We are faced with an issue of convenience versus freedom when we talk about licensing images. Because we are a nonprofit charitable organization with an educational mission, we can easily get non-free licenses to use images. Because we are a nonprofit charitable organization with an educational mission, we can make heavy use of the doctrine of "fair use" in the US.
But should we?
One of the things that our reliance on these alternatives does is work to undermine our broader mission, by reducing the incentive for the creation of free alternatives. It's more work to get those free alternatives, but the result will be worthwhile, I think.
We can set aside most of the licensing and legal issues, because I think we're fine there. Clause 7 of the license permits us to combine independent works, even proprietary works, and this clearly includes aggregating images and articles stored on the same server. For fair use, the license isn't implicated or violated in any way.
So I think resting our rejection of licensed and most fair use images on that argument is mistaken. I don't think that argument is valid, but more importantly, I think that argument is too hyper-technical and legalistic, implicitly assuming that it's o.k. for us to do it if the license says it is o.k.
The moral argument is the one that matters. Should we make use of materials that are available only to us because of our special circumstances, or should we follow a purist GNU philosophy?
I think we all know what Richard Stallman would say, and I for one will agree with him completely. The Wikimedia Foundation should be a beacon of what is possible with copyright freedom, and we should not allow anyone to ever point at our work and say "Yeah, they talk the big talk about free licensing, but what would their site be without all those proprietary licensed images and fair use exceptions?"
If that means less images for now, then it means less images for now. It also means that we have a very strong incentive to develop free alternatives.
--Jimbo
On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 07:50:59AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
We are faced with an issue of convenience versus freedom when we talk about licensing images. Because we are a nonprofit charitable organization with an educational mission, we can easily get non-free licenses to use images. Because we are a nonprofit charitable organization with an educational mission, we can make heavy use of the doctrine of "fair use" in the US.
de: doesn't use images under "fair use", except most "coat of arms" for cities which most of use consider as kind of public domain/interest.
ciao, tom
Jimmy-
The moral argument is the one that matters. Should we make use of materials that are available only to us because of our special circumstances, or should we follow a purist GNU philosophy?
We should strike a reasonable balance, and that means that images which are clearly unobtainable under a free license but historically important works should be used as fair use. Copyright law is restrictive enough as it is, it would be a big mistake not to exploit the few exemptions it grants us, under the guise of being "more free". In fact, by rejecting fair use, we effectively endorse restrictive copyright doctrines.
We have talked about this many times before, and I feel kind of bullied, to be honest. You know the arguments for and against and I thought we had found a reasonable compromise. Do the defenders of fair use images on Wikipedia have to reiterate their position every 12 months to make sure that *their* work is not destroyed, because our benevolent dictator suddenly orders mass purges of all fair use images?
I am referring to the *work* of obtaining relevant images and including them in the respective articles. I have scanned quite a few images specifically for Wikipedia myself. You are not just talking about some abstract issue, you are talking about people's time.
It is in our interest, as an encyclopedia, to make use of historically relevant images, and it is our interest, as an encyclopedia, to rely on the doctrine of fair use to do so. It is in our interest as an open content project to make sure that we do not rely on fair use where we could produce images ourselves. It is also in our interest as an open content project to make it easy for third parties to filter out images which they cannot legally use.
The solution, to me, therefore seems obvious: - Develop a process whereby it is determined if an image can be obtained by other means than fair use, and whether fair use is justifiable; - Tag all fair use images to allow easy filtering.
Regards,
Erik
On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 05:36:00PM +0100, Erik Moeller wrote:
Jimmy-
The moral argument is the one that matters. Should we make use of materials that are available only to us because of our special circumstances, or should we follow a purist GNU philosophy?
We should strike a reasonable balance, and that means that images which are clearly unobtainable under a free license but historically important works should be used as fair use. Copyright law is restrictive enough as it is, it would be a big mistake not to exploit the few exemptions it grants us, under the guise of being "more free". In fact, by rejecting fair use, we effectively endorse restrictive copyright doctrines.
We have talked about this many times before, and I feel kind of bullied, to be honest. You know the arguments for and against and I thought we had found a reasonable compromise. Do the defenders of fair use images on Wikipedia have to reiterate their position every 12 months to make sure that *their* work is not destroyed, because our benevolent dictator suddenly orders mass purges of all fair use images?
I am referring to the *work* of obtaining relevant images and including them in the respective articles. I have scanned quite a few images specifically for Wikipedia myself. You are not just talking about some abstract issue, you are talking about people's time.
It is in our interest, as an encyclopedia, to make use of historically relevant images, and it is our interest, as an encyclopedia, to rely on the doctrine of fair use to do so. It is in our interest as an open content project to make sure that we do not rely on fair use where we could produce images ourselves. It is also in our interest as an open content project to make it easy for third parties to filter out images which they cannot legally use.
The solution, to me, therefore seems obvious:
- Develop a process whereby it is determined if an image can be obtained
by other means than fair use, and whether fair use is justifiable;
- Tag all fair use images to allow easy filtering.
The only obvious solution is to delete all non-free images. That's the only way of having content that's distributable worldwide for all purposes.
It's really hard to believe than anybody would think a couple more images are worth sacrificing that.
Hi,
We should strike a reasonable balance, and that means that images which are clearly unobtainable under a free license but historically important works should be used as fair use. Copyright law is restrictive enough as it is, it would be a big mistake not to exploit the few exemptions it grants us, under the guise of being "more free". In fact, by rejecting fair use, we effectively endorse restrictive copyright doctrines.
We have talked about this many times before, and I feel kind of bullied, to be honest. You know the arguments for and against and I thought we had found a reasonable compromise. Do the defenders of fair use images on Wikipedia have to reiterate their position every 12 months to make sure that *their* work is not destroyed, because our benevolent dictator suddenly orders mass purges of all fair use images?
I am referring to the *work* of obtaining relevant images and including them in the respective articles. I have scanned quite a few images specifically for Wikipedia myself. You are not just talking about some abstract issue, you are talking about people's time.
It is in our interest, as an encyclopedia, to make use of historically relevant images, and it is our interest, as an encyclopedia, to rely on the doctrine of fair use to do so. It is in our interest as an open content project to make sure that we do not rely on fair use where we could produce images ourselves. It is also in our interest as an open content project to make it easy for third parties to filter out images which they cannot legally use.
The solution, to me, therefore seems obvious:
- Develop a process whereby it is determined if an image can be obtained by other means than fair use, and whether fair use is justifiable; -
Tag all fair use images to allow easy filtering.
I agree 100 % with that. Replace fair use images with free one when possible, and use fair use it when we can't avoid it.
Regards,
Erik
Regards, Yann
On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 05:57:32PM +0100, Yann Forget wrote:
I agree 100 % with that. Replace fair use images with free one when possible, and use fair use it when we can't avoid it.
Like when can't we avoid using "fair use" images ? It's actually very simple to do - just don't use them. You can still write good article without a few images.
On Thursday 19 February 2004 12:10 pm, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 05:57:32PM +0100, Yann Forget wrote:
I agree 100 % with that. Replace fair use images with free one when possible, and use fair use it when we can't avoid it.
Like when can't we avoid using "fair use" images ? It's actually very simple to do - just don't use them. You can still write good article without a few images.
Have a look at [[My Lai Massacre]], [[Donald Rumsfeld]], etc. There are plenty of historical events that have copyrighted pictures, where there is no possibility of replacing them with free ones. (Unless, of course, you have a time machine)
Best, Sascha Noyes
On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Sascha Noyes wrote:
Like when can't we avoid using "fair use" images ? It's actually very simple to do - just don't use them. You can still write good article without a few images.
Have a look at [[My Lai Massacre]], [[Donald Rumsfeld]], etc. There are plenty of historical events that have copyrighted pictures, where there is no possibility of replacing them with free ones. (Unless, of course, you have a time machine)
They are easy to replace with nothing though. I think it's worth it.
-- Daniel
On Thursday 19 February 2004 12:34 pm, Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Sascha Noyes wrote:
Like when can't we avoid using "fair use" images ? It's actually very simple to do - just don't use them. You can still write good article without a few images.
Have a look at [[My Lai Massacre]], [[Donald Rumsfeld]], etc. There are plenty of historical events that have copyrighted pictures, where there is no possibility of replacing them with free ones. (Unless, of course, you have a time machine)
They are easy to replace with nothing though. I think it's worth it.
Obviously we could just throw them out. That'd be exceptionally stupid, though. Why is taking away relevant material from our readers good? In my other email I've stated that the "maximum reusability" argument fails if we package our material carefully. The only other argument I see is that we somehow want to be "pure", and free from fair use images. In my valuation, giving our readers relevant material that is nearly impossible to give under the gfdl counts for more than gfdl "purity".
Best, Sascha Noyes
On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Sascha Noyes wrote:
Obviously we could just throw them out. That'd be exceptionally stupid, though. Why is taking away relevant material from our readers good? In my other email I've stated that the "maximum reusability" argument fails if we package our material carefully. The only other argument I see is that we somehow want to be "pure", and free from fair use images. In my valuation, giving our readers relevant material that is nearly impossible to give under the gfdl counts for more than gfdl "purity".
