Angela_ wrote:
Even if this is fair use, what's stopping the copyright holders from suing the wikimedia foundation, and incurring a great deal of legal fees?
The legal risk lies with the user who uploaded it and claimed it was fair use, not with the Foundation.
That's interesting. This is the first time I hear this (but I haven't followed the discussion very much, either). So what are you going to do if the uploader is an anonymous IP address?
Is the foundation willing to pursue lawsuits against them for violating copyright law?
If an image really is fair use, it is not violating copyright law.
At least not in the U.S.
The German Wikipedia have a policy which disallows fair use completely.
Which is reasonable, seeing as most of the users of the German-language content are going to be German, Swiss, Austrian or possibly Luxembourgian, and those countries don't have a "fair use" law.
We are protected to some extent by the [[Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act]]. We would take the images down if someone sent a valid takedown notice, so presumably we would avoid legal risk that way.
Again, this is interesting. I didn't know there was an extra Act for this. This begs the question would other countries have a similar law.
Timwi