From: "Anthere" anthere6@yahoo.com

Could anyone knowledgable help us here ?

I volunteer to try, but remember this is not legal advice even though IAAL.

As a reminder, we were told that, being hosted on a californian server, we had to respect US law, and not everyone understand american law :-)

Could anyone explain to us what is fair use for images

There is a page on fair use in the English Wikipedia http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

How precisely it applies. On which types of pictures. What it implies. Which are the limits. And when we should consider a picture is fair use and as such may be inserted. Or not.

Fair use is a defense. It applies to _each_ _use_ differently. It depends on the picture and where you got it from and how it is used, i.e. why is it being included in the article.

At the bottom of the Fair Use page is a checklist: from Purdue University: http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/checklist.pdf I think this is a useful checklist for a fair use analysis.

Going through this analysis can give one some comfort about the potential finding of fair use (remember it is only through judicial action that fair use is determined, we can only guess on it). It is my suggestion that such an analysis be put on the page description and added in each article that the image is used (the fair use of an image in one article may not be fair use in a different article). I suggest describing the analysis in the article in hidden text i.e. <!-- The use of image.jpg which is otherwise copyright is fair use for the following four reasons.... --> This will hopefully remain part of the article and anyone who uses the article under the GFDL can determine if their use is different that the use claimed by Wikipedia. It is up to them to make their own determination of fair use. A fair use is not necessarily transferrable under the GFDL.

I am not looking for an extensive discussion over the merit of including fair use images or not :-)

Just on which principles we can base our decision making over keeping or not keeping the images

I've recently tried to make sure that the list of the four major factors that apply to fair use determinations is explained to some degree in the [[fair use]] article.

Unfortunately Anthere it is not always a clear determination. Not all judges/juries apply the law the same way. It is a factual determination based upon a total appreciation of the evidence as presented during the proceedings. Lawyer may also, when giving an opinion, differ. This is why some prefer to get permission and even pay a small royalty when using something that might even qualify as fair use. It is better to pay that royalty than to pay the costs of defending fair use in court.

I do not mean this to be evasive, but some people talk about fair use as if it can be defined easily. See http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_issues and http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Image_use_policy/copyright

I do not agree. I think that it cannot be clearly defined and that it is not a given that fair use on Wikipedia means that any subsequent sublicensee will automatically be able to claim fair use on the GFDL. This is the major problem when it comes to fair use on Wikipedia one cannot say that an image is fair use, one can only say "Use of this image on Wikipedia is fair use, that fair use may not be transferable under the GFDL."

Alex756

Anthere wrote:

Could anyone knowledgable help us here ?

As a reminder, we were told that, being hosted on a californian server, we had to respect US law, and not everyone understand american law :-)

Could anyone explain to us what is fair use for images ?

c'est horriblement compliqué. la meilleure chose a faire c'est de: 1. vivre sans l'image en question -- trouver une alternative 2. si c'est indispensable, marquer que c'est "fair use" sur la page description image.