There is another argument, besides the moral one (which Jimbo presents in a kinder formulation than you do, new readers should refer to it):
Using non-free images reduces in an article the incentive to get free images for that article.
I think this is a very important argument, and if that presents us with situations were we can't (without that time machine) get a picture for an article... well, I think those cases are a minority.
-- Daniel
On Thursday 19 February 2004 12:48 pm, Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Sascha Noyes wrote:
Obviously we could just throw them out. That'd be exceptionally stupid, though. Why is taking away relevant material from our readers good? In my other email I've stated that the "maximum reusability" argument fails if we package our material carefully. The only other argument I see is that we somehow want to be "pure", and free from fair use images. In my valuation, giving our readers relevant material that is nearly impossible to give under the gfdl counts for more than gfdl "purity".
There is another argument, besides the moral one (which Jimbo presents in a kinder formulation than you do, new readers should refer to it):
Using non-free images reduces in an article the incentive to get free images for that article.
Yes, and I have stated in another email in the same thread my support for a scheme which would only allow fair use images for historical events (ie. where it is near impossible to get a gfdl image).
I agree with you that we shouldn't use a fair-use image for hard to get hold of images such as some exotic animal or plant. Only depictions we could only include if we were to convince the author to license it under the gfdl. (eg. historical events, or if some copyright-retaining government takes pictures of water on mars, etc.)
Best, Sascha Noyes
On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Sascha Noyes wrote:
I agree with you that we shouldn't use a fair-use image for hard to get hold of images such as some exotic animal or plant. Only depictions we could only include if we were to convince the author to license it under the gfdl. (eg. historical events, or if some copyright-retaining government takes pictures of water on mars, etc.)
I apologize for not having paid careful enough attention to your earlier posts regarding the matter.
However, it's my opinion that your suggestion would be too complicated and also too tempting. I think we will be better off in the long run if the policy is no non free images at all.
Poorer articles than if we allowed some non-free images? Perhaps. But that small relative difference is drowned out (imo) by Wikipedia being as insanely comprehensive and well written as it is - and will be, in a few years.
Whereas the risk of "fair use" contamination at the expense of free images could be very significant in the long run. Again, imo.
-- Daniel
They are easy to replace with nothing though. I think it's worth it.
What about for instance book covers? They are definitely not something you can usually have under a free licence. But fair use probably applies (since the cover isn't the book itself).
Sure we could just not put'em. But sometimes they make the article on said book nicer, and may illustrate, in case of comics, stuff like that, what it looks like. Which is definitely something adding value to the article, imo.
Nicolas
On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Nicolas Weeger wrote:
They are easy to replace with nothing though. I think it's worth it.
What about for instance book covers? They are definitely not something you can usually have under a free licence. But fair use probably applies (since the cover isn't the book itself).
Sure we could just not put'em. But sometimes they make the article on said book nicer, and may illustrate, in case of comics, stuff like that, what it looks like. Which is definitely something adding value to the article, imo.
Certainly. But my point is that Wikipedia isn't about adding value to articles at any expense.
And I think the expense is too great here.
-- Daniel
Nicolas Weeger wrote:
What about for instance book covers? They are definitely not something you can usually have under a free licence. But fair use probably applies (since the cover isn't the book itself).
What would the "fair use" status of a book cover be in Great Britian? In Australia?
I'm asking because I don't know, but I think it's relevant to the decision here.
Fair use is an important doctrine, and one that we should defend and push for as a natural right. If fair use is legitimate, and would be legitimate for virtually every conceivable re-user (i.e. barring some silly hypothetical) we should feel comfortable relying on it if it's valuable and, as in this case, there is no conceivable alternative.
So, what is the status of something like this in Great Britain?
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com writes:
Nicolas Weeger wrote:
What about for instance book covers? They are definitely not something you can usually have under a free licence. But fair use probably applies (since the cover isn't the book itself).
What would the "fair use" status of a book cover be in Great Britian?
For book and CD covers, its extremely unlikely to be considered Fair Dealing http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/papers/pa/fair/intro.html
"Posting on a network: Posting of part or all of an electronic publication on a network or WWW site open to the public is not fair dealing and the permission of the rightsholder should be sought in all cases."
http://www.cla.co.uk/media/general-digitisation.pdf "Fair dealing in the digital environment is yet to be defined by the courts, and it would be unwise to assume that any digital copying is fair dealing."
On Friday 20 February 2004 09:51 am, Gareth Owen wrote:
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com writes:
Nicolas Weeger wrote:
What about for instance book covers? They are definitely not something you can usually have under a free licence. But fair use probably applies (since the cover isn't the book itself).
What would the "fair use" status of a book cover be in Great Britian?
For book and CD covers, its extremely unlikely to be considered Fair Dealing http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/papers/pa/fair/intro.html
"Posting on a network: Posting of part or all of an electronic publication on a network or WWW site open to the public is not fair dealing and the permission of the rightsholder should be sought in all cases."
This strikes me as strange. Under what protection do we (or anyone else) post short excerpts of copyrighted works? See eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Defamation_League
Best, Sascha Noyes
On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 12:29:07PM -0500, Sascha Noyes wrote:
On Thursday 19 February 2004 12:10 pm, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 05:57:32PM +0100, Yann Forget wrote:
I agree 100 % with that. Replace fair use images with free one when possible, and use fair use it when we can't avoid it.
Like when can't we avoid using "fair use" images ? It's actually very simple to do - just don't use them. You can still write good article without a few images.
Have a look at [[My Lai Massacre]], [[Donald Rumsfeld]], etc. There are plenty of historical events that have copyrighted pictures, where there is no possibility of replacing them with free ones. (Unless, of course, you have a time machine)
So we'd have articles without images. Is this really such a big problem ?
Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net writes:
So we'd have articles without images. Is this really such a big problem ?
Well, they'd be worse articles. I'd think thats a pretty big problem.
On 19 Feb 2004, Gareth Owen wrote:
So we'd have articles without images. Is this really such a big problem ?
Well, they'd be worse articles. I'd think thats a pretty big problem.
We could make even better articles if we copied stuff directly from other, commercial encyclopedias. I think this is legal on some island states.
In democracies you can't build pyramids.
-- Daniel
"Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen" daniel@copyleft.no writes:
We could make even better articles if we copied stuff directly from other, commercial encyclopedias. I think this is legal on some island states.
Wikipedia isn't hosted in an island state. This is a thoroughly idiotic, strawman argument.
On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 05:47:44PM +0000, Gareth Owen wrote:
"Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen" daniel@copyleft.no writes:
We could make even better articles if we copied stuff directly from other, commercial encyclopedias. I think this is legal on some island states.
Wikipedia isn't hosted in an island state. This is a thoroughly idiotic, strawman argument.
We can move it to Taiwanese servers. They have pretty decent pipes and they don't care much about foreign copyrights. How about that ?
Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net writes:
They have pretty decent pipes and they don't care much about foreign copyrights.
Taiwan is a signatory to the Copyright Treaty. What you suggest is illegal.
How about that ?
Well, accepting your completely inaccurate premise for a moment...
You're offering me all the knowledge of the world, freely and legally available to everyone with internet access, modulo their own countries censorship laws (and capabilities)?
I would consider that an insanely great idea. Really, completely, astoundingly insanely great. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, suppose there was a place facts could not be copyrighted, (but expressions of fact could) but where photographs of factual events could not be copyrighted, or could be freely used in reportage.
We'd be able to create a free encyclopedia into which all the knowledge of the world could be poured without any constraint, and illustrate historical events with photographs, where appropriate.
I would consider that an insanely great idea, too.
And to, a reasonable approximation, it exists. It's called the USA, with the "Fair Use" provision.
Now, why are you against that?
On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 06:02:09PM +0000, Gareth Owen wrote:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net writes:
They have pretty decent pipes and they don't care much about foreign copyrights.
Taiwan is a signatory to the Copyright Treaty. What you suggest is illegal.
Ouch, it seems they were forced to change the law to get into WTO.
Pre-WTO situation:
http://www.wangandwang.com/cr-info.htm In Taiwan, ownership of the copyright to a work is granted to Taiwan nationals upon completion of the work. By virtue of the 1946 Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation Treaty between the R.O.C. and the U.S., the works of U.S. nationals are also granted copyright upon completion. Other foreigners must register their copyrights with the Copyright Committee of the Ministry of the Interior ("MOI") in order to receive protection. In order to qualify for copyright registration, the foreign copyright owners must meet one of the following requirements: * Their works must have been first published in Taiwan prior to its publication in other countries. * They must be a national of a state which, in accordance with the state's treaties, laws, regulations, or customs, grants works created by Taiwan nationals equivalent rights to those if its own nationals. (According to the MOI, the countries currently meeting this requirement are Spain, Britain, and the U.S.)
How about that ?
Well, accepting your completely inaccurate premise for a moment...
You're offering me all the knowledge of the world, freely and legally available to everyone with internet access, modulo their own countries censorship laws (and capabilities)?
I would consider that an insanely great idea. Really, completely, astoundingly insanely great.
Now, suppose there was a place facts could not be copyrighted, (but expressions of fact could) but where photographs of factual events could not be copyrighted, or could be freely used in reportage.
We'd be able to create a free encyclopedia into which all the knowledge of the world could be poured without any constraint, and illustrate historical events with photographs, where appropriate.
I would consider that an insanely great idea, too.
And to, a reasonable approximation, it exists. It's called the USA, with the "Fair Use" provision.
Now, why are you against that?
Plain wonderful, till you want to distribute it in Europe. Or sell it printed. Or use it commercially. Or when the owners of the copyrights decide your use isn't very fair. Or ...
Come on people, if you want non-free stuff, you have all the non-free websites and the P2P. They even have MS Windows sources there. Wikipedia won't lose much just because it'd have a couple fewer images, but the point of Wikipedia isn't to make it as good as possible, but to make it both good and free.
Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net writes:
Now, why are you against that?
Plain wonderful, till you want to distribute it in Europe. Or sell it printed. Or use it commercially.
I don't care a single jot about any of those uses. I want to help make a free (small "f") encyclopedia
Or when the owners of the copyrights decide your use isn't very fair.
Well, yes, but that's a whole other issue.
Yes, we must be sure that the images we use under the aegis of "Fair Use" are precisely that. I have, in fact, mentioned many times that there are images (CD album covers, for example) that are being used in that context illegitimately.
Or ...
Ha ha! The ellipses meaning "insert all the intelligent arguments I don't have"
Come on people, if you want non-free stuff, you have all the non-free websites and the P2P. They even have MS Windows sources there.
Why do you continue to conflate Fair Use and illegality? (Tom asked, rhetorically)
On 19 Feb 2004, Gareth Owen wrote:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net writes:
Now, why are you against that?
Plain wonderful, till you want to distribute it in Europe. Or sell it printed. Or use it commercially.
I don't care a single jot about any of those uses. I want to help make a free (small "f") encyclopedia
As I understand it, creating a Free (capital "F") encyclopedia is an explicitly stated goal of Wikipedia. May I suggest a fork?
-- Daniel
On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 06:23:23PM +0000, Gareth Owen wrote:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net writes:
Now, why are you against that?
Plain wonderful, till you want to distribute it in Europe. Or sell it printed. Or use it commercially.
I don't care a single jot about any of those uses. I want to help make a free (small "f") encyclopedia
Wikipedia was meant to be *Free* (capital "F") encyclopedia, and a lot of people want it that way. It's fine if you don't care about that, but what you are proposing is to actively work against that goal, by containating Free content with the non-free.
If you can't live with Wikipedia being Free, find another project.
Come on people, if you want non-free stuff, you have all the non-free websites and the P2P. They even have MS Windows sources there.
Why do you continue to conflate Fair Use and illegality? (Tom asked, rhetorically)
In Europe there isn't much difference.
Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net writes:
Wikipedia was meant to be *Free* (capital "F") encyclopedia, and a lot of people want it that way.
Actually, wikipedia was meant to be little more than a chalkboard for Nupedia. Things change. It's a funny old world.
[aside] The initial decisions were made before anyone could possibly be aware of the repercussions. One such decision was the adoption of the GFDL, a license designed for software documentation (that I consider horribly flawed for pretty much anything else).
Now, we can adapt, and say "All the original content is GFDL, but as an educational project we're going to illustrate it with images under the Fair Use provision (as provided by US laws), because we can legally do so and it makes the product better"
or we can say "Everything on *.wikipedia.org must be GFDL licensed,"
Or, as others here have noted, we can have our cake and eat it. Keep the Fair Use photos on the US servers (good product) but mark non-Free images and automagically maintain separate tarballs of Free and non-Free stuff. Like Debian did for years and years... [/aside]
If you can't live with Wikipedia being Free, find another project.
And wikipedia-l's embarrassing metamorphosis into debian-legal continues.
You are Branden Robinson, and I claim my five pounds.
Why do you continue to conflate Fair Use and illegality?
In Europe there isn't much difference.
Given this is a US based project, that sentence has the double distinction of both completely untrue and utterly irrelevant.
On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 07:15:10PM +0000, Gareth Owen wrote:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net writes:
Wikipedia was meant to be *Free* (capital "F") encyclopedia, and a lot of people want it that way.
The initial decisions were made before anyone could possibly be aware of the repercussions. One such decision was the adoption of the GFDL, a license designed for software documentation (that I consider horribly flawed for pretty much anything else).
Now, we can adapt, and say "All the original content is GFDL, but as an educational project we're going to illustrate it with images under the Fair Use provision (as provided by US laws), because we can legally do so and it makes the product better"
or we can say "Everything on *.wikipedia.org must be GFDL licensed,"
Or, as others here have noted, we can have our cake and eat it. Keep the Fair Use photos on the US servers (good product) but mark non-Free images and automagically maintain separate tarballs of Free and non-Free stuff. Like Debian did for years and years... [/aside]
In Debian there is very clear separation between free and non-free software. The free software can not rely in any way on non-free (except for the contrib stuff). This solution is fine. So let's create nonfree.wikipedia.org, where people can upload anything they want, and keep normal Wikipedia completely free.
Why do you continue to conflate Fair Use and illegality?
In Europe there isn't much difference.
Given this is a US based project, that sentence has the double distinction of both completely untrue and utterly irrelevant.
Wikipedia is NOT an US project. It's international project meant to be useful worldwide. It's really irrelevant where the servers are.
Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net writes:
So let's create nonfree.wikipedia.org
Create nonfree.en.wikipedia.org and free.en.wikipedia.org (only fair. This goes for other languages as well) Then, en.wikipedia.org (or whichever language) contains all the non-contentious articles (in the sense of containing Fair Use materials). Contentious articles merely contain the text
#FREEDIRECT [[Article name]]
and the user is then served with the page from one of free. / nonfree. according to a user preference, stored in a cookie[0], and when the French block nonfree[1], they can still read the other version...
And if we get a takedown notice for a given image, take it down. We're no better off if we take them all down now.
Wikipedia is NOT an US project.
I didn't say that it was. I said it was US based. Which it evidently is.
[0] The default will be nonfree.wikipedia.org, naturally. (based on the completely-made-up-statistic that the number of users [as opposed to contributors] who care deeply and passionately about big-F-Freedom are outnumbered by those of us who couldn't give a toss)
[1] I find it hilarious that it was suggested (seemingly with a straight face) that major European governments would attempt to censor their internet over Fair Use violations, and that we should act now to address this concern.
Gareth Owen wrote:
Actually, wikipedia was meant to be little more than a chalkboard for Nupedia. Things change. It's a funny old world.
Yes, but my goal from the very beginning has always been Free with a capital F. That applied to Nupedia as well as Wikipedia.
I'm sympathetic to the concerns you've been raising, but I'm not convinced that there's tension between "making a great encyclopedia" and "making a GNU-free encyclopedia".
That is, I don't think refusing images under a non-free license and being extremely cautious about "fair use" means that we will have less images *in the long run*. We just have to be creative and enterpreneurial and energetic -- all of which we excel at.
The tension is between "convenience" and "freedom". It's convenient to use Microsoft Windows. It's freedom-promoting to use GNU/Linux.
--Jimbo
p.s. Anyone who says that the GNU FDL is problematic in its current form will get no argument from me. I don't agree with some of the criticisms of the license, but I do think that it's needlessly specific and should be simplified and generalized. It was written for the purpose of software documentation, and clearly contemplated a number of authors and a "history" much shorter than what we have.
I have great optimism, though, that the license will be tuned and improved in the future. RMS has indicated interest in helping us with that.
On 19 Feb 2004, Gareth Owen wrote:
We could make even better articles if we copied stuff directly from other, commercial encyclopedias. I think this is legal on some island states.
Wikipedia isn't hosted in an island state. This is a thoroughly idiotic, strawman argument.
No, it's an "reductio ad absurdum" argument. And it's not idiotic.
The points I'm making are:
1) Wikipedia isn't an American project, even though it's currently hosted there. We should make it as good as possible within as wide a legal framework as possible.
2) Does the fact that we can _get away_ with fair use mean we should do it? We could probably get away with a lot of suspicious activities that would increase Wikipedia article output which we aren't pursuing. Just because you can, doesn't mean it's right. To me it's the difference between short term goals and long term goals.
-- Daniel
"Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen" daniel@copyleft.no writes:
We should make it as good as possible within as wide a legal framework as possible.
Well, you've cut to the chase here.
When there's tension between these do we go for "good" or do we go for "as wide a legal framework".
I'm on the side of "Good."
"Fair Use" images i) Make articles better ii) Make it harder for future non-educational projects to exploit the "codebase"
IMHO, (i) is an enormous upside, (ii) is a small downside, especially considering that these projects a) don't actually exist yet (and making sacrifices to solve non-existent problems is dumb) b) are already fettered by the many other constraints of the GFDL (i.e. authorship credits, link-backs)
Now, we can be pragmatists, and work toward a really, really good encyclopedia, or we can be dogmatists, and strive toward some abstractly pre-defined definition of "freedom."
I've never cared for dogmatists, and I don't intend to become one now.
On 19 Feb 2004, Gareth Owen wrote:
"Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen" daniel@copyleft.no writes:
We should make it as good as possible within as wide a legal framework as possible.
