On 8/10/06, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske(a)web.de> wrote: I didn't even think of that. Yes, the chance of companies willing to release low-res versions would definitely be bigger. Garion96

Generally speaking, I am a weak defender of the use of copyrighted pictures of living people (except when there's a freebie available) because I don't think they have the time to have a picture of themselves taken so it can be used on Wikipedia. (Don't hit me back with semantics -- I know it would be usable for more than Wikipedia.) However, I do believe we should be persuing an active effort to obtain free-use photographs of living people wherever possible. I'm talking about an effort at the Foundation level. On 8/25/06, Garion96 <garion96(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Alright, then I'll be sending out the letters on behalf of myself. On 8/25/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

I agree this is an instance where chapters are very useful. I didn't mean to imply that nothing should be sent on to the Foundation. But if the individual editors take care of the easy ones. And also gather a list of the exact contact info of people who requested to deal with someone official. Well providing that list to one the commitees or something is a different proposition than asking the Foundation to gather free photos of celebrities for Wikipedia in general terms. Birgitte SB --- effe iets anders <effeietsanders(a)gmail.com> wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3APublicity_photos… http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

Garion96 wrote: Hoi, The WMF does have a lot of work and too few people to do things. When the Foundation is to these things as well, when do they have time to do their Foundation work? Thanks, GerardM

--- Garion96 <garion96(a)gmail.com> wrote: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l Since you really want this to happen here is my suggestion. Draft a letter that you think appealing. Put together a spreadsheet of with all the address and appropriate personalizations for the mailing wizard substitution thing. Submit this together with your proposal to both the communications committee and the special project committees. Maybe one of them will be able to approve your letter and send it out all official-like. I don't really know if they would but that has a better chance than anything else I can think of. I don't think my earlier message was clear on one point. I was not trying to make a judgment on whether the Foundation should be doing this sort of thing. I meant get across that although the celebrities might be more likely to release a photo to someone with an official position within the Foundation. The likelihood of someone from the foundation actually taking the task on, especially the all the legwork, is very low. From what I understand there is generally a struggle to complete tasks that really do require officialness. Your original post seemed to be trying to find the best way to obtain these photos in a short time. I don't think going through the Foundation will lead to good results here, and it definately will not be quick. Now this is just my take from reading this list every day. These sorts of things, regardless if they are good ideas, are the kind of requests that just never get done, in fact they normally don't even get responded to. I do not actually do any Foundation work myself, I should probably not even be answering you as it might be misleading. The reason I did was because I didn't expect anyone else to, and I thought you had the wrong idea about what the Foundation really was. Most people in the projects have the wrong idea about the Foundation, including me some months back. Birgitte SB __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

Garion96 wrote: Please define the demarcation between what should be foundation policy, and what policy should be in the hands of any given project. Except for absolutely essential policies, most of it should be in the hands of the projects, and one needs to accept that any two projects can have different policies, including ones relating to fair use. The fact is that when you are determining whether an image is free there is a huge grey area. The grey area includes a lot of images that would be free if people ever bothered to put in a little effort to make them free. So what's wrong with having fair use images, as long as they really are fair use images. Excessiveness has nothing to do with it; establishing quotas for the number of fair use images would open up the question of whose fair use to use. It's good that you accept some fair use images but what makes the use excessive? Ec

Garion96 wrote: We really do have a basic agreement here. I have read and re-read the fair use criteria many times, and have yet to discover that a contributor's wishful thinking is a valid criterion. Ec

Anthony wrote: Celebrity pictures are really only a subset of the broader issue of images, and that has let to the even broader question of the division between Board and project policy. That being said your points make perfect sense despite the fact that we may still have differences about what "freeness" means. Has anybody so much as investigated industry standards about the use of album covers or the publicity shots of celebrities? The entertainment industry if infamous for protecting what it believes to be its copyrights. Have there been any cases regarding this kind of material? What can we do to free this borderline material? Ec

Anthony wrote: I was afraid you would come back with something like that. :-) Perhaps more significant than whether anyone has lost is whether any such case has ever been filed. Given that they are distributed for the specific purpose of publicity there could be an implicit permission. The article that you mention also suggested that this museum is somewhat trashy. People who might find such a museum acceptable often don't act unless things get trashy. Similarly, people who never saw their writing as money-making might be okay with a tasteful infringement of copyright may change their tune if they find the usage disrepectful. The right of publicity may be a dubious theory. Wasn't this the issue in the case that WMF-de won in Germany? Major League Baseball has not been doing very well with this argument in its attempt at preventing the use of its statistics by fantasy leagues. They had already given up on the argument over copyright infringement because it's expression and not information that is copyright. Ec

Anthony wrote: I don't know if it's to "sell" an encyclopedia. Lindsay Lohan would need to think she's pretty special if she believes a picture of her will make all the difference in encyclopedia sales. Is she as self-absorbed as Paris Hilton? Our use is transformative, and it in no way adversely affects the company's sales.. It would even be interesting to hear the companies comment on the function of publicity shots. This may be a problem for the print version, and specific permissions should probably be sought when we get that far. For the on-line verrsion however I have no problem with an active campaign to replace the fair use images with "free" ones. It's clear that I'm more risk tolerant than you, but that doesn't mean there's such a wide gap between our views. Yeah, Dillinger has been dead since 1934. Developing policies to account for such extremes is playing to the lleast common denominator. There's also the question of who owns the copyright. I suspect it's the studio who sends out fan pics to admirers. Ec

Hey Gerard, That's why I suggested to appoint an officer to do this stuff. Someone who likes this, and who is able to put the time in it. That shouldn't have to cost lots of foundation-time, except of the appointment an reporting and maybe some handshaking if you meet them. Lodewijk 2006/8/27, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>om>: