[Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab?

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Peter Carney

13 Mar 2011 13 Mar '11

1:01 p.m.

Validly licenced images of this building and thousands of others are routinely deleted due to Wikimedia Commons' 'FoP' policy. Clearly this damages our educational mission and impacts many projects. One proposed remedy is a tweak to the policy on the lines of that arising from the National Portrait Gallery dispute. Opponents of change say things like "Commons only accepts free content" which was never strictly true even before the NPG/PD-art policy change. The question which I'd like to hear your views on is: Can you think of any valid arguments to the effect that deleting these images has an upside - a benefit to our mission? P Carney

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Marcus Buck

13 Mar 13 Mar

1:06 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab?

Am 13.03.2011 13:01, schrieb Peter Carney:

...

The upside is, that we won't get sued by copyright holders, I guess. Marcus Buck User:Slomox

Thomas Dalton

3:30 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab?

On 13 March 2011 12:06, Marcus Buck <me(a)marcusbuck.org> wrote:

...

The upside is, that we won't get sued by copyright holders, I guess.

Actually, the upside is that our reusers won't get sued by copyright holders. We can claim fair use when using images like that on Wikipedia, but images on Commons are supposed to be usable by other people too.

Hans A. Rosbach

6:23 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab?

On 13 March 2011 15:30, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On 13 March 2011 12:06, Marcus Buck <me(a)marcusbuck.org> wrote:

The upside is, that we won't get sued by copyright holders, I guess.

Given that the only Wikipedia in existence is the English Wikipedia, that is. Hans Rosbach

Gerard Meijssen

6:26 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab?

Hoi, Who is going to reach out and ask for some photos that are giving to us under a free license. Moaning does not help. Thanks, GerardM On 13 March 2011 18:23, Hans A. Rosbach <hans.a.rosbach(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On 13 March 2011 15:30, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 13 March 2011 12:06, Marcus Buck <me(a)marcusbuck.org> wrote:

The upside is, that we won't get sued by copyright holders, I guess.

Given that the only Wikipedia in existence is the English Wikipedia, that is. Hans Rosbach _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Yaroslav M. Blanter

6:58 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab?

On Sun, 13 Mar 2011 18:26:04 +0100, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Hoi, Who is going to reach out and ask for some photos that are giving to us under a free license. Moaning does not help. Thanks, GerardM

Gerard Meijssen

7:11 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab?

Hoi, I know, but buildings like the Burj al Arab are icons for their country, asking the person or organisation who can provide us with a license is a way to go. When we publicise that fact, it shows our gratitude and the silliness of FOP. Thanks, GerardM On 13 March 2011 18:58, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod(a)mccme.ru> wrote:

...

On Sun, 13 Mar 2011 18:26:04 +0100, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hoi, Who is going to reach out and ask for some photos that are giving to us under a free license. Moaning does not help. Thanks, GerardM

I think in this specific case we are not talking about photos (which are free) but about the buildings (which are not because of the lack of FOP). Pictures of non-free buildings from Italy, France, Russia and other countries, taken by Wikimedians, get mass deleted from Commons recently. Cheers Yaroslav _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Yaroslav M. Blanter

6:55 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab?

...

Given that the only Wikipedia in existence is the English Wikipedia,

that

...

is. Hans Rosbach

I am not sure what you mean by this statement. Could you please explain? Cheers Yaroslav

Hans A. Rosbach

7:25 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab?

On 13 March 2011 18:55, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod(a)mccme.ru> wrote:

...

Given that the only Wikipedia in existence is the English Wikipedia,

that

is. Hans Rosbach

I am not sure what you mean by this statement. Could you please explain? The English Wikipedia has a fair use policy, I know of no other Wikipedia

that has one. The statement "We can claim fair use when using images like that on Wikipedia" is correct for English Wikipedia, but not for the other Wikipedias. For all those that use Commons for all pictures, the FOP policy has to be the same as on Commons. The upside of that is that all content is reusable for users, including images. The downside is obviously that non-FOP areas have limits on availability of images. The downside of the fair use policy on English Wikipedia is that the incentive to donate free images is little. The most visible Wikipedia already have pictures, asking for free images for Wikipedia thus gets harder. Solidarity from the English Wikipedia would in the short term mean less illustrations in the most visible page on the search results, but I believe in the long term it would lead to more donations of free images. Hans A Rosbach

Yaroslav M. Blanter

8:48 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab?

On Sun, 13 Mar 2011 19:25:32 +0100, "Hans A. Rosbach" <hans.a.rosbach(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On 13 March 2011 18:55, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod(a)mccme.ru> wrote: > > > Given that the only Wikipedia in existence is the English Wikipedia, > that > > is. > > > > Hans Rosbach > > > > I am not sure what you mean by this statement. Could you please

explain?

...

> > The English Wikipedia has a fair use policy, I know of no other

Wikipedia

...

that has one. The statement "We can claim fair use when using images

...

that on Wikipedia" is correct for English Wikipedia, but not for the other Wikipedias. For all those that use Commons for all pictures, the FOP

policy

...

has to be the same as on Commons. The upside of that is that all content

...

reusable for users, including images. The downside is obviously that non-FOP areas have limits on availability of images. The downside of the fair use policy on English Wikipedia is that the incentive to donate free images is little. The most visible Wikipedia already have pictures, asking for free images for Wikipedia thus gets harder. Solidarity from the English Wikipedia would in the short term

mean

...

less illustrations in the most visible page on the search results, but I believe in the long term it would lead to more donations of free images.

...