I'm on the side of [efficiency]
"Fair Use" images i) Make articles better ii) Make it harder for future non-educational projects to exploit the "codebase"
IMHO, (i) is an enormous upside, (ii) is a small downside, especially considering that these projects a) don't actually exist yet (and making sacrifices to solve non-existent problems is dumb) b) are already fettered by the many other constraints of the GFDL (i.e. authorship credits, link-backs)
Now, we can be pragmatists, and work toward a really, really good encyclopedia, or we can be dogmatists, and strive toward some abstractly pre-defined definition of "freedom."
I'm sorry you reacted to my earlier posting as a strawman argument. I can understand how it might have been interpreted that way, but I think it's unnecessary to respond "in kind".
First, you phrase ii) in a way that makes it appear the only danger would be that "non-educational" (implying: bad) projects would "exploit" (very bad) Wikipedia. We certainly don't have much sympathy for non-educational exploiters!
Then you go on to imply that calculating with risks is "dumb", and that there is some inherent incompatiblity between "good" and "free" here.
Let's drop the footwork. I'll stick to the chase.
Now - there's a "iii)" here too: In many countries outside the USA, _any_ project, not just non-educational projects, would be dissallowed to use (not "exploit") Wikipedia material.
We're protected from exploitation well enough by the GFDL's copyleft.
"Pragmatism" versus "dogmatism" is in more neutral terms "efficiency" versus "ethics". I don't think Wikipedia really needs that extra few percent of efficiency - we're steamrolling everything there is already.
-- Daniel
"Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen" daniel@copyleft.no writes:
First, you phrase ii) in a way that makes it appear the only danger would be that "non-educational" (implying: bad)
No such implication was intended. The point is, educational uses are subject to different criteria to judge what is and is not fair use. e.g. one may be allowed to print a picture in a textbook, or a review, that one would not be allowed to market on a T-Shirt.
projects would "exploit" (very bad) Wikipedia
Again, thats your inferrence, not my implication. Non-commercial uses get more leniency from the courts.
In many countries outside the USA, _any_ project, not just non-educational projects, would be dissallowed to use (not "exploit") Wikipedia material.
You appear to greatly misunderstand the nature of the World Wide Web. To supply the world, we need only publish in the US.
We need not concern ourselves with what whether the information may be published in Spain, Wales or Finland any more than we concern ourselves with whether it may be published in North Korea.
On 19 Feb 2004, Gareth Owen wrote:
In many countries outside the USA, _any_ project, not just non-educational projects, would be dissallowed to use (not "exploit") Wikipedia material.
You appear to greatly misunderstand the nature of the World Wide Web. To supply the world, we need only publish in the US.
We need not concern ourselves with what whether the information may be published in Spain, Wales or Finland any more than we concern ourselves with whether it may be published in North Korea.
I think this is an intolerable position, and I also think it's against Wikipedia's goals and policies.
As far as I understand, Wikipedia is supposed to create a free encyclopedia, not simply be specific web site.
Also, the argument that we need only adhere to US laws if we want to supply the world is false. It's entirely conceivable that a large country (say France) would make it illegal to access Wikipedia for its citizens because of the copyright violations it represented (under French law). I'm sure a lot of corporations would be happy to lobby governments for such actions.
-- Daniel
"Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen" daniel@copyleft.no writes:
It's entirely conceivable that a large country (say France) would make it illegal to access Wikipedia for its citizens
A large country has. China's great firewall blocks much of wikipedia. We *could* amend it so that its acceptable to the Chinese government. We *could* amend it so that its acceptable to the French government.
Personally, I'm not in favour of that.
On 19 Feb 2004, Gareth Owen wrote:
It's entirely conceivable that a large country (say France) would make it illegal to access Wikipedia for its citizens
A large country has. China's great firewall blocks much of wikipedia. We *could* amend it so that its acceptable to the Chinese government. We *could* amend it so that its acceptable to the French government.
Personally, I'm not in favour of that.
This is confusing two issues. Censorship and copyright. I agree that we shouldn't adhere to Chinese censorship laws. But staying legal in an open democracy such as France is something else.
-- Daniel
"Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen" daniel@copyleft.no writes:
On 19 Feb 2004, Gareth Owen wrote:
Wikipedia isn't hosted in an island state. This is a thoroughly idiotic, strawman argument.
No, it's an "reductio ad absurdum" argument.
Doing something illegal (copying encyclopedias) is not any kind of reduction of entirely legal actions.
And it's not idiotic.
I beg to differ, for the reason stated above.
On 19 Feb 2004, Gareth Owen wrote:
Wikipedia isn't hosted in an island state. This is a thoroughly idiotic, strawman argument.
No, it's an "reductio ad absurdum" argument.
Doing something illegal (copying encyclopedias) is not any kind of reduction of entirely legal actions.
Fair use is illegal in many large countries outside the US.
Copying encyclopedias is legal on some island states.
And it's not idiotic.
I beg to differ, for the reason stated above.
I'm sorry, but my argument is valid, if a bit too pointed.
-- Daniel
"Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen" daniel@copyleft.no writes:
Fair use is illegal in many large countries outside the US.
But the Wikipedia servers are not in any of those countries, and so this is completely irrelevant.
Are we to scour the world for the most strict censorship laws in order to comply with those as well?
That won't leave much of an encyclopedia.
On 19 Feb 2004, Gareth Owen wrote:
Fair use is illegal in many large countries outside the US.
But the Wikipedia servers are not in any of those countries, and so this is completely irrelevant.
Are we to scour the world for the most strict censorship laws in order to comply with those as well?
That won't leave much of an encyclopedia.
That's a valid argument, and my answer is that we stop where copyright laws end and cencorship laws start. It's pretty simple: If someone didn't explicitly create something for WIkipedia, explicitly allow us to use it, or explicitly make it public domain - then we don't use it.
Or in easier terms: We post whatever we make ourselves.
-- Daniel
Gareth Owen wrote:
Are we to scour the world for the most strict censorship laws in order to comply with those as well?
I find this entire discussion about copyright laws and censorship to be puzzling, perhaps because I think I have a valid principle by which to decide such things.
We ought to obey the laws of as many countries as possible, consistent with our goal of creating a freely distributable *and* NPOV encyclopedia.
If the laws of China would ask to do something biased in order to distribute there, we would refuse. Our neutrality is something that we cannot compromise on.
But the decision to be rigorously GNU-free does not generally get in the way of neutrality. Restrictive copyright laws that don't let us have "fair use" don't mean that we can't be neutral. They just mean that we have to do some extra work to remain free.
--Jimbo
Gareth Owen wiki@gwowen.freeserve.co.uk schrieb/wrote:
"Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen" daniel@copyleft.no writes:
Fair use is illegal in many large countries outside the US.
But the Wikipedia servers are not in any of those countries, and so this is completely irrelevant.
In many countries it is enough that Wikipedia is intentionally accessible there to bring an action before local courts based on the violation of local copyright. It may or may not be possible to enforce such judgments within the US -- I don't think there are many precedents. It is certainly a bad idea to rely on that.
Of course, this only applies to actions brought against the Wikimedia Foundation and users within the US. Users of the Wikipedia outside of the US (both authors and licencees are subject to non-US law anyway. The latter is also true for mirrors.
Claus
Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
Fair use is illegal in many large countries outside the US.
This does not seem logical.
Illegal suggests that there is a specific provision making such an act against the law. If the matter is not mentioned in the statute, one cannot fairly draw the conclusion that is illegal. Of course the Berne Treaty provision would be law in any country that has ratified the Treaty. Whether you call it "fair use", "fair dealing", or "fair practice" the word "fair" is the constant theme in those expressions.
Ec
Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
- Does the fact that we can _get away_ with fair use mean we should do it? We
could probably get away with a lot of suspicious activities that would increase Wikipedia article output which we aren't pursuing. Just because you can, doesn't mean it's right. To me it's the difference between short term goals and long term goals.
Fair use is not a matter of "getting away" with anything, nor is it a "suspicious activity". Pretending that using fair-use material is somehow a criminal activity shows a gross misunderstanding of the law. Fair use is perfectly legal; that's why it's in the copyright law. It remains fair use independently of the license that is used. A downstream user who puts it in his own work does so at his own risk; we're not babysitters.
Ec
Sascha Noyes wrote:
Have a look at [[My Lai Massacre]], [[Donald Rumsfeld]], etc. There are plenty of historical events that have copyrighted pictures, where there is no possibility of replacing them with free ones. (Unless, of course, you have a time machine)
Your point is a valid point, however I'd say that a handful of "fair use" images of extreme historical importance is a red herring. What I mean is, there are a few of those, and they may be cases where we come down on the side of relying on fair use, but they aren't relevant to the central issue.
I'm much more concerned about images like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Barrymore
That's a non-free "fair use" image of Drew Barrymore that suppresses demand for a free alternative. And a free alternative is almost certainly possible. Drew Barrymore is a famous actress who regularly makes public appearances. She surely has a PR firm with access to her and to images of her that could be released under a free license.
Think about where we will be 10 years from now. Will we have a large and free encyclopedia with tons of non-free images? Or will we have a large and free encyclopedia with a massive collection of free images? How can we get to where we want to be?
I think that the answer lies in not using non-free licenses or excessive "fair use" exemptions as a crutch. That crutch will prevent us from ever getting to where we want to go.
