That's very well said, Mark. I agree wholeheartedly.
Delirium wrote:
I'm not sure it really inhibits the free spread of knowledge in that case, since a reuser who prefers not to or can't rely on fair use can always distribute the same article with the fair-use pictures removed---this can even be done automatically since we tag them as fair use. What *would* inhibit free knowledge in this case is if we used a fair-use picture where a free one was available, since in that case we'd be forcing this kind of user to remove a picture when we could've provided one that they could have kept in.
But if it's a choice between providing no picture at all, and providing a picture that some large subset of users (but not all) can use while the rest can automatically remove it, I don't see why it *hurts* free knowledge to provide the optional image rather than none.
-Mark