. All use of non-free images should be considered copyright infringement *by default*, and only considered otherwise after convincing reasoning. It's a place where "assume good faith" is a bad idea (I've had people criticize me for not "assuming good faith" when people just label images as PD without providing any explanation and I ask for some reasoning) because there's more at stake here than a user's desire to help the project (i.e. a user's understanding of the copyright categories they are dealing with).
I agree completely. Last time I checked, the deletion policy is very much so biased toward keeping everything by requiring a supermajority to delete. It should be the other way around whenever a fair use claim is made.
Please, let's change the deletion policy on this ASAP.
-- mav
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Actually it's ALREADY changed. Stupid fair use claim = delete on sight if it's been on the site for atleast a week.
On 9/22/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
In a project of this sort, it should be *easy* to delete copyrighted material. The difficulty should be in defending them from deletion. The burden of proof should be heavily on the person to convince that it is *not* copyright infringement. All use of non-free images should be considered copyright infringement *by default*, and only considered otherwise after convincing reasoning. It's a place where "assume good faith" is a bad idea (I've had people criticize me for not "assuming good faith" when people just label images as PD without providing any explanation and I ask for some reasoning) because there's more at stake here than a user's desire to help the project (i.e. a user's understanding of the copyright categories they are dealing with).
I agree completely. Last time I checked, the deletion policy is very much so biased toward keeping everything by requiring a supermajority to delete. It should be the other way around whenever a fair use claim is made.
Please, let's change the deletion policy on this ASAP.
-- mav
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On 9/22/05, Phroziac phroziac@gmail.com wrote:
Actually it's ALREADY changed. Stupid fair use claim = delete on sight if it's been on the site for atleast a week.
Where is this? I don't see it in wp:csd.
On 9/22/05, Puddl Duk puddlduk@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/22/05, Phroziac phroziac@gmail.com wrote:
Actually it's ALREADY changed. Stupid fair use claim = delete on sight if it's been on the site for atleast a week.
Where is this? I don't see it in wp:csd.
It falls under "copyright violation".
Kelly
On 9/22/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
I agree completely. Last time I checked, the deletion policy is very much so biased toward keeping everything by requiring a supermajority to delete. It should be the other way around whenever a fair use claim is made.
Remember that a fair use claim would come under the Copyright policy, which being a key policy takes precedence over the deletion policy.
In short, if someone makes a fair use claim they should need a consensus to support it if anything.
Under deletion policy, the rule is "if in doubt, don't delete." The copyright policy should adopt the reverse approach. Wikipedia is known for the quality of its product. Let's not ever risk it being known as a purloiner of other people's hard work.
On 9/22/05, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/22/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
In short, if someone makes a fair use claim they should need a consensus to support it if anything.
''Consensus'' only works when the people involved are knowledgeable about fair-use. I haven't found this to be the case at wp:cp.
I was actually thinking to create a flowchart for people to easily determine the copyright status of images, but lacking the legal know-how, I haven't done it.
Not only would such an aid in determining image status be helpful to people who are new to legal issues on this, it could also be used as an argument to not allow images that don't get through this process for being a copyright infringement or faulty fair use claim.
We should also have a page saying how we should only have limited fair use images on articles (and not on userpages) where there's no other alternatives or 1 such image in an article when it explains a lot (again, if there's no other choice).
--Mgm
On 9/23/05, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/22/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
I agree completely. Last time I checked, the deletion policy is very
much
so biased toward keeping everything by requiring a supermajority to delete. It should be the other way around whenever a fair use claim is made.
Remember that a fair use claim would come under the Copyright policy,
which
being a key policy takes precedence over the deletion policy.
In short, if someone makes a fair use claim they should need a consensus
to
support it if anything.
Under deletion policy, the rule is "if in doubt, don't delete." The copyright policy should adopt the reverse approach. Wikipedia is known for the quality of its product. Let's not ever risk it being known as a purloiner of other people's hard work. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
There *was* such a flow chart at one point, or an equivalent of one (if it has this, go to B, if not, go to C; and in the end you'd end up with "can use it" or "can't"). The problem was that it was confusing and rarely ever used.
Thus was my impetus to re-write the tags so that they would be self-defining. When incorrectly used they make it clear as such. It seems to have been having some small effect, I've been told, but it's hard to know for sure.
