Axel Boldt wrote:
Now, I don't think Wikipedia is at any risk whatsoever: if somebody complains about an image, we simply take it down. We don't have money, so we won't get sued. The downstream users of our materials however may not share these luxuries, and in addition may have commercial interests which weakens their fair use defense considerably. In effect our fair use images shut out large classes of potential users of the encyclopedia.
I agree with this assessment. I would add to this a general concern that our use of images under "fair use" prevents the rise of a stronger demand for really free sources of images.