From: "Alex T." alex756@nyc.rr.com Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Fair use
Could anyone knowledgable help us here ?
I volunteer to try, but remember this is not legal
advice
even though IAAL.
There is a page on fair use in the English Wikipedia http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
[snip]
Alex756
Ok. I will read all that carefully, consider options and try to write down something decent on the topic. Thanks a lot for the detailed answer Alex
------------------------------
From: Brion Vibber brion@pobox.com Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Fair use
On Sun, 2003-09-14 at 17:18, Anthere wrote: Could anyone explain to us what is fair use for
images
? [snip] As a second point, I would like to know precisely
why
DW was hard banned.
Just to provide context for those who haven't been
following the French
Wikipedia; DW/Black Widow/Ron Davis/Elliot/Olga
Biteyerkokoff/Jacques
Delson/ChuckM/Joe Canuck/Sue Michael Canuck has been
contributing under
the username JacquesD there.
(Or at least, someone in the same town with the same
ISP, using a
similar name to one of the earlier pseudos, working
in the same
subjects, and making the same noises about copyright
and
"discrimination". Doesn't the game get old after a
while?)
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Yes, the game is getting old. But it is not the first time english problematic users spill on the french wikipedia as well. Except we are never sure really problematic users are one or two.
The main issue here is not so much whether JacquesD is a ban user, but that indeed there is no policy as regards fair use of images on the french wiki. And JacquesD makes two good points : He is uploading images which he claims are fair use.
*Some of his images have been deleted for not fitting with the GFDL. Fine. But these images were copies from the english wikipedia. If these images are ok on the english, why should they be rejected on the french ? I do not say it is good or bad that we follow the same rules, I just say it should be clearer.
*Some of his images have been deleted for not fitting with the GFDL. Fine. But other french editors appear to upload same type of images (for example, recent picts of actors). If these editors images are ok, why should JacquesD images be wrong ?
Another editor, labelled problematic by some, uploaded questionable image, which appear to me to be able to fit the fair use condition. This one was deleted as well.
Aside from soft appeal to force practiced by JacquesD, and fair tries of flatteries ;-), I agree with him the case is not clear and appear slightly discriminatory :-) There is a strong tendency to consider that one has cried wolf (in this case Panoramix), wolf it is. And that even though good contributor, a so-called wolf has less rights than others.
-------------
Brion. A technical question. JacquesD mentions that the two pictures we have of Kissinger (pictures that I find POV, so that are gonna be deleted after the case is solved anyway) are of dubious copyright. Hence, he delinked them. The link has been replaced (then removed again) upon the reason it came from es.wikipedia (apparently, coming from another wikipedia is *enough* to be declared "cp correct*. But when I go on w.es.kissinger, I see an image...which is not an internal image, but rather an external link to another web site (but is displayed in wikipedia frame as well).
I might be wrong, but I thought this has been forbidden/made-impossible because of the famous (and well remembered by old timers :-)) goatxe image ?
No ? Something escaped me ?
------------------
Brion. Another point. It is interesting you mention that JacquesD has the same ISP, and connect from the same town than DWs. Though it is clear this user has similar patterns than them (but this could be used to make believe he is them), I came to the conclusion that he was not them, based on synthax comparisons with Joe Canuck. Your comment kinda threatens my inner convictions :-) In any case, I do not see any reason for JacquesD to be banned.
------------------------------
From: tarquin tarquin@planetunreal.com Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Fair use
Anthere wrote:
Could anyone explain to us what is fair use for
images
?
Tarquin
c'est horriblement compliqu�. la meilleure chose a faire c'est de:
- vivre sans l'image en question -- trouver une
alternative
- si c'est indispensable, marquer que c'est "fair
use" sur la page
description image.
Mentionning it is fair use as Alex explained seems a good idea to me. Why isnot the english wikipedia doing this as well ?
That is tough, as wikipedians copy images from one wikipedias from another, as if just the fact it came from another wiki was *proof* the image is public domain.
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
From: "Anthere" anthere6@yahoo.com
From: tarquin tarquin@planetunreal.com Anthere wrote:
Could anyone explain to us what is fair use for
images ?
Tarquin
c'est horriblement compliqué. la meilleure chose a faire c'est de:
- vivre sans l'image en question -- trouver une
alternative 2. si c'est indispensable, marquer que c'est "fair use" sur la page description image.
Mentionning it is fair use as Alex explained seems a good idea to me. Why is not the english wikipedia doing this as well ?
