Robert Scott Horning wrote:
I am curious if anybody who is a regular participant on this mailing list has ever come across an equivalent peer to Wikipedia (aka Britannica or a major website like cnn.com) that would use modern art works (I'm defining modern as created by anybody who has died since 1924) and publish reproductions of them using fair-use as the only justification for their inclusion?
Sure, here's some: A 1932 Pablo Picasso painting: http://archives.cnn.com/2000/STYLE/arts/05/10/picasso.auction.ap/ (credited as "AP Photo", though it's doubtful the AP owns the copyright) A 1939 Pablo Picasso painting: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/year.in.review/story/arts/ (credited as "CNN", again doubtful)
Sometimes it's unclear: A 1953 Mark Rothko painting: http://archives.cnn.com/2000/STYLE/arts/11/15/sothebys.auction.reut/ (credited as "Courtesy Sotheby's", but it's unclear whether the "courtesy" means they were given a copyright license, or, more likely, are using it under an {{en:promotional}} type fair-use claim)
My general impression is that fair-use images are quite common in journalism. I don't know about encyclopedias. They are fairly common in educational books---film-studies books frequently make fair use of low-resolution still shots from films.
-Mark