On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 05:44:47AM -0700, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Marco Krohn wrote, quoting Axel Boldt:
"Illustrating an article by adding a photo
creates a derivative
work, therefore the whole has to be put under GFDL, therefore it cannot
be fair use material (or anything besides public domain or GFDL)."
This is not valid reasoning. If accurate, then we can't even quote
from copyrighted sources, not even one sentence of quotation, because
all such use is done under a "fair use" doctrine.
Suppose we have an article about a book by Noam Chomsky. We wish to
explain the thesis of the book, and toward that end, we quote a
relevant sentence from the book. This is perfectly valid, and it is
fair use.
What is the situation in German law? You seem to be arguing that
there is no such thing as fair use in German law, but that strikes me
as virtually impossible. Can you give the details?
By the way, I agree with those who say that (a) strictly speaking,
German law is not of primary interest to us, but also with those who
say that (b) if we can make sure that the encyclopedia is
redistributable in Germany, too, that's a good thing, if it doesn't
cost much in terms of content.
At least in Polish law, such quotation wouldn't be subject of copyright
law at all. On the other hand, using somebody else's ilustrations without
authorization is plain illegal (there is some procedure that allows you
to use them and send them some standard fee whether they like it or not,
but it doesn't apply in all cases). There are some (mostly explicitely listed,
plus some general principles about others) cases where you
can simply take somebody else's photos (or other stuff) and use them,
but I don't think they're going to be compatible between coutries.
Most of them are about non-commercial usage, so they don't apply to Wikipedia
anyway.