Good question. I recently added specific information regarding this at: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_description_page#Fair_use_rati... It does not appear that anyone thought that fair use was use specific. I hope people will follow this suggestion. It will make Wikipedia much more useful to third parties that might want to include images in their versions of Wikipedia content.
Alex756
On Mon, 2003-09-15 at 08:02, Anthere wrote:
A technical question. JacquesD mentions that the two pictures we have of Kissinger (pictures that I find POV, so that are gonna be deleted after the case is solved anyway) are of dubious copyright. Hence, he delinked them. The link has been replaced (then removed again) upon the reason it came from es.wikipedia (apparently, coming from another wikipedia is *enough* to be declared "cp correct*.
If all the other wikipedias jumped off a cliff, would you too? :) Claiming something is okay just because it's on another wiki doesn't wash; the other one is just as likely to _not_ be okay.
And remember, folks, *no picture* is much better than a picture we can't redistribute. If you didn't make it with your own hands or scan it from a piece of paper older than 1924, and it doesn't have a "public domain" or "GNU Free Documentation License" note on it, think twice.
Don't waste everyone's time copying something that turns up in 3 seconds searching images.google.com; creating original works is better.
But when I go on w.es.kissinger, I see an image...which is not an internal image, but rather an external link to another web site (but is displayed in wikipedia frame as well).
I might be wrong, but I thought this has been forbidden/made-impossible because of the famous (and well remembered by old timers :-)) goatxe image ?
It was disabled on the English wikipedia, as that's where abuses were occuring (quite frequently). In any case I would _discourage_ such linking. And there have been enough crazy court decisions over 'deep linking' and such that I wouldn't rely on "it's just a link to another site, we're not _copying it_" for an image embedded into a web page. (IANAL)
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
From: "Brion Vibber" brion@pobox.com
And remember, folks, *no picture* is much better than a picture we can't redistribute. If you didn't make it with your own hands or scan it from a piece of paper older than 1924, and it doesn't have a "public domain" or "GNU Free Documentation License" note on it, think twice.
Good advice (is prior to January 1, 1923 or January 1, 1924?)
Don't waste everyone's time copying something that turns up in 3 seconds searching images.google.com; creating original works is better.
There may be the _rare_ occasion when an image is so publically well known (i.e. a famous photo of something that is very _news_ worthy) that practically any informational use may be covered by fair use, but that will be _very rare_. Most fair uses will not be 100% compatible with the GNU FDL.
But when I go on w.es.kissinger, I see an image...which is not an internal image, but rather an external link to another web site (but is displayed in wikipedia frame as well).
It was disabled on the English wikipedia, as that's where abuses were occuring (quite frequently). In any case I would _discourage_ such linking. And there have been enough crazy court decisions over 'deep linking' and such that I wouldn't rely on "it's just a link to another site, we're not _copying it_" for an image embedded into a web page. (IANAL)
This is a good point. Even if you don't keep a copy, it is still being copied automatically when it is being displayed on the Wikipedia page. Someone does not have to click on it to go to another web page. Therefore some jury or judge can easily make a legal finding that the deep link is a copy on Wikipedia (never know what judges or juries will do until the law becomes well settled).
Alex756 (IAAL, but it's NALO [not a legal opinion]!)
--- "Alex T." alex756@nyc.rr.com wrote:
There may be the _rare_ occasion when an image is so publically well known (i.e. a famous photo of something that is very _news_ worthy) that practically any informational use may be covered by fair use, but that will be _very rare_. Most fair uses will not be 100% compatible with the GNU FDL.
IOW: The crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe (not Legalese)...Fair use is a ubiquitous legal plugin that tries to keep molehill issues from become mountains of suits over nonsense.
Im not sure what Brion was saying about resolution--IF you understand how printing works, you know that you generally need twice the dpi for a screen print-- (printing is dots of color right--used to be done with "dot screens", now done on 'puters). So to properly render a magazine photo of a Kalvin Klein ad--mimicking the quality of the original photo (which is impossible -- a cameras ultimate resolution is way higher than print, which is way higher than web.) youd basically need to copy the thing purty durn well. (Also not legalese)
Consider an album cover -- the value of which is in part based on its quality of rendering -- aethethic qualities that cannot be reproduced from a tiny little web picture --even a "large" pic at only at 72dpi (ie. standard)-- roughly a quarter of that necessary to properly render it as a print, and this doesnt come close to having something that someone can make a poster out of and sell.
So, it seems that the image use policy is generally made null by the mere fact that these images are web-based, and therefore low resolution. Granted the web is well-used, and print reproduceability is no longer a standard (was it ever?) but where uniqueness of images is protected, it seems that its impossible to sincerely fault a diminished-quality rendering for the crime of imposing itself as a substitute for the original.