--Jimbo
On Friday 20 February 2004 09:33 am, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Sascha Noyes wrote:
Have a look at [[My Lai Massacre]], [[Donald Rumsfeld]], etc. There are plenty of historical events that have copyrighted pictures, where there is no possibility of replacing them with free ones. (Unless, of course, you have a time machine)
Your point is a valid point, however I'd say that a handful of "fair use" images of extreme historical importance is a red herring.
Not at all, it is a compromise.
What I mean is, there are a few of those, and they may be cases where we come down on the side of relying on fair use, but they aren't relevant to the central issue.
I see two factions here. The "no fair use" faction, and the group that wants to allow fair use. As far as I can tell, the "no fair use" insists on getting rid of every single fair use image, which would include the examples that I and others have named. (My Lai massacre, Tinament Square, etc.) The pro-fair use group seems to want to offer a compromise: Only use fair use images for circumstances where GFDL images are impossible.
I'm much more concerned about images like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Barrymore
Yes, but as I see it we have already opined that as a compromise we should only keep fair use images which are not attainable by any other means. A picture of a living actress does not fall into this category. Under the compromise, all such images would be deleted.
That's a non-free "fair use" image of Drew Barrymore that suppresses demand for a free alternative. And a free alternative is almost certainly possible. Drew Barrymore is a famous actress who regularly makes public appearances. She surely has a PR firm with access to her and to images of her that could be released under a free license.
Agreed, hence our restriction to historical images.
Think about where we will be 10 years from now. Will we have a large and free encyclopedia with tons of non-free images? Or will we have a large and free encyclopedia with a massive collection of free images? How can we get to where we want to be?
Only using fair use images that are not attainable under the GFDL invalidates this argument, because if we don't allow fair use images for these circumstances there won't be any image depicting these events. (Eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tianasquare.jpg) Or do you really think that this should be depicted as a sketch? That would seem farcical to me.
I think that the answer lies in not using non-free licenses or excessive "fair use" exemptions as a crutch. That crutch will prevent us from ever getting to where we want to go.
It is not a crutch for historical images; for others I agree
Best, Sascha Noyes
Sascha Noyes wrote:
I see two factions here. The "no fair use" faction, and the group that wants to allow fair use. As far as I can tell, the "no fair use" insists on getting rid of every single fair use image, which would include the examples that I and others have named. (My Lai massacre, Tinament Square, etc.) The pro-fair use group seems to want to offer a compromise: Only use fair use images for circumstances where GFDL images are impossible.
But is anyone really arguing for absolutely no fair use in any circumstances? I don't think that's a defensible position for at least these reasons:
1. Even quotes from books are done under 'fair use' and no one is suggesting (I hope) that we can't even quote from books. But if we can quote from a book we can also "quote" from a movie (by using a single still from a longer work, for example) or other work.
The conditions under which we can and should do so are murky, due to the vagaries of copyright law and our interest in complying usefully with the laws of many nations at the same time, without compromising our integrity of course.
But "never under any circumstances" doesn't strike me as a remotely plausible position.
2. The "hardliners" (of whom I count myself one) are hardliners in part because of a certain set of views on copyright. These views ought to lead us to want to _expand_ the doctrine of fair use. Therefore, we *want* fair use, we want to rely on it, we want to use our position of influence to break down the myth that just because something is copyright, it's entirely untouchable.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
But "never under any circumstances" doesn't strike me as a remotely plausible position.
- The "hardliners" (of whom I count myself one) are hardliners in
part because of a certain set of views on copyright. These views ought to lead us to want to _expand_ the doctrine of fair use. Therefore, we *want* fair use, we want to rely on it, we want to use our position of influence to break down the myth that just because something is copyright, it's entirely untouchable.
This is consistent with my philosophies about law-abidance. If you are to be successful in expanding a concept it's going to be through working in its murky and uncertain edges, rather than in the safe middle where there is a certainty to the laws. Goal-hugger is the most derogatory term that can be applied in a game of hide-and-go-seek.
Ec
On Thursday 19 February 2004 11:36 am, Erik Moeller wrote:
It is in our interest, as an encyclopedia, to make use of historically relevant images, and it is our interest, as an encyclopedia, to rely on the doctrine of fair use to do so. It is in our interest as an open content project to make sure that we do not rely on fair use where we could produce images ourselves. It is also in our interest as an open content project to make it easy for third parties to filter out images which they cannot legally use.
The solution, to me, therefore seems obvious:
- Develop a process whereby it is determined if an image can be obtained
by other means than fair use, and whether fair use is justifiable;
- Tag all fair use images to allow easy filtering.
I agree with Erik. Historical images are needed in an encyclopedia, and we can't reproduce them as free images.
Tagging fair use images can be done by adding {{msg:fairuse}} on the image description page. Obviously this should be improved: every upload should have boxes for Copyright/License, Author, Source, and information that are must be filled in.
I don't see how one could make a case for "maximum reusability" if we package multiple tarballs, one with all fair use images, one with all public domain images, one with all gfdl images, one with all "permission for educational use" images, or some sensible combinatione thereof.
Best, Sascha Noyes
Erik Moeller wrote:
Jimmy-
The moral argument is the one that matters. Should we make use of materials that are available only to us because of our special circumstances, or should we follow a purist GNU philosophy?
We should strike a reasonable balance, and that means that images which are clearly unobtainable under a free license but historically important works should be used as fair use. Copyright law is restrictive enough as it is, it would be a big mistake not to exploit the few exemptions it grants us, under the guise of being "more free". In fact, by rejecting fair use, we effectively endorse restrictive copyright doctrines.
FWIW, I vaguely agree with both Jimbo and Erik on this point. I strongly prefer Free images wherever possible, but I don't think we should entirely refrain from using fair use images.
I would, however, support us doing so very carefully, and only when necessary. Furthermore, I think we should restrict our fair use images to fairly unambiguous cases of fair use, at least informally. A very famous photograph of an event from WW2, for example, is pretty clear fair use for almost all users.
Images licensed "for Wikipedia use only" or "for non-commercial use only" are another matter, and possibly even GFDL-incompatible---and at the very least something I don't like.
So, to summarize, my position is: * Strongly prefer GFDL or public domain images * Allow fair use images in cases where GFDL or public domain images are unavailable, with a strong preference towards clear-cut fair use cases that would also be fair use for most reusers of our content * Do not accept special-permission images
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
Jimmy-
The moral argument is the one that matters. Should we make use of materials that are available only to us because of our special circumstances, or should we follow a purist GNU philosophy?
We should strike a reasonable balance, and that means that images which are clearly unobtainable under a free license but historically important works should be used as fair use. Copyright law is restrictive enough as it is, it would be a big mistake not to exploit the few exemptions it grants us, under the guise of being "more free". In fact, by rejecting fair use, we effectively endorse restrictive copyright doctrines.
FWIW, I vaguely agree with both Jimbo and Erik on this point. I strongly prefer Free images wherever possible, but I don't think we should entirely refrain from using fair use images.
I would, however, support us doing so very carefully, and only when necessary. Furthermore, I think we should restrict our fair use images to fairly unambiguous cases of fair use, at least informally. A very famous photograph of an event from WW2, for example, is pretty clear fair use for almost all users.
Images licensed "for Wikipedia use only" or "for non-commercial use only" are another matter, and possibly even GFDL-incompatible---and at the very least something I don't like.
So, to summarize, my position is:
- Strongly prefer GFDL or public domain images
- Allow fair use images in cases where GFDL or public domain images
are unavailable, with a strong preference towards clear-cut fair use cases that would also be fair use for most reusers of our content
- Do not accept special-permission images
-Mark
I think is debate is very important. What is our ethos?
I, naturally, prefer free images. The problem is that there are very few of them out there. The main sources of free images are public domain sources, or contributor photos.
There is a severe shortage of public domain images. Apart from the US government the only other decent source I have found is a German public domain image project.
Contributors can only take photos of things such as places, or objects. They cannot take pictures of things that no longer exist, or of famous people.
It is said (as a cliche) that an image speaks a thousand words. I think images are very important to the encyclopedia. When I've shown the site to "normal people" they were much more interested in pages with images, they were more accessible.
It is almost a debate between purity and making a better encyclopedia. The US national use of "fair use" is a peripheral debate, although one that is very important for those without access to fair use.
So what do we do? I prefer tagging of all images, so that fair use images can be removed by a non-US user. However I am strongly favour of keeping images used with permission, as these greatly improve the encylopedia's coverage of non-US topics and people. If we only used PD images of politicians we would only have US politicians, and images of national leaders shaking hands with US presidents (from the survey we did yesterday). This would appear to be a bias, and could also been seen as POV as a country's relationship with the US is often controversial.
I hope tagging, allowing separation is a compromise. The status quo is chaos.
Caroline
Caroline Ford wrote:
So what do we do? I prefer tagging of all images, so that fair use images can be removed by a non-US user. However I am strongly favour of keeping images used with permission, as these greatly improve the encylopedia's coverage of non-US topics and people. If we only used PD images of politicians we would only have US politicians, and images of national leaders shaking hands with US presidents (from the survey we did yesterday). This would appear to be a bias, and could also been seen as POV as a country's relationship with the US is often controversial.
Well, there's no particular reason that other countries have to have less-free copyright policies than the US. As long as the US is the only one willing to give up copyright on its images, we'll of course have more US images---this is a direct result of most other countries adopting restrictive licensing and copyright rules. Perhaps non-US Wikipedians should lobby their countries' governments to follow the US's fine example in placing federal government material in the public domain. =] I'm quite positive that if, say, the French government decided to place their national archives in the public domain, we'd import anything of interest quite quickly. But if they insist on a restrictive, non-free licensing scheme, then I don't see what we can do about it: it's their choice to purposely exclude their material from any Free encyclopedia, and we have to respect that choice.
I hope tagging, allowing separation is a compromise. The status quo is chaos.
Tagging, I agree, is definitely something that should be done. No matter what we decide, it should be possible for a reuser of our content in an easy, automated way to, for example, strip out all non-public domain or GFDL images (as going through them all manually is prohibitively tedious for most reusers).
-Mark
Caroline Ford wrote:
Contributors can only take photos of things such as places, or objects. They cannot take pictures of things that no longer exist, or of famous people.
If the things that no longer exist are old enough, then any existing photographs will be public domain. For things that are more recent, illustrations provide an excellent alternative. If we need illustrations, then we should think of ways to empower artistic volunteers to help us by creating and contributing them.
For famous people, I think it's generally not true that contributors can't take pictures of them. Again, we just need to publicize our need and work a little harder to empower volunteers. Almost all famous people make public appearances. Movies stars appear in public in Hollywood, New York, Cannes, and other film festivals. Politicians make speechs to public audiences. Famous intellectuals are generally accessible.
All famous people have an interest in publicity -- fame is power and money. So if for some reason we can't get a photo from a public appearance, they ought to be very amenable to releasing a single publicity shot under the GNU FDL.
We are big and getting bigger. Millions of people see our work each year. Millions of people love what we are doing, love the idea of it, and would love to help. We need to give them tools and incentives to do exactly that.
We have great tools for people who like to write. I propose that we develop great tools for amateur paparazzi, amateur illustrators, and amateur photographers.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com writes:
For famous people, I think it's generally not true that contributors can't take pictures of them.
Thats true. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Otway for example (small values of "famous", sure), but it only goes so far.
We don't want a drawing of the protester in front of the Tiananmen tanks.
We don't want a sketch of Dolly the Sheep, but she doesn't make a lot of personal appearances these days (would a clone do?)
Must we really wait the 100 odd years until these fall into the public domain?
We now know what RMS would say, and he seemed more positive about Fair Use provision than it has been suggested he would be.
Jimmy-
If the things that no longer exist are old enough, then any existing photographs will be public domain. For things that are more recent, illustrations provide an excellent alternative.
Not really. Do you want to substitute the photo of Mother Teresa with Charles Keating with an "illustration", a drawing? Not only would that be extremely silly, it would probably be seen as a derivative work and therefore still copyrighted. And it would give the upper hand to those who want to get rid of this image, and other images like it, for political reasons, give them yet another instrument of censorship.
Jimbo, Jimbo, Jimbo. When did the GNU bug bite you and turn you into a zealot? We should subject each fair use image to an examination process in which we seek to determine whether we can obtain an image by other means. If that is so, we should try everything -- request permission, create our own image etc. -- and leave the article without an image in the meantime. This examination should be a group process like votes for deletion. For example, I could upload an image and provide contact information, and someone else would try to request permission from that person.
If everything else fails, however, it would be extraordinarily stupid not to make use of the exemptions which copyright law explictly grants us (and to those who keep claiming that no equivalent law exists in other countries -- that's simply not true, most copyright laws have exemptions for scientific and educational use, e.g. Sec. 51 of the German copyright code). It would be a slap in the face of those who have been lobbying for broader fair use provisions.
This process is without alternative. Anything else *will* split this community.
Regards,
Erik
Erik calls me a zealot below, but I actually agree with everything he says. :-) So there's really just a matter of perspective, I guess.
One thing that I absolutely do agree with him about is that harmony within the community demands a process whereby we work hard to examine the fair use status. And I also agree that it's very important that we be diligent about searching for alternatives.
Erik Moeller wrote:
Jimmy-
If the things that no longer exist are old enough, then any existing photographs will be public domain. For things that are more recent, illustrations provide an excellent alternative.
Not really. Do you want to substitute the photo of Mother Teresa with Charles Keating with an "illustration", a drawing? Not only would that be extremely silly, it would probably be seen as a derivative work and therefore still copyrighted. And it would give the upper hand to those who want to get rid of this image, and other images like it, for political reasons, give them yet another instrument of censorship.
Jimbo, Jimbo, Jimbo. When did the GNU bug bite you and turn you into a zealot? We should subject each fair use image to an examination process in which we seek to determine whether we can obtain an image by other means. If that is so, we should try everything -- request permission, create our own image etc. -- and leave the article without an image in the meantime. This examination should be a group process like votes for deletion. For example, I could upload an image and provide contact information, and someone else would try to request permission from that person.
If everything else fails, however, it would be extraordinarily stupid not to make use of the exemptions which copyright law explictly grants us (and to those who keep claiming that no equivalent law exists in other countries -- that's simply not true, most copyright laws have exemptions for scientific and educational use, e.g. Sec. 51 of the German copyright code). It would be a slap in the face of those who have been lobbying for broader fair use provisions.
This process is without alternative. Anything else *will* split this community.
Regards,
Erik _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Fri, Feb 20, 2004 at 06:22:04AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
If the things that no longer exist are old enough, then any existing photographs will be public domain. For things that are more recent, illustrations provide an excellent alternative. If we need illustrations, then we should think of ways to empower artistic volunteers to help us by creating and contributing them.
For famous people, I think it's generally not true that contributors can't take pictures of them. Again, we just need to publicize our need and work a little harder to empower volunteers. Almost all famous people make public appearances. Movies stars appear in public in Hollywood, New York, Cannes, and other film festivals. Politicians make speechs to public audiences. Famous intellectuals are generally accessible.
All famous people have an interest in publicity -- fame is power and money. So if for some reason we can't get a photo from a public appearance, they ought to be very amenable to releasing a single publicity shot under the GNU FDL.
We are big and getting bigger. Millions of people see our work each year. Millions of people love what we are doing, love the idea of it, and would love to help. We need to give them tools and incentives to do exactly that.
We have great tools for people who like to write. I propose that we develop great tools for amateur paparazzi, amateur illustrators, and amateur photographers.
Right. Long time ago I emailed RMS to get free photos of him and got some. Pio mailed Larry Wall and got them too. Now - maybe these are not be typical "famous people", but it's certainly possible to get GFDL photos if you ask for them.
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com writes:
If the things that no longer exist are old enough, then any existing photographs will be public domain.
Yes, but does this mean we can use their files? In Germany it isn't allowed: the files are protected for a couple of year (Leistungsschutz: somebody took the pain digitizing old manuscripts and you are not allowed to reuse these files for your own project).
Let's hope archive.org will survive long enough.
Jimmy Wales wrote:
We are big and getting bigger. Millions of people see our work each year. Millions of people love what we are doing, love the idea of it, and would love to help. We need to give them tools and incentives to do exactly that.
Or, we "make a deal" with some of the companies that supply the news agencies with pictures. As you said, we're gettin bigger, meaning more and more people will view wikipedia pages. If the image description would read "Image by [[Reuters]], released under GFDL", it would be a great advertivement for them, and it would cost them only a small image, perhaps of second-grade quality (which would be fine for us, but never printed in a magazine anyway).
Magnus
On Thu, 2004-02-19 at 15:50, Jimmy Wales wrote:
If that means less images for now, then it means less images for now. It also means that we have a very strong incentive to develop free alternatives.
I am torn on this issue - I can see the arguments for both sides. However, what certainly needs to happen, regardless of whether we keep fair use images in the long term, is for the existing image database to be thoroughly categorised by licence, coupled with a policy to prevent the problem of unknown image status, from getting any worse. In the meantime, let us keep with the status quo.
I have no intention of trying to get fair use images removed per se, but I do want downstream users to be able to separate out images they can't use easily. msg:fairuse, msg:noncommercial and friends were designed to do this.
With the respect to photos of politicians, which Caroline had been negotiating for, I doubt very much the parties would have agreed to put them into the public domain or licence them under the GFDL, but I suspect the main reason there is not fear of loss of revenue, but fear of the images being used in a derogatory way. Perhaps a standard semi-free image release would be useful? I would regret not having such images on Wikipedia.
Abigail Brady wrote:
With the respect to photos of politicians, which Caroline had been negotiating for, I doubt very much the parties would have agreed to put them into the public domain or licence them under the GFDL, but I suspect the main reason there is not fear of loss of revenue, but fear of the images being used in a derogatory way.
I wonder.
At least in the U.S., politicians are almost completely fair game for parody and satire. Completely separate from fair use is the "parody" exception to copyright. For someone to take a photo of a politician and alter it so that the politician looks like a moron is a cherised right of the people.
So refusing a free license for that reason wouldn't really make sense.
I suspect rather that any reluctance to release under a free license would come more from a lack of knowledge of the concept.
But here's a key. Wikipedia is more popular than Britannica. We are rapidly becoming a major cultural force. In many ways, it is a great honor to be featured in Wikipedia, and to have your photograph even moreso. But if the requirement for that is that you need to release your picture under a free license, that's a very small price to pay.
