[Foundation-l] Clearing up Wikimedia's media licensing policies (some important points)

[Delphine Ménard]

On 2/8/07, Claudio Mastroianni <gattonero at gmail.com> wrote:

> It's starting to be tiring.
> I *don't* think we should admit "images with permission" AND "fair
> use images" TOO.
> I *do* think that is utterly stupid to make a not-existent
> distinction between the freedom of a permission image and a fair use
> image. Cause they're similarly unfree. Worst: it seems that fair use
> images are less free than permission images.

Allow me to disagree here.

Case in point.

Tomorrow, Carlo, residing in Italy decides to take the content of the
Italian Wikipedia and start another encyclopedia project somewhere,
let's call it Carlopedia.
Carlo *cannot* take the images with permission and import them in his
new database, because those images are tied to Wikipedia and nothing
else. If anything, Carlo needs to go back to every single person that
gave the permission to Wikipedia and ask for the permission to be
given to Carlopedia. (minus one for permission images)

Tomorrow, John, residing in the US decides to take the content of the
English Wikipedia and start another encyclopedia project somewhere.
The Johnopedia.
He *can* take the content under fair use and use it in his own
project. (+1 for fair use)

Now, let's say Carlo wants to take the content of the English
Wikipedia, he's stuck and needs to get out the fair-use content
because in Italy, fair-use does not apply. (minus one for fair use)

And if John was to take the content of the Italian Wikipedia to start
his new Johnopedia, he'd be stuck because he's got to go through the
same whole process of asking for new permissions (minus one for
permission images)

For the record, I am as much against the use of fair use as can be. I
hate fair use, I think fair use is *evil* and that it should be
erradicated from every single Wikimedia project.

But if you want to get into one being free-er than the other, by all
means, learn to count.

That's -1*2 for permission = -2 and -1+1 for fair use.=0

Cheers,


Delphine
PS. Thank you Mathias for pointing this out.
-- 
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