This is a good point. Even if you don't keep a copy, it is still being copied automatically when it is being displayed on the Wikipedia page. Someone does not have to click on it to go to another web page. Therefore some jury or judge can easily make a legal finding that the deep link is a copy on Wikipedia (never know what judges or juries will do until the law becomes well settled).
But its reasonable that display issues may simply break down as "fair use" standards do-- a case-by-case look at the pertinent factors -whats it for? was there credit to the source? is it high-quality? was it used in print? profit? etc...
What is clear in all of this is that there needs to be a better, more centralized cross-languages way of handling images, perhaps an images domain -- so that highband users can attempt to manage these better--copyright issues can be dealt with more swiftly and therefore the intelligencia doesnt have to trip too much about the potential possibility of things they only suspect. Having separate imagelists for each seem silly.
~S~ IANAL, but not a very good one.
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Brion Vibber wrote:
And remember, folks, *no picture* is much better than a picture we can't redistribute. If you didn't make it with your own hands or scan it from a piece of paper older than 1924, and it doesn't have a "public domain" or "GNU Free Documentation License" note on it, think twice.
I agree completely with this sentiment. I think we should not be pushing any boundaries with respect to fair use, because of the redistribution issue.
As Alex has been patiently teaching us, fair use is a defense, a defense that depends on the use, and for that reason, and because of our interest in free redistribution, we should take care that when we do rely on fair use, we do so in such a way that almost anyone could rely on a fair use defense for any plausible re-use of our content.
To take the easiest possible example, a quote of a few sentences of a copyrighted novel in an article about the author of that novel. This is fair use for us, and it's also going to be fair use for just about any plausible re-use of our content.
It was disabled on the English wikipedia, as that's where abuses were occuring (quite frequently). In any case I would _discourage_ such linking. And there have been enough crazy court decisions over 'deep linking' and such that I wouldn't rely on "it's just a link to another site, we're not _copying it_" for an image embedded into a web page. (IANAL)
Yes, and it's pretty rude to the other webmaster. People often refer to it as 'stealing bandwidth', which may be an overly bold claim, but still, it's not good etiquette to embed an image in that way.
--Jimbo
Jimmy-
Brion Vibber wrote:
And remember, folks, *no picture* is much better than a picture we can't redistribute. If you didn't make it with your own hands or scan it from a piece of paper older than 1924, and it doesn't have a "public domain" or "GNU Free Documentation License" note on it, think twice.
I agree completely with this sentiment. I think we should not be pushing any boundaries with respect to fair use, because of the redistribution issue.
The image use policy is fairly clear on which fair use is allowed and generally discourages it. Bringing the fair use issue up again and again on the mailing list and writing long winded messages why we shouldn't do it only will generate fear, uncertainty and doubt about fair use in general, and potentially triggers unproductive flamewars.
As a strong proponent of fair use rights, and as a believer in the necessity of fair use on Wikipedia in certain cases (you won't get Don Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein to pose for another handshake), I do not think this is the right approach. Instead, we should correct mistakes where they occur and educate users about the limits.
The next time someone brings up fair use, please just point them to the relevant pages on Wikipedia. These are [[Wikipedia:Copyrights]], [[fair use]], [[copyright]], [[Wikipedia:Image use policy]].
Regards,
Erik
Brion Vibber wrote:
And remember, folks, *no picture* is much better than a picture we can't redistribute. If you didn't make it with your own hands or scan it from a piece of paper older than 1924, and it doesn't have a "public domain" or "GNU Free Documentation License" note on it, think twice.
I'd just like to point out that US law is *pre-1923* not 1924.
Imran
On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 15:04, Imran Ghory wrote:
Brion Vibber wrote:
And remember, folks, *no picture* is much better than a picture we can't redistribute. If you didn't make it with your own hands or scan it from a piece of paper older than 1924, and it doesn't have a "public domain" or "GNU Free Documentation License" note on it, think twice.
I'd just like to point out that US law is *pre-1923* not 1924.
Sorry for the inexactitude.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
"Jimmy Wales" jwales@bomis.com said:
... we should take care that when we do rely on fair use, we do so in such a way that almost anyone could rely on a fair use defense for any plausible re-use of our content.
To take the easiest possible example, a quote of a few sentences of a copyrighted novel in an article about the author of that novel. This is fair use for us, and it's also going to be fair use for just about any plausible re-use of our content.
Very well said and a good example.
Alex756
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org