Mathias Schindler wrote:
Opening the door for non-free pictures again will
block any attempt to
encourage people to create free pictures. Showing the company building
with the logo or even better: artistic work is much better than creating
a situation in which a local law might help for a small fraction of
wikimedia users. If the alternative to non-free pictures were
"no-pictures", I would agree. But this is simply not the case.
I think this is a very valid point.
David should come up with an argumentation that
survives contact with
reality when it leaves the fair-use island (except the argumentation
lazyness (sp?) to find free solutions).
Sorry, if this was to harsh but I'm very scared of this change of policy.
No, I don't think it is too harsh, it's very important that we be
quite hard-headed about such things.
Now, a quick question about German law. If I pick up a German
newspaper, and there is a story about IBM, is it common for the story
to just use the logo? If so, does the newspaper need permission for
that? Or, is there something like "fair use" that allows it?
Or is it that German newspapers instead always use photos of the
company building and the like?
I apologize that I don't know the answer to this, as often as I am in
Germany, I should at least try to look at the paper sometimes. :-)
--Jimbo