Pete -
An apologia for Commons, and the obvious implication that use on projects will have to (if people actually care to enforce local standards) require checking license status for every Project use, do not in any way lessen the need for Uncommons.
On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 11:26 AM, Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 11:12 AM, George Herbert <george.herbert@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 8:58 AM, Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
Can you clarify -- who do you intend by "we"? If your answer is
"English
Wikipedia," I think we already have a somewhat workable solution to
this
complex problem: fair use is permitted in certain cases.[2] Of course,
you
probably mean something broader. But the solution English Wikipedia has chosen is available, by virtue of a WMF resolution,[3] to every
Wikimedia
project. So if fair use is the issue, why not simply propose permitting
it
at specific local projects?
The whole point of Commons is to serve as a central repository of shared images for Projects to use together.
I think if we're going to talk about the *whole* point of Commons, we should look back at the original proposal for its establishment, which clearly identified it as a place for *freely licensed* works: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-March/014885.html
The same image on en.wikipedia and ru.wikipedia and es.wikipedia and the dictionaries and books and travel and...
But en.wikipedia and ru.wikipedia and es.wikipedia have different standards about whether a non-free file can be used. So, does a shared repository for non-free files really make sense, considering that most projects prohibit them outright, and those few that do permit them only permit them under very narrow and unique circumstances?
The failure of Commons
The failure of Commons? You consider the most extensive project created in the Wikimedia movement a failure? On what grounds?
I have no problem with Commons
remaining as-is if we have an alternate lowest-common-denominator image repo that will automatically be searched for images as Commons is now.
"Fair use" law in the U.S. is pretty tightly tied to the way something is used; so the very act of publishing something *outside* of a use context would, by its very nature, strain at the limits of the fair use provision. And English Wikipedia's standards are actually much tighter than those of the U.S. law in that regard.
-Pete _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe