-----Original Message----- From: wikinews-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikinews-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 9:59 AM To: Wikinews mailing list Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] To stop using Wiki Commons as our default Wikinewsimage source
Anthere wrote:
One approach might be to begin to think of which types of fair use images could be allowed.
For example, when making an article about a firm, it might be authorized to use the logo of this firm in fair use.
For example, when making an article about a movie just making it for an oscar, it might be authorized to use a small representation of the movie poster.
I think this is a nice start.
In fact, it might be the right way to go as a way of constructing the policy. A blanket "no" on fair use, but with specific holes punched through that firewall for cases that we deem to be o.k.
Although this sounds good, it would be in violation of current Wikicommons policy since movie posters are copyrighted by movie studios and not available for free distribution. So, when a movie poster is uploaded by a Wikinews reporter, it will mostly likely be flagged and deleted from Wikicommons since its use in a Wikibooks - or some other wikiprojects - would be a copyright violation.
You're getting a taste of my frustration with the Wikicommons-only approach for Wikinews. The situation is more complex and common sense says it should be.
It gets worse - space pictures taken by NASA are public domain - and Wikicommons compatible. BUT space pictures taken by ESA or other countries are copyrighted by the ESA or specific universities - and are not Wikicommons compatible.
We ran into this issue with the Titan probe. Some of the best pictures released were not Wikicommons compatible - so we could not use them, even though every news agency on the globe that I witnessed did use them. We, instead had to rely upon artist illustrations from NASA - not actual photos.
I highly recommend you visit this link: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Copyrighted - where a user-created flag of the Commonwealth of Nations will most-likely be deleted due to non-commercial-use copyright concerns.
-- David Speakman http://www.DavidSpeakman.com 501 Moorpark Way #83 Mountain View CA 94041 Phone: 408-382-1459