From what I know, only the Spanish Wikipedia does not recognize fair-use

images, and the German Wikipedia has a very strict policy which makes the usage of fair-use tricky. All other Wikipedias allow for fair-use. I am absolutely sure about the Russian Wikipedia where I uploaded several dozens of fair-use images (either pieces of art which are not yet PD or my own pictures of Russian non-FOP buildings). Our policy over there is that fair-use usage has to be justified and should not damage the commercial value in any way. In particular, non-FOP images can be uploaded in any resolution. Cheers Yaroslav

Marco Chiesa

9:05 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab?

On 3/13/11, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod(a)mccme.ru> wrote:

...

From what I know, only the Spanish Wikipedia does not recognize fair-use images, and the German Wikipedia has a very strict policy which makes the usage of fair-use tricky. All other Wikipedias allow for fair-use. I am absolutely sure about the Russian Wikipedia where I uploaded several dozens of fair-use images (either pieces of art which are not yet PD or my own pictures of Russian non-FOP buildings). Our policy over there is that fair-use usage has to be justified and should not damage the commercial value in any way. In particular, non-FOP images can be uploaded in any resolution.

The Italian Wikipedia in many cases demands that the use of fair-use images is explicitly allowed by the copyright owner. Cruccone

dex2000＠pc.dk

10:02 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab?

Fair use is not allowed on the Danish Wikipedia. Rgs Sir48 - Thyge ----- Original meddelelse -----

...

Fra: Marco Chiesa <chiesa.marco(a)gmail.com> Til: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Dato: Søn, 13. mar 2011 21:05 Emne: Re: [Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab? On 3/13/11, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod(a)mccme.ru> wrote:

From what I know, only the Spanish Wikipedia does not recognize

fair-use

images, and the German Wikipedia has a very strict policy which

makes the

usage of fair-use tricky. All other Wikipedias allow for fair-use.

I am

absolutely sure about the Russian Wikipedia where I uploaded

several dozens

of fair-use images (either pieces of art which are not yet PD or my

own

pictures of Russian non-FOP buildings). Our policy over there is

that

fair-use usage has to be justified and should not damage the

commercial

value in any way. In particular, non-FOP images can be uploaded in

any

resolution.

The Italian Wikipedia in many cases demands that the use of fair-use images is explicitly allowed by the copyright owner. Cruccone _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Thomas Dalton

10:14 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab?

On 13 March 2011 18:25, Hans A. Rosbach <hans.a.rosbach(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

The English Wikipedia has a fair use policy, I know of no other Wikipedia

that has one. The statement "We can claim fair use when using images like that on Wikipedia" is correct for English Wikipedia, but not for the other Wikipedias.

When I said "can" I was talking from a legal perspective. The law is the same regardless of what language the content is in.

Hans A. Rosbach

14 Mar 14 Mar

12:23 a.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab?

On 13 March 2011 22:14, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On 13 March 2011 18:25, Hans A. Rosbach <hans.a.rosbach(a)gmail.com> wrote:

> The English Wikipedia has a fair use policy, I know of no other

Wikipedia

that has one. The statement "We can claim fair use when using images like that on Wikipedia" is correct for English Wikipedia, but not for the other Wikipedias.

When I said "can" I was talking from a legal perspective. The law is the same regardless of what language the content is in. Ok, I took it to be according to our policy. I'm not a lawyer, so in that

respect I just have to take your word for it. Like the Danish, we in Norwegian (bokmål) have no fair use. It has been several years and my memory of the discussion might be wrong, but when we adopted our image policy I believe arguments against fair use included that we could not legally use it. Whether we can and whether it should in that case be policy are different questions, only the latter do I have views on. Hans A Rosbach

Muhammad Yahia

7:28 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab?

Arabic Wikipedia has a fair-use policy, but it is more strict than en.wp. On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 4:23 PM, Hans A. Rosbach <hans.a.rosbach(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:

...

On 13 March 2011 22:14, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 13 March 2011 18:25, Hans A. Rosbach <hans.a.rosbach(a)gmail.com>

wrote:

> The English Wikipedia has a fair use policy, I know of no other

Wikipedia > that has one. The statement "We can claim fair use when using images

that on Wikipedia" is correct for English Wikipedia, but not for the other Wikipedias.

When I said "can" I was talking from a legal perspective. The law is the same regardless of what language the content is in. Ok, I took it to be according to our policy. I'm not a lawyer, so in that

-- Best Regards, Muhammad Yahia

Marco Chiesa

15 Mar 15 Mar

2:39 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab?

On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 10:14 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

When I said "can" I was talking from a legal perspective. The law is the same regardless of what language the content is in.

This is not correct, please read http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy Quoting: Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP) A project-specific policy, in accordance with United States law and the law of countries where the project content is predominantly accessed (if any), that recognizes the limitations of copyright law (including case law) as applicable to the project, and permits the upload of copyrighted materials that can be legally used in the context of the project, regardless of their licensing status. Examples include: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-free_content and http://pl.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Dozwolony_u%C5%BCytek. Cruccone

Nathan

3:06 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Is there a good reason to delete the Burj Al Arab?

On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 9:39 AM, Marco Chiesa <chiesa.marco(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 10:14 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:

When I said "can" I was talking from a legal perspective. The law is the same regardless of what language the content is in.

I think this is a complicated subject, but it seems to be generally accurate to say that fair use for the Wikimedia Foundation is the same regardless of the language, in the United States (where the corporation is registered). Of course that doesn't mean the WMF can't be sued, in the United States or elsewhere, but I think Thomas was answering the question of in the original post (why should we delete these images): it protects uploaders and reusers from content that is not freely licensed. Nathan

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participants (10)

dex2000＠pc.dk
Gerard Meijssen
Hans A. Rosbach
Marco Chiesa
Marcus Buck
Muhammad Yahia
Nathan
Peter Carney
Thomas Dalton
Yaroslav M. Blanter