(It's actually no "price" at all.)
What does the politician give up? Nothing, because these pictures are not for the purpose of earning revenue anyway. They are publicity photos. What does the politician get? Guaranteed world-wide distribution in the most important general knowledgebase in the world.
We should not underestimate our power, which grows daily.
--Jimbo
If each wikipedian took 10 pictures of the interesting things he visits, I'm sure we would not need nonfree pictures any more.
Aoineko
On Sat, Feb 21, 2004 at 12:53:38AM +0900, Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
If each wikipedian took 10 pictures of the interesting things he visits, I'm sure we would not need nonfree pictures any more.
We don't *need* them now either. Some claim we may *want* them, but that's a different thing.
If each wikipedian took 10 pictures of the interesting things he visits, I'm sure we would not need nonfree pictures any more.
No matter how many pictures I take of the interesting things I visit, I will never take a picture of Bob Keeshan (1927-2004) -- and you will not find a free picture of him.
Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org writes:
If each wikipedian took 10 pictures of the interesting things he visits, I'm sure we would not need nonfree pictures any more.
No matter how many pictures I take of the interesting things I visit, I will never take a picture of Bob Keeshan (1927-2004) -- and you will not find a free picture of him.
Well, if there are any wikipedians who likes a challenge, we need a photo for [[J D Salinger]] :)
Salve!
IMHO does this crossposting make no sence. Am Freitag, 20. Februar 2004 20:01 schrieb Gareth Owen:
Well, if there are any wikipedians who likes a challenge, we need a photo for [[J D Salinger]] :)
This article does not exist in en: & de: so please go ahead and start to write this articel ;)
Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org writes:
If each wikipedian took 10 pictures of the interesting things he visits, I'm sure we would not need nonfree pictures any more.
No matter how many pictures I take of the interesting things I visit, I will never take a picture of Bob Keeshan (1927-2004) -- and you will not find a free picture of him.
As I tried to explain on wikipedia-l it is not the question which pictures you found with google (for copy&past) and not only what pictures your find in your personal photo album - it needs the same skills like you what to write a book - you have to find the right people with pictures and motivate them to contribute one or more picturs under the condition of the GNU-FDL. Be creative, try to please the heirs, friends, colleagues, fans....
We do not have the support of one publishing house - but we are many. Till now I have asked in two cases for data and one aerial photo - in both cases I get friendly support.
But like the [[J D Salinger]] case, you should have good article before you start asking for pictures. When it is an excellent article, it should be a question of honour that someone with an own copy right, to support the wikipedia.
With this way, we spend more time and have less photos - but everybody who has organized a contribution from a third person has the satisfaction that this work secure to support the wikipedia in a professional way with a real free picture that is not in dager to become unfair by one single lawsuit.
BTW I want to remember, that I got more than I expected, I`m shure I will get more aerial photos, because I made a new friend of the wikipedia.
And isn`t this challange, to find new friends of the wikipedia a very nice one? rob
Robert Michel wrote:
And isn`t this challange, to find new friends of the wikipedia a very nice one?
Hooray!
I find that what we are doing excites people. It's meaningful work, and it's something people really support. People can see how their support is a way to take action to make the world as it "might be and ought to be".
--Jimbo
Sean Barrett wrote:
If each wikipedian took 10 pictures of the interesting things he visits, I'm sure we would not need nonfree pictures any more.
No matter how many pictures I take of the interesting things I visit, I will never take a picture of Bob Keeshan (1927-2004) -- and you will not find a free picture of him.
However, it may not be impossible to acquire one eventually. As Wikipedia gets more famous, the estates of famous people may start to dislike the fact that that person's biography has a conspicuous lack of an image, and consent to GFDL-licensing an image to fill the gap. If we fill it in with a fair use image, that removes the incentive.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
Sean Barrett wrote:
If each wikipedian took 10 pictures of the interesting things he visits, I'm sure we would not need nonfree pictures any more.
No matter how many pictures I take of the interesting things I visit, I will never take a picture of Bob Keeshan (1927-2004) -- and you will not find a free picture of him.
However, it may not be impossible to acquire one eventually. As Wikipedia gets more famous, the estates of famous people may start to dislike the fact that that person's biography has a conspicuous lack of an image, and consent to GFDL-licensing an image to fill the gap. If we fill it in with a fair use image, that removes the incentive.
Maybe, maybe not - a site that wants to drive traffic will have an incentive to keep the pics out, and readers unaware of all this will just go to the site directly, blow off WP. It would "game the system" :-) better to have the fair use picture up for a long time, get lots of visitors, then announce a campaign to replace with a licensed picture, give the estate a chance to offer a licensed picture as an alternative to the fan's snapshot showing him picking his nose while going into the Mustang Ranch. :-) If you don't have such a picture already, Photoshop/GIMP is very helpful...
As they say, Be Bold!
Stan
On Fri, Feb 20, 2004 at 02:09:36PM -0800, Stan Shebs wrote:
Maybe, maybe not - a site that wants to drive traffic will have an incentive to keep the pics out, and readers unaware of all this will just go to the site directly, blow off WP.
When did the aim of Wikipedia changed from producing free, neutral and high quality content to getting as much traffic as possible to certain website ?
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
On Fri, Feb 20, 2004 at 02:09:36PM -0800, Stan Shebs wrote:
Maybe, maybe not - a site that wants to drive traffic will have an incentive to keep the pics out, and readers unaware of all this will just go to the site directly, blow off WP.
When did the aim of Wikipedia changed from producing free, neutral and high quality content to getting as much traffic as possible to certain website ?
I'm not sure what you're saying, but "free, neutral and high quality content" is kind of pointless if it has no actual readers. I don't know about other editors, but I'm not doing this to entertain myself (there are easier ways to do that with one's fingers, if you know what I mean. :-) ). In addition to being an efficient way of conveying information, images are well-known to be an important part of attracting and keeping readers.
We're already in competition with other online sources, and how well we're competing governs both readership and the number of editors we can attract. For instance, when I add stuff to WP, I'm always looking for opportunities to add material that is available nowhere else online (only in print previously, say), because that's something that makes WP a must-visit for information-seekers. Images are part of that competition too, and we should be reluctant to handicap ourselves in the race, particularly when no actual threats have materialized (has there been even one outside demand to remove an image?)
Stan
Stan Shebs wrote:
We're already in competition with other online sources, and how well we're competing governs both readership and the number of editors we can attract. For instance, when I add stuff to WP, I'm always looking for opportunities to add material that is available nowhere else online (only in print previously, say), because that's something that makes WP a must-visit for information-seekers. Images are part of that competition too, and we should be reluctant to handicap ourselves in the race, particularly when no actual threats have materialized (has there been even one outside demand to remove an image?)
Well, I don't really see it as so much of a race. Sure, we'd like people to turn to us for information, but as I see it we're just going to so completely dominate everyone with our information that there really is no competition. Already most people I know IRL turn to Wikipedia first when they want to find out "what is [x]" in summary form, while they used to resort to googling for [x], which tends to produce less-reliable results than the Wikipedia article (where one exists). Granted, these are people I know who have been influenced by my Wikipedia-advocacy, but they wouldn't keep using it if it wasn't for the information. I think this will only get more pronounced as we get more and more information and make it better- and better-presented.
So I suppose I agree in some sense with your goals, but I see it as such a foregone conclusion that we're going to "win" that competition---and not by a small margin either---that it shouldn't really be our main concern.
-Mark
Salve Mark,
Am Freitag, 20. Februar 2004 22:17 schrieb Delirium:
However, it may not be impossible to acquire one eventually. As Wikipedia gets more famous, the estates of famous people may start to dislike the fact that that person's biography has a conspicuous lack of an image, and consent to GFDL-licensing an image to fill the gap. If we fill it in with a fair use image, that removes the incentive.
This is right, but with the "easygoing" way of "fair use" I fear that many wikipedianer would ask only for "fair use" to be more sure to get this pictures - and of course it is more easy to argue and to explain than with the GNU-FDL ;)
For example: "Image:Marymca.jpg An image of Irish President Mary McAllese which states "I would like to advise you that there is no objection to the reproduction of the President's official portrait in a non-profit encyclopaedia article." " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fair_use
I guess the wikipedianer hasn`t tried to ask for a GNU-FDL use. This is the quick and dirty way - and Wikipedianer from non US countries has to ask again, this is unproductive.
-We need good a tutorial "HowTo ask effective for the use of pictures with the condition of the GNU-FDL" -well written examples for letters to potential contributors -and a culture to celebrate every successfuly "acquisition".
And we should create reasons why a donator could feel good to has supported the wikipedia. When he would like it, he should get a visible thanksgiving inside the wikipedia. And when we get the support from NGO for history, ornithology or what ever, they should get publicity for their organisation.
"Charity business" is the art of collect and giving ;) we should learn this trade/soft skill.
The border case would IMHO be this: Imagine we would have tried over 2 years to get one picture of one famous person, but this person hasn`t lived in public, so pictures of this person are realy rare. But we are in contact with one author of a biography about this person and this biography is realy god. Should we accept to place his biography in this article for getting one GNU-FDL picture? I think not, because when his biography is realy a good one, it have been already mentioned in this article. *g*
So the strategie will be more a noncommercial one: trying to find friends for the wikipedia with our enthusiasm.
