Jimbo said:
Fair use is a good legal doctrine. It says "look here, the extent of copyright has limits". We should support that and rely on it as needed.
We should also reward people emotionally for doing great original work and releasing it for free.
--Jimbo
I agree that there is a lot to be gained by rewarding people for original work. Still, I think each case should probably be decided on its own merits, case by case. I can imagine a case where there was a free image available, and also a clearly superior fair use image where the fair use issue was not in doubt. In that case, I would find it hard to justify using an inferior free image simply because it was free? I know this runs counter to pure open-source thinking, but I keep thinking our primary goal is to make the best encyclopedia possible, and if that means occasionally favoring fair use to free images, then I don't see a problem. But if the images are even roughly equivalent in quality, certainly the free should win out.
darin
On 14 Nov 2005, at 19:12, Brown, Darin wrote:
I agree that there is a lot to be gained by rewarding people for original work. Still, I think each case should probably be decided on its own merits, case by case. I can imagine a case where there was a free image available, and also a clearly superior fair use image where the fair use issue was not in doubt. In that case, I would find it hard to justify using an inferior free image simply because it was free? I know this runs counter to pure open-source thinking, but I keep thinking our primary goal is to make the best encyclopedia possible, and if that means occasionally favoring fair use to free images, then I don't see a problem. But if the images are even roughly equivalent in quality, certainly the free should win out.
No the primary goal is to make a free encyclopaedia. It will be the best one as a byproduct.
And the aim is not to finish the encyclopaedia next week it is to build a structure that will create an encyclopaedia, and non free content as Jimbo said detracts from that structure by discouraging the creation of free content and hence a free encyclopaedia.
You are of course free to fork wikipedia, within the license terms and try to make a better non free version. For example you could pay to license good images for it.
Justinc
On 11/14/05, Brown, Darin Darin.Brown@enmu.edu wrote:
I agree that there is a lot to be gained by rewarding people for original work. Still, I think each case should probably be decided on its own merits, case by case. I can imagine a case where there was a free image available, and also a clearly superior fair use image where the fair use issue was not in doubt. In that case, I would find it hard to justify using an inferior free image simply because it was free? I know this runs counter to pure open-source thinking, but I keep thinking our primary goal is to make the best encyclopedia possible, and if that means occasionally favoring fair use to free images, then I don't see a problem. But if the images are even roughly equivalent in quality, certainly the free should win out.
I believe the usual wording is that free images should be preferred whenever they are "adequate" replacements -- it's a bit loose, but I have always thought that it means that as long as the free image is not "inadequate" (that is, it simply fails both informationally and stylistically) it should be preferred over a non-free one, even if the latter is in many respects a better image on the whole.
Just because copyrighted images by full-time photographers with complete access and advanced materials are "superior" does not mean they should be preferred; they are contradictory to a major purpose of this project, do not encourage people to make free media, and put us unnecessarily in a legally questionable situation on top of that. If the free alternative is good enough to serve the purpose of an encyclopedia article, it gains preference, on account of its free-ness. In my view. It is important to reward the finding/creation of free content and to avoid wherever possible the reliance upon non-free content.
FF