[Foundation-l] Fair use images

[GerardM]

Hoi,
I understand the need that ordinary pictures need to be "free". What I
fail to understand is the dogmatic view that ALL pictures cannot be ND
or no deriviates. There are whole categories of pictures that are
extremely relevant, where we cannot and will not get these images when
we insist on this mantra of "everything must be Free .. everything
must be Free .. everyone who thinks otherwise does not understand". It
is dogmatic, and it is my POV that it is utterly wrong.

When we make an exception for the logos in Commons for our projects we
do this with a reason. The reason is obvious. The use of the logo is
explicitly limited. Logos of other companies, organisations are not
available in Commons because they are not "Free". Organisations CANNOT
make them available to us for the same reason why our logos CANNOT be
Free.

It is a disservice to our users not to have logos in Commons. People
often know the logos of companies or products better then they do the
name. An article like IBM, Shell, Greenpeace should have the company
logo to illustrate the article.

The English Wikipedia does have these logos. They are there as they
are considered "fair use". Many people are satisfied with this
solution as it is considered a "neat" solution. Well, it is not. There
are MANY more projects that have the same requirement, and I fail to
see why we are not servicing this need. I fail to see why the
pragmatic exception for the WMF logos cannot be extended to other
logos. I fail to see why categories similar to logos cannot be served
from Commons.

The only reason I see is dogma. It is a dogma I fail to recognise as
valid. It is a dogma that does us a disservice.

Thanks,
    GerardM



On 3/10/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/9/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > Absolutely.  Fair use should be abandoned in favor of allowing
> > CC-BY-ND.  I just found out that CC-BY-ND allows "the right to make
> > such modifications as are technically necessary to exercise the rights
> > in other media and formats", so use of such a license is much better
> > than relying on fair use.
>
> I don't agree at all.  Our goal is to make a free content
> encyclopedia. When we speak of free we mean freedom and not cost.  ND
> content is not free.
>
> We can broadly split media we would like to include in Wikipedia into
> two classes: Illustrations and other media and used to explain or
> decorate our articles, and excerpts of works which we have included in
> order to discuss the works.
>
> In the first case, barring certain silly corner cases, it is always
> possible to have a free version because a Wikipedia contributor could
> create one.
>
> In the second case, a replacement is simply not possible because the
> replacement wouldn't be the work we were discussing.  So, our ability
> to obtain a free copy is entirely at the whim of the copyright holder,
> and in some cases it may even be very difficult for us to contact the
> copyright holder.
>
> Fair use law (and similar constructs in some other countries) exists
> specifically for the second case. The goal of fair use is to prevent
> copyright from completely stifling criticism and intellectual
> discussion.
>
> It is likely that in the case of 'fair use' the content would remain
> fair use for a large majority of the downstream uses for content on
> Wikipedia. Furthermore, the decision to include fair use is almost
> always a choice between the fair use image and no image at all.   Our
> choice with fair use content is to allow it, where it is easy for
> downstream users to remove, or have nothing at all.  A downstream user
> who can't accept unfree content is in the same position either way.
> Nothing is lost by allowing clear and legitimate fair use, and our
> goal of being an encyclopedia is enhanced in a way which is pretty
> much not possible without fair use.
>
> By allowing ND images we would be in a position of three
> possibilities: no image, a free image, or an ND image which is 'free
> enough' to post on our website but fails our goal of producing free
> content. If we allow ND images it will specifically be at the expense
> of free images. A downstream users who can't accept unfree content
> will be in a worse position if we were to make that decision.
>
> > Of course the major disadvantage is that people have to be convinced
> > to release their image under the license.  But right now it's not even
> > an option.
>
> Who are you expecting to convince?   The impact on the real commercial
> value of the work between GFDL and a ND license is minimal. ND
> licenses primarily appeal to the vanity of artists who are not
> sufficiently satisfied by mere attribution.
>
> The lack of ND images has, no doubt, cost us some images on the short
> term... but we could equally say that our failure to illegally copy
> current edition Britannica articles has also cost us some level of
> coverage.  Fundamentally if someone isn't interested in creating a
> *free* encyclopedia then they aren't interested in helping us.   Yes,
> we'll sometimes include the copyrighted works of others... but with
> fair use we can do that whether they like it or not.
>
> It isn't acceptable to give up freedom to gain a little more quality content.
>
> The loss of natural freedom in the embodiment of ideas has been a huge
> burden on our civilization, at least since computing put publication
> in the hands of almost every person. This burden will continue until
> we unify to remove it; It will continue until we create enough free
> content that the artificial social and economic imposition created by
> copyright is longer an impediment to the flow of knowledge to the
> people who want and need it most.
>
> This isn't going to happen quickly, but it can't happen at all if we
> compromise unnecessarily.
>
> We can afford to wait:
>   Wikipedia is forever.
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