On 28/01/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/28/07, Robert Scott Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:
I am being told that the one and only way that these images are going to possibly be removed from Wikipedia is through a WP:OFFICE action. I think that is one of the most ridiculous sentiments ever made. For example, see the "disclaimer" that was thrown onto this image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image%3AHand_with_Reflecting_Sphere.jpg
Hmm yes that is rather a worry. I would argue it's inclusion in [[Hand with Reflecting Sphere (Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror)]] at a low enough resolution could be legitimately argued to be fair use.
Yeah, there's a place for fair use, and that's probably where it would be. Maybe in a general article on Escher, maybe not.
For the actual *likelihood* of a legal apocalypse for the Foundation - my favoured example again, [[Xenu]] - the important IMO) fair-use image are owned by the Church of Scientology, who are really quite notable for now far they will take legal action to protect what they see as their interests (see [[Scientology and the legal system]] - SCO is *nothing* by comparison) but literally haven't uttered a peep about the CoS-owned images on [[Xenu]] in two years, while CoS staff editors participate extensively in the Scientology-related articles on Wikipedia. Because the educational fair use *in the context of the article* is really not reasonably contestable under US law. And nor have they approached any mirror sites that I know of (and I'm hooked in enough to the Scientology critic community that think I'd know).
(And the image of the word "Xenu" in L. Ron Hubbard's handwriting has been widely distributed in the UK, and worldwide, on Roland Rashleigh-Berry's 'Xenu leaflet' since 1997. I've handed it to CoS staff myself. Not a peep of a legal threat over it.)
IMO, every fair use image on en:wp should have a {{fairusein}} template and only be used in articles carrying that template with an article and a rationale. I'm a big fan of fair use, but I also think it's taken *way* too far in practice. And I think it would be a bad thing for the encyclopedia for fair use to be abused to the point where the Foundation says "no more."
IMHO, this disclaimer by itself is almost proof by itself that this particular image is a copyright violation,
It is prooof that someone doesn't know what they are doing
Assume good faith! But by no means let doing so stop us from winding fair use on en:wp back to something considerably more hardarsed.
and I would argue that the other 40,000 images also in [[en:w:Category:Fair use images of art]] also are very likly to be copyright violations. That is not a trivial number of images to be removing.
While it is a bit messy a lot of it isn't to bad. As long as people talk about the artwork in the article it is in it is posible to start building a fair use case.
I know you're pretty knowledgeable about the state of fair use images on en:wp, so it's very reassuring that it's not *too* bad. Not unfixably so, anyway.
- d.