On Sun, 18 Jan 2009, The Cunctator wrote: In this case, the image actually may be unusable even under fair use. It's the *real* law which has lost all perspective. We have no choice but to follow it. But it is sort of amusing, because Wikipedia's image policy is ridiculously strict and fails logic in several ways, yet can't be changed. So now this ridiculously strict policy is being applied more evenly than we'd have expected and, of course, people are up in arms about it. There's a good solution: don't have a ridiculously strict policy. Even if the Spider-Man picture is fair use in a legal sense (something I rather doubt), it's hard to justify having it while still excluding fair use photos of living people (probably the worst case) and all sorts of other fair uses that we could legally have but aren't allowed by policy. (And I never liked the Spiderman Reichtag joke anyway. It seems to me a lot like "look, we can violate the rules to be funny, and you can't!")

I'm glad you liked my link to WP:LAME. The primary reason we cannot accept "permission" from a company is that permission does not make that image free. (our license and mission means we should maximize free content..., in addition we cannot accept permission for wikimedia only as re-users (legit mirrors) would not have that same permission) We can use an image under fair use regardless if the publisher allows us to do so or not. That is the point of fair use. Of the two options you gave, only the first is possible. (remember asking permission means they have to release under an acceptable license, we cannot accept "wikipedia only" permissions because of downstream users). If you think it is a good idea to leave up and see what happens suggest that on commons. Now I do understand that by asking, you mean asking if putting the image on commons is ok, not if doing so under fair use is ok... However I find it very unlikely that the company that holds the copyrights in this case would permit any free image of spider man.. And they would have to say its ok to have under a free license for it to be on commons. I hope I make some sense... Feel free to *nicely* tell me if I don't. Cheers! On 1/18/09, James Farrar <james.farrar(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- Sent from my mobile device

Instance number 192,453,345,252 that someone complains about something that "makes no sense" and turns out to be completely wrong. Next! Nathan

No, being wrong isn't a function of my opinion. Mr. Farrar doesn't even argue for being right, he just thinks we should make an exception for when we're having fun. Plus I thought it'd be neat to arbitrarily pick a number to add to my unnecessarily definitive statement. Nathan

2009/1/19 geni <geniice(a)gmail.com>om>: Which brings up the question "What is Wikipedia?". Is meta-content like User: space and Wikipedia: space actually part of Wikipedia?

2009/1/19 Ron Ritzman <ritzman(a)gmail.com>om>: I've asked that question before and always got fobbed off. Some people seem to think that they can pursue "a free encyclopaedia" with no possible conflict between the freeness of the project and the quality of the project as an encyclopaedia.

Ron Ritzman wrote: I prefer using "free" as a verb. A noun makes it too static. Ec

On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 10:09 PM, Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org> wrote: The way it is viewed IMHO affects what our non free content policy should be. If it is viewed as the former, then User:Angr and those who say that all non-free images should be prohibited have a strong case. If it is viewed as the latter, then it can be argued that a good image, free or otherwise, means a better article and better articles mean a better encyclopedia. In other words, IAR.

The problem is *this* particular example is on commons. If james meant to point out our complex image policy.. He should have linked to a closed discussion on en wiki. Common's rules are simpler then en wiki... Most of the complexity is really copyright law. On 1/19/09, Ron Ritzman <ritzman(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- Sent from my mobile device

Right, but it is on wikimedia commons. If it were hosted on en wikipedia, you could argue fair use, etc. As far as the image's current status, I explained that in a prior post. Remember commons hosts only free images. On 1/19/09, James Farrar <james.farrar(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- Sent from my mobile device

2009/1/19 James Farrar <james.farrar(a)gmail.com>om>: Not always. There are situations where they cannot be moved and notices are placed. In this case however the image could not be used on en since we don't allow non free images outside the article namespace because while some of them might qualify under fair use it isn't worth the hassle it would take to keep the situation under control. -- geni