[Foundation-l] Re: Copyright complaints

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 2/12/06, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Dealing with fair use images is slightly different from normal copyright
> problems, I would think. Since the fairness depends on the type of use,
> it ought to be sorted out where the image is being used. If there's an
> inappropriate claim of fair use somewhere, remove the image from the
> article (or user page, as the case may be). Acting unilaterally in that
> regard is just being bold, doesn't require adminship, and is not
> something to punish unless you have an edit war about it.
>
> If the removal of the image holds, then the rest is really quite simple.
> Once the image is an orphan, there is no longer any basis for a fair use
> claim, and it can be deleted using the normal processes. No need to
> punish anyone for unilateral action.

This path (orphan and later delete) is fairly effective at removing
bogus fair use.

But it's only effective in terms of raw numbers: it's worked on tens
of thousands, but there are thousands more that should be removed
which can't simply be worked through that process... The job isn't
done until it's all right.

There still are a great number of images which are not approiate as
fair use but people insist on using them (esp decorative use). It
takes, quite litterly  more 500x the amount of work on my part to
clean up an inapproiate use of copyrighted material once there is even
*one* active user who is working to keep it.  So long as this is the
case we will be unable to clean up the violations.

This also doesn't address the far worse situation of mistagged
content...  There is a lot of stuff tagged as 'free use image' which
was clearly simple pulled from websites (and about 1/3rd of that
category is already fully orphaned)... The 'orpahan then delete'
process fails to work for those, becuase they aren't fair use and
other users will demand that you prove they are fair use.