Daniel Mayer wrote: If the above is a lie by that argument, so is claiming that "all text" is under the FDL when some portions of that text at any given time may be copyright violations cut-n-pasted by a newbie. Any non-FDL-compatible images, just as non-FDL-compatible text, are mistakes that need to be removed when they are found to be such. On another front, it is often alleged that _true_ "fair use" of some non-FDL material (both text and images) _is_ compatible with the FDL. _If_ we accept this as true, then those ought not to affect the argument above, as only compatible ones are to be kept, and they're compatible. _If_ we reject it as false, then we throw out more images, and the above argument again does not change. That's a question for the lawyers in the house, though, of which I'm not one. -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Marco Krohn wrote: The exact law: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html I think by _true_, Brion only means to indicate that a person can't just hand wave past the 4-part test outlined in the law. Just saying 'fair use' doesn't automatically make it so. The legal point is that if you really are using something "fairly" as outlined in the law, then you are on solid legal ground regardless of the licensing conditions someone may place on the material in question. The problem with fair use for us, and the reason I think we should be conservative about it, is that fair use depends on the _use_ of the material in a way that may be somewhat inconsistent with the spirit of GNU-freedom. Also, the 4-part text is vague. Here's some excellent reading material: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-c.ht… As you read over the case summaries, you'll begin to get a sense of how puzzling this doctrine can be. It seems that we'd be safer using movie stills (which are a small portion of the overall work) than individual photos (which are arguably the entire work) from a photo shoot. There are lots of quirks like that, and lots of cases that I think would be hard to predict. I think it's pretty clearly that there will be lots of cases where *we* are on solid ground, but where potential re-users of our content will not be. I think that's problematic. Both Richard Stallman and Larry Lessig have indicated to me, informally, that they see no problem with using fair use materials in GNU FDL licensed materials. They actually seemed puzzled by the question -- that's my interpretation, of course, and not something they should be directly held responsible for, if the confusion was mine! --Jimbo