The problem of course is that there is not an easy way to write a "blanket" tag -- I'm not at all sure how {{fairuse}} itself should be rewritten, but it probably ought to be.
Some of what you're suggesting is currently on WP:FU, which was recently rewritten.
One thought I honestly had on this was to write a little Wikibook on fair use and copyright law -- it wouldn't be that hard to write a basic primer that you could refer all people who just don't seem to get it to. But I haven't had the time.
(And honestly, "reform" gets me down -- it is always met with strong objections, some good and some less so, from people who do and do not understand, and people who let the perfect get in the way of the good. And a project where there is little authority and an emphasis on consensus, it's hard to be successful at instituting big changes. But this is hardly unique to just this little effort, which has been considerably smoother than many others I'm sure. And, perhaps most fortunately, there are others willing to take on the effort as well, which really does make a huge difference on an individual level!)
FF
On 9/22/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
I was actually thinking to create a flowchart for people to easily determine the copyright status of images, but lacking the legal know-how, I haven't done it.
Not only would such an aid in determining image status be helpful to people who are new to legal issues on this, it could also be used as an argument to not allow images that don't get through this process for being a copyright infringement or faulty fair use claim.
We should also have a page saying how we should only have limited fair use images on articles (and not on userpages) where there's no other alternatives or 1 such image in an article when it explains a lot (again, if there's no other choice).
--Mgm
On 9/23/05, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/22/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
I agree completely. Last time I checked, the deletion policy is very
much
so biased toward keeping everything by requiring a supermajority to delete. It should be the other way around whenever a fair use claim is made.
Remember that a fair use claim would come under the Copyright policy,
which
being a key policy takes precedence over the deletion policy.
In short, if someone makes a fair use claim they should need a consensus
to
support it if anything.
Under deletion policy, the rule is "if in doubt, don't delete." The copyright policy should adopt the reverse approach. Wikipedia is known for the quality of its product. Let's not ever risk it being known as a purloiner of other people's hard work. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 9/23/05, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
One thought I honestly had on this was to write a little Wikibook on fair use and copyright law -- it wouldn't be that hard to write a basic primer that you could refer all people who just don't seem to get it to. But I haven't had the time.
That's how my rc wiki started...hah.
On 9/23/05, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
There *was* such a flow chart at one point, or an equivalent of one (if it has this, go to B, if not, go to C; and in the end you'd end up with "can use it" or "can't"). The problem was that it was confusing and rarely ever used.
Thus was my impetus to re-write the tags so that they would be self-defining. When incorrectly used they make it clear as such. It seems to have been having some small effect, I've been told, but it's hard to know for sure.
Maybe it's just me, but when someone is completely oblivious with regard to
copyright law, how are they going to find out which tag to use if they need to read the tag to find out if it fits? Now we've got the automated license selector in the upload process, we should have some easy way for noobs to determine which one to choose. If the previous system was confusing and rarely used, it should've been rewritten to make things easier (as much as it's possible with law-related text) and its use should be encouraged more. Not having an easy to understand quick read about licenses is the excuse people use to upload loads of abusive fair use claimed images. Having such a system return makes excuses impossible.
Mgm
I didn't find the previous system difficult at all, personally.
On 9/23/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/23/05, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
There *was* such a flow chart at one point, or an equivalent of one (if it has this, go to B, if not, go to C; and in the end you'd end up with "can use it" or "can't"). The problem was that it was confusing and rarely ever used.
Thus was my impetus to re-write the tags so that they would be self-defining. When incorrectly used they make it clear as such. It seems to have been having some small effect, I've been told, but it's hard to know for sure.
Maybe it's just me, but when someone is completely oblivious with regard to
copyright law, how are they going to find out which tag to use if they need to read the tag to find out if it fits? Now we've got the automated license selector in the upload process, we should have some easy way for noobs to determine which one to choose. If the previous system was confusing and rarely used, it should've been rewritten to make things easier (as much as it's possible with law-related text) and its use should be encouraged more. Not having an easy to understand quick read about licenses is the excuse people use to upload loads of abusive fair use claimed images. Having such a system return makes excuses impossible.
Mgm _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 9/23/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Maybe it's just me, but when someone is completely oblivious with regard
to copyright law, how are they going to find out which tag to use if they need to read the tag to find out if it fits? Now we've got the automated license selector in the upload process, we should have some easy way for noobs to determine which one to choose. If the previous system was confusing and rarely used, it should've been rewritten to make things easier (as much as it's possible with law-related text) and its use should be encouraged more. Not having an easy to understand quick read about licenses is the excuse people use to upload loads of abusive fair use claimed images. Having such a system return makes excuses impossible.
Well, the paradox about the fair use tags is that they are sorted by *media* but fair use is about *use*. So, in an ideal world, with ideal tags, if one knows the media, one can use the correct tag, which itself will be self-descriptive about the use.
An example: Hapless, well-intentioned user notices that book covers seem to be allowed on Wikipedia, and uploads an image of a cover of a book. They look at WP:ICT (or just copy from another bookcover description), and see there is a template for {{bookcover}}, which they use.
If they read the template, they will see that it says, "Book covers are thought to be fair use on Wikipedia when they are low-resolution and illustrate the book in question or are used for critical commentary on the cover itself, and anything else may be copyright infringement" or something along those lines. The reader says, "Oh no, my cover was high res!" and goes back and changes it. Or they say, "Oh, I guess I can't use this book cover just to illustrate the object depicted on the cover!" or something along these lines, which affects their use. Or, another, equally hapless but well-intentioned user sees this image and the tag, and says, "Hey, I don't think this image is being used correctly, because the image is being used in such-and-such a way" and flags it as a questionable instance of the fair use claim (simple methods to flag things for review by less hapless users are being developed).
Anyway, that was my original idea. The goal is to make it so that both the *selection* of the tag and the *applicability* of the tag should be easy for someone without a clue about copyright law. And they don't even need to become educated in the law one bit to properly tag images or spot poorly used images. Such is my hope and theory. I'm really not in favor of putting "fair use" at all as an option on the auto-license selector -- if you're new enough to not be able to navigate WP:ICT and make sense of it, you shouldn't be uploading copyrighted material yet, period. In my opinion.
The problem with the original flowchart was that it was focused on the wider question of "fair use" as a legal question. It ended up with a "score" of how "fair use" something was which was opaque and had no equivalent in the legal world.
I'm more in favor of a list of simple proclamations. Such as:
1. If it can be remade "freely", do so instead. You can request graphics to be drawn [[here]] and photographs [[here]]. 2. If it is a significantly higher resolution than would be needed to illustrate it in a Wikipedia article, downsize it. [[Here]]'s an explanation of how to do this. 3. If the image from a source which makes its money solely from selling images, you probably shouldn't use it. 4. If reproducing the image on Wikipedia could in any reasonable way seriously impact negatively the future sales of the copyrighted product it is from or depicts, don't use it. A large part of whether something is "fair use" is whether it has a negative effect on the potential market of an image. ... etc.
No jumping around. The goal would be to make something even more specific than the usual "criteria for deletion", but for copyrighted images in particular. That way relatively hapless users could say, "Hey, this isn't allowed under our fair use policy, because it violates rule number 4". Disputes over the content and validity of the rules would be of course up for consensus but hopefully would be largely decided by people with some basic knowledge of "fair use" law.
I apologize for the long and overly theoretical e-mails... seminars are back in session, so I spend most of my days obfuscating and trying to appear overly intellectual. It's a hard habit to break. ;-)
FF
On 9/23/05, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
I'm really not in favor of putting "fair use" at all as an option on the auto-license selector -- if you're new enough to not be able to navigate WP:ICT and make sense of it, you shouldn't be uploading copyrighted material yet, period. In my opinion.
I'm strongly opposed to having any "license" options that state, imply, or suggest that the image is being used on Wikipedia *as a whole* as "fair use". The license listed for images which can only be used on Wikipedia as fair use should be called "nonfree" (or something equivalent) or even "unlicensed" and should state that the image is not licensed for use on Wikipedia. A separate tag should then be added to indicate that the image's use *on a specific article* is fair use.
Too many people have the blanket attitude that, e.g., "bookcovers are fair use" or that "DVD covers are fair use", and that's just not right. Having "fair use" as a license option encourages this wrongful and problematic thinking.