Gruss rob
PS: BTW commercial - would it match to write out donation receipts that one picture donator could save some of his tax?
Delirium wrote:
However, it may not be impossible to acquire one eventually. As Wikipedia gets more famous, the estates of famous people may start to dislike the fact that that person's biography has a conspicuous lack of an image, and consent to GFDL-licensing an image to fill the gap. If we fill it in with a fair use image, that removes the incentive.
To add on to this, not only does it remove the incentive, but it hampers us as well. If we have to completely gut our encyclopedia by removing a large percentage of its images before we're allowed to publish a paper or CD-ROM version in the EU, that's not good.
(This doesn't apply to less borderline things that would be "fair use" and/or "fair dealing" under most jurisdictions, or at least a large percentage of them.)
Remember, Wikipedia is not synonymous with wikipedia.org--the end goal is not just producing a website. But the website is what people work on, so if the website has all these great images that can't be used in the paper version, then the chances of the paper version ever actually looking decent start to look slimmer, 'cause nobody even notices the lack ("hey, the article online it looks fine to me"). If the website has conspicuously missing images, people will be much more likely to notice that something needs to be done to fill the gap.
(Again, not including things like the Tiananmen Square photo, which I agree we should use.)
-Mark
If we have to completely gut our encyclopedia by removing a large percentage of its images....
I hardly think removing even "a large percentage" of our images constitutes "gutting" our encyclopedia. And even if it did, no one is suggesting removing "a large percentage," just a handful of "fair use" borderline cases.
Sean Barrett wrote:
No matter how many pictures I take of the interesting things I visit, I will never take a picture of Bob Keeshan (1927-2004) -- and you will not find a free picture of him.
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/K/htmlK/keeshanbob/keeshanbob.htm
That's a pretty typical publicity still, and a guy like Bob Keeshan must have literally hundreds of these taken over the course of a lifelong career in show business. The picture itself has very little commercial value in and of itself, and I can see no particular reason why Bob Keeshan's estate,
or CBS (where his show appeared for 30 years)
or one of the wire services (who might own photos of him taken at various public events)
or some paparazzi with a huge collection
might not want to make just one or two representative images available under a free license.
We won't know until we try.
Unfortunately, and I'm as guilty of this as any of us, doing work like this -- approaching people to try to get not just standard permission but a free license -- will involve stepping outside our comfort zone, which is "sit and type on the Internet".
--Jimbo
On Monday 23 February 2004 12:30, Jimmy Wales wrote:
That's a pretty typical publicity still, and a guy like Bob Keeshan must have literally hundreds of these taken over the course of a lifelong career in show business. The picture itself has very little commercial value in and of itself, and I can see no particular reason why Bob Keeshan's estate,
or CBS (where his show appeared for 30 years)
or one of the wire services (who might own photos of him taken at various public events)
or some paparazzi with a huge collection
might not want to make just one or two representative images available under a free license.
We won't know until we try.
Absolutely right.
And this is one more thing that makes me a bit afraid about "fair use" images. The motivation for writing one or two emails to get a really free image needs a lot more effort and work than just taking the image and using it under "fair use" doctrine.
In many situations, like the above for example, it could be a typical win-win scenario. We could offer adding a "generously donated by foo" text to the image and would get a free image in return.
best regards, Marco
Marco Krohn wrote:
In many situations, like the above for example, it could be a typical win-win scenario. We could offer adding a "generously donated by foo" text to the image and would get a free image in return.
This I think might be a good idea: to start an informal policy that we credit image authors in the caption (in the article where the image is used, not just on the image description page), perhaps in small-font or something, and perhaps eventually automatically-generated from the not-yet-extant "author" field for the image. We can't require that our distributors keep this (we don't want GFDL invariant sections), but simply having it be unofficial Wikipedia policy that *we'll* keep it should satisfy a lot of people, since we're the most prominent Wikipedia distributor. And I'd bet many people would consider having a photo credit in a Wikipedia article at least something of a payment. Plus it's actually useful information for our readers in many cases (as with, say, "photo courtesy of [[NASA]]").
-Mark
--- Delirium delirium@rufus.d2g.com wrote:
This I think might be a good idea: to start an informal policy that we credit image authors in the caption
...
-Mark
I agree.
Optim
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http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/K/htmlK/keeshanbob/keeshanbob.htm
...snip...
We won't know until we try.
Unfortunately, and I'm as guilty of this as any of us, doing work like this -- approaching people to try to get not just standard permission but a free license -- will involve stepping outside our comfort zone, which is "sit and type on the Internet".
--Jimbo
Point taken, with a large side-order of "I picked a weak example."
And as for comfort zones, I'm the guy who wrote to Her Majesty's Stationery Office about Crown Copyright. I got Michael Phillips, maintainer of "Ship of the Old Navy," to give us free use of his material. I have requests out at the moment. Anyone who wants help with such requests is welcome to contact me.
Salve!
Am Donnerstag, 19. Februar 2004 16:50 schrieb Jimmy Wales:
The moral argument is the one that matters. Should we make use of materials that are available only to us because of our special circumstances, or should we follow a purist GNU philosophy?
I think we all know what Richard Stallman would say, and I for one will agree with him completely.
You know the spirit of GNU, but you don`t know what he would say.
At the moments the discussions of wikipianer is narrow minded: "Are I`m allowed to copy this without asking someone" instead of starting a discussion "How can you motivate Copyrights owner to contribute one impressfull picture to the Wikipedia"?
So I would please Richard Stallman to tell us: "You are only asking for free resources - come on guys start to learn to programm your one code (make the photos yourself) AND learn the soft skill to motivate people to support your project and share a view of their personal pictures."
BTW, when we discuss the problem with Richard, I would not be surpriced when we would get another licence, the GNU-FPL (Free Picture Licence). I`m in favor for hash codes and fingerprints like PGP to include all important informations insied this signd file - GNU-FDL is not perferct for pictures.
But back to motivate you to think about how to learn the soft skill for asking for contribution. I have worked on one artikel about one new lonly island in Germany [[de:Kachelotplate]] and I found two webpages with an aerial photo of this island and I have asked both to get one picture for the use with GNU-FDL. The one wepage was a public authority and they excuse that they haven`t the right for this picture, but they forwarded my mail to the photographer.
Today, 10 days later I got a call form a very kind airman who had make this pictures and he was impressed by our articels about aviation - he offerd a full CD with many pictures of this island and he lifes on another island and he got many ideas who to ask for more contribution for artikles and pictures ***g***
So know I`m sure we will have more than one aerial photos from only one island.
I agree that asking people for contribute, support or join the wikipeadia needs time - but in this case it was the work of 1h and we have now new friends. If you don`t ask, you can save 1h but some people you may make angry and you will never have a chance again to win them as friend for our project.
==Advertisement for NGOs/GOs== See [[de:Sable Island]] - for this artikle of an island befor the cost of canada I found a picture made by NASA from the space shutel. There condition to use is:
For astronaut photography of Earth accessed through this website, please state "Image courtesy of Earth Sciences and Image Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center." We recommend that the caption for any photograph published include the unique photo number (Mission-Roll-Frame), and our website (http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov) so that others can locate or obtain copies when needed. We always appreciate notification of beneficial uses of astronaut photography of Earth-information on your applications. This will help us continue to maintain these services for the public. Send e-mail to earthweb@jsc.nasa.gov.
- Does this be conform with GNU-FDL? - What does you think about the legend under the picture in the artikel
This picture is IMHO a good exampel for a picture description:
Bild:Sable_Island_NASA_300x301_from_EFS_highres_STS059_STS059-216-79.jpg (I will ask NASA for the missing information WHO has made this picture *g*)
So I think you got my point:
It´s not only the question what picture is copy free, its more the question, how do I ask blandest and friendly to get a GNU-FDL conform contribution. ;)
And I`m sure to get all picures I want for both island articles during this year - WITH GNU-FDL!
If that means less images for now, then it means less images for now. It also means that we have a very strong incentive to develop free alternatives.
Past & Copy: - This can everybody do :( - this will make wikipedia not special - Important picture informations will not be used - This will not find new wikipianer - And will bring us in danger of bad headlines and losing these pictures in future, or for some countries....
Greetings rob
See also: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: image copyright (Robert Michel, Thu Feb 19 12:36:19 2004)
on ahave ask to
contribute
I will stress that concentrating on existing pictures and existing licences are a little narrow minded.
The Wikimedia Foundation should be a
beacon of what is possible with copyright freedom, and we should not allow anyone to ever point at our work and say "Yeah, they talk the big talk about free licensing, but what would their site be without all those proprietary licensed images and fair use exceptions?"
If that means less images for now, then it means less images for now. It also means that we have a very strong incentive to develop free alternatives.
--Jimbo _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikimedia Foundation can have two versions of the English Wikipedia: One with fair use and one without.
I am sure if we ban fair use material in Wikipedia, someone will start a fork. Let's prevent that by "forking" our current encyclopedia first under control of Wikimedia Foundation, and then we ban all fair use images from the original Wikipedia.
In this way, those who like viewing fair use images will be able to work on the "Fair Use English Wikipedia" version.
--Optim
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