Kelly
There was recently an album cover on [[Red hair]]. Argh. I completely agree with you Kelly, I happen to think that's a great idea. (As usual....usually)
On 9/23/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/23/05, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
I'm really not in favor of putting "fair use" at all as an option on the auto-license selector -- if you're new enough to not be able to navigate WP:ICT and make sense of it, you shouldn't be uploading copyrighted material yet, period. In my opinion.
I'm strongly opposed to having any "license" options that state, imply, or suggest that the image is being used on Wikipedia *as a whole* as "fair use". The license listed for images which can only be used on Wikipedia as fair use should be called "nonfree" (or something equivalent) or even "unlicensed" and should state that the image is not licensed for use on Wikipedia. A separate tag should then be added to indicate that the image's use *on a specific article* is fair use.
Too many people have the blanket attitude that, e.g., "bookcovers are fair use" or that "DVD covers are fair use", and that's just not right. Having "fair use" as a license option encourages this wrongful and problematic thinking.
Kelly _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Just as a note: I created a sub-page at WP:WPFU, [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use/Explaining fair use]], for the purposes of exploring ideas and coordinating human resources towards creating easy to understand resources to explain fair use and copyright law as it applies to Wikipedia. As I currently see it, the goal of such a project would be as follows:
Wikipedia users on the whole do not know much about U.S. copyright law, and are thus generally not very empowered to make reasoned decisions about whether something is "fair use" or not. This often leads to rather bitter arguments between users, which generally collapse as one party notes that the other is not a lawyer and thus not an authority on the topic.
It would be more ideal if there were easy, straightforward references which one could refer users on Wikipedia to which would explain the notion of copyright, "fair use", and their applications to Wikipedia in a manner which would not require any experience in legal reasoning or a large time commitment.
It's of course very underdeveloped at this point, but anyone interested in such a thing should stop on by. Some current ideas I listed were graphical explanations, checklists, flowcharts, a Wikibook, improved descriptions on the relevant policy pages, etc., as well as some links I find useful in thinking about "fair use" (which are still a bit too technical for the average Wikipedia user, but closer to what I am imagining we need than a simple quotation of the "fair use" clause of U.S. copyright law).
FF
On 9/22/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
I was actually thinking to create a flowchart for people to easily determine the copyright status of images, but lacking the legal know-how, I haven't done it.
Not only would such an aid in determining image status be helpful to people who are new to legal issues on this, it could also be used as an argument to not allow images that don't get through this process for being a copyright infringement or faulty fair use claim.
We should also have a page saying how we should only have limited fair use images on articles (and not on userpages) where there's no other alternatives or 1 such image in an article when it explains a lot (again, if there's no other choice).
--Mgm
On 9/23/05, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/22/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
I agree completely. Last time I checked, the deletion policy is very
much
so biased toward keeping everything by requiring a supermajority to delete. It should be the other way around whenever a fair use claim is made.
Remember that a fair use claim would come under the Copyright policy,
which
being a key policy takes precedence over the deletion policy.
In short, if someone makes a fair use claim they should need a consensus
to
support it if anything.
Under deletion policy, the rule is "if in doubt, don't delete." The copyright policy should adopt the reverse approach. Wikipedia is known for the quality of its product. Let's not ever risk it being known as a purloiner of other people's hard work. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Fastfission wrote:
Just as a note: I created a sub-page at WP:WPFU, [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use/Explaining fair use]], for the purposes of exploring ideas and coordinating human resources towards creating easy to understand resources to explain fair use and copyright law as it applies to Wikipedia. As I currently see it, the goal of such a project would be as follows:
Wikipedia users on the whole do not know much about U.S. copyright law, and are thus generally not very empowered to make reasoned decisions about whether something is "fair use" or not. This often leads to rather bitter arguments between users, which generally collapse as one party notes that the other is not a lawyer and thus not an authority on the topic.
It would be more ideal if there were easy, straightforward references which one could refer users on Wikipedia to which would explain the notion of copyright, "fair use", and their applications to Wikipedia in a manner which would not require any experience in legal reasoning or a large time commitment.
It's of course very underdeveloped at this point, but anyone interested in such a thing should stop on by. Some current ideas I listed were graphical explanations, checklists, flowcharts, a Wikibook, improved descriptions on the relevant policy pages, etc., as well as some links I find useful in thinking about "fair use" (which are still a bit too technical for the average Wikipedia user, but closer to what I am imagining we need than a simple quotation of the "fair use" clause of U.S. copyright law).
This is probably better placed on Meta since copyright law affects all projects.
While I support the intent of what you are trying to do, the main problem will remain the unwillingness of editors to familiarise themselves with the law. Whatever you may write about the subjec, will anybody read it. As a result we find many unsupported radical positions at both ends of the scale.
Sometimes I think that the IANAL argument or even more the YANAL argument sonds like an old lawyer trick to stop a discussion that nobody wants to face. Although we now consider references very important in articles about most subjects, we do not take it so far as to say that the person to whom we refer must always be speaking the truth. We recognise that he is expressing a Point of View; a Point of View from a position of expertise is still a Point of View. We do not idolize the source, but see it in a broader perspective. We refer not defer.
Why should it be so different when we speak of lawyers? To make matters worse we aren't even deferring to the Point of View of some particularly renowned or scholarly lawyer, but to lawyers in general. It really comes down to how we as a group accept responsibility for our actions. Fair use does not excuse reckless irresponsibility. It is a right which needs to be used responsibly.
There is also a pecular trend in some of these discussions: We often end up discussing it in terms of the copyright on images. This is certainly important, but the fundamentals of copyright law reside in the copyright of texts. With a solid understanding of how copyright and fair use apply to texts it is much easier to migrate that understanding to images and other modern media.
It makes sense that we should first consider this issue in terms of U. S. law; it originated there. As the discussion matures there will be a need to expand it to be able to co-ordinate with similar laws (or lack thereof) in other countries.
Let me speculate a little further. Would there be enough material about fair use to have it serve as the basis for a Wikiversity course? 8-)
Ec
Whether people will read it or not, having a set of concrete resources can aid in discussions with obstinate users as well. Resources can be forms of authority in and of themselves -- "Look at this, it says you are wrong."
I don't participate in Meta, and I don't know what the gameplan is there. And though copyright law applies to all of the Wiki projects, it applies to them in different ways varying by their content. Commons is exclusively about image and sound media; Wikisource is about wholesale textual media; Wikiquote is about what degree of quotation is copyrightable; etc. So I think having resources tailored to individual projects makes sense, in the same sense that Wikiquote ought to have its own Copyrights page distinct from Wikipedia's (which it now does).
The goal of the resources I'm proposing is to focus on simplicity, ease, and low-investment (of time, energy, brain, etc.) on the part of the user. Whether some users refuse to make any use of it, I still think on the whole it's not a bad idea and could be quite useful. But it's just one of many such things.
FF
On 9/24/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Fastfission wrote:
Just as a note: I created a sub-page at WP:WPFU, [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use/Explaining fair use]], for the purposes of exploring ideas and coordinating human resources towards creating easy to understand resources to explain fair use and copyright law as it applies to Wikipedia. As I currently see it, the goal of such a project would be as follows:
Wikipedia users on the whole do not know much about U.S. copyright law, and are thus generally not very empowered to make reasoned decisions about whether something is "fair use" or not. This often leads to rather bitter arguments between users, which generally collapse as one party notes that the other is not a lawyer and thus not an authority on the topic.
It would be more ideal if there were easy, straightforward references which one could refer users on Wikipedia to which would explain the notion of copyright, "fair use", and their applications to Wikipedia in a manner which would not require any experience in legal reasoning or a large time commitment.
It's of course very underdeveloped at this point, but anyone interested in such a thing should stop on by. Some current ideas I listed were graphical explanations, checklists, flowcharts, a Wikibook, improved descriptions on the relevant policy pages, etc., as well as some links I find useful in thinking about "fair use" (which are still a bit too technical for the average Wikipedia user, but closer to what I am imagining we need than a simple quotation of the "fair use" clause of U.S. copyright law).
This is probably better placed on Meta since copyright law affects all projects.
While I support the intent of what you are trying to do, the main problem will remain the unwillingness of editors to familiarise themselves with the law. Whatever you may write about the subjec, will anybody read it. As a result we find many unsupported radical positions at both ends of the scale.
Sometimes I think that the IANAL argument or even more the YANAL argument sonds like an old lawyer trick to stop a discussion that nobody wants to face. Although we now consider references very important in articles about most subjects, we do not take it so far as to say that the person to whom we refer must always be speaking the truth. We recognise that he is expressing a Point of View; a Point of View from a position of expertise is still a Point of View. We do not idolize the source, but see it in a broader perspective. We refer not defer.
Why should it be so different when we speak of lawyers? To make matters worse we aren't even deferring to the Point of View of some particularly renowned or scholarly lawyer, but to lawyers in general. It really comes down to how we as a group accept responsibility for our actions. Fair use does not excuse reckless irresponsibility. It is a right which needs to be used responsibly.
There is also a pecular trend in some of these discussions: We often end up discussing it in terms of the copyright on images. This is certainly important, but the fundamentals of copyright law reside in the copyright of texts. With a solid understanding of how copyright and fair use apply to texts it is much easier to migrate that understanding to images and other modern media.
It makes sense that we should first consider this issue in terms of U. S. law; it originated there. As the discussion matures there will be a need to expand it to be able to co-ordinate with similar laws (or lack thereof) in other countries.
Let me speculate a little further. Would there be enough material about fair use to have it serve as the basis for a Wikiversity course? 8-)
Ec
Fastfission wrote:
Whether people will read it or not, having a set of concrete resources can aid in discussions with obstinate users as well. Resources can be forms of authority in and of themselves -- "Look at this, it says you are wrong."
Dealing with the obstinate ones, and enforcing rules is a different problem. The more immediate issue is getting people of good will to understand what they are talking about.
I don't participate in Meta, and I don't know what the gameplan is there. And though copyright law applies to all of the Wiki projects, it applies to them in different ways varying by their content. Commons is exclusively about image and sound media; Wikisource is about wholesale textual media; Wikiquote is about what degree of quotation is copyrightable; etc. So I think having resources tailored to individual projects makes sense, in the same sense that Wikiquote ought to have its own Copyrights page distinct from Wikipedia's (which it now does).
Certainly the "way" these laws are applied will vary, but we are still dealing with fundamentally the same law. If you strip a problem down to its basics it becomes much easier to see how each of these projects deviates from those basics. When sports teams begin to perform erratically a good coach will take the time to get the players to practice basic skills.
The goal of the resources I'm proposing is to focus on simplicity, ease, and low-investment (of time, energy, brain, etc.) on the part of the user. Whether some users refuse to make any use of it, I still think on the whole it's not a bad idea and could be quite useful. But it's just one of many such things.
Nobody's saying it's a bad idea.
Ec
A just to reply to two things I didn't really get to in the last one...
On 9/24/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
There is also a pecular trend in some of these discussions: We often end up discussing it in terms of the copyright on images. This is certainly important, but the fundamentals of copyright law reside in the copyright of texts. With a solid understanding of how copyright and fair use apply to texts it is much easier to migrate that understanding to images and other modern media.
I think it is a bit incorrect to give texts a privileged place in this -- images of all sorts, as well as texts, have been components of copyright law since their very origins, and the chief reason images occupy so much attention on our project is that copyright law affects different media differently. It is very easy to take any textual information and, for the purposes of the encyclopedia, make it entirely safe and sanitary. The use of attributed brief quotations and summaries is a well-established part of academic critique and "fair use" even before there was a "fair use" clause. Graphical media though is more difficult to transform -- a redrawing of a famous painting would still be considered derivative in the eyes of the law (though to the varying extents depending on the specifics). Photographs, especially of historical events (which by their definition cannot be repeated), cannot be easily "freed" unless their copyrights expire (which for things post-1922 has not happened for a long time and will not likely happen for a long time) or they are specifically re-licensed or put into the public domain (and more likely the rights are just sold to Corbis for a nominal fee, who then puts ridiculous commercial restrictions on their licensing).
For Wikipedia, text is not a big deal. (For Wikiquote and Wikisource, it is the only deal, of course, as I said before). Images, however, are a big deal, and on Wikipedia they are, in my opinion, more of a big deal than they are on Commons (which under more ideal management would have a strict and simple shoot-on-sight policy to maintain copyright-purity), because it allows "fair use" images in the first place. (It is a big deal with Wikinews too, of course, but I think their shoot-on-sight policy looks pretty good, in theory.)
So anyway. All I'm trying to stress is that copyright *does* affect certain media differently than others, as does "fair use" (you can use a few seconds of a sound clip, but using a few pixels of an image doesn't seem to be quite the same thing, and text you can paraphrase completely and cite). Sorry to be so pedantic and tedious about it.
FF