[Foundation-l] Clearing up Wikimedia's media licensing policies

[Robert Scott Horning]

Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Mark Wagner wrote:
>
>>Nothing will change for en.wiki? Hardly. If I'm reading this
>>
>>correctly, most of the images used under a claim of "fair use" are no
>>longer allowed, and we'll need to figure out how to delete some
>>200,000 images, as well as how to educate thousands of users who are
>>used to uploading those sorts of images.
>>
>>    
>>
>Record album covers? book covers?  publicity shots?  These are all used 
>to such an extent that the owners can be treated as having abandoned 
>copyright
>  
>
Unfortunately there is no "statute of limitations" on copyright 
infringement.  Unlike trademark and patent laws, copyright can be 
enforced retroactively many years, even decades after the infringement 
has occured.  It does not require active enforcement if somebody wants 
to go in and try to seek damages... even if the image has since passed 
into the public domain.  And due to the Berne Convention, there is no 
asserted copyright that must be filed first in order to assume 
copyright.  All images have complete copyright protections unless you 
have explicitly recieved the content via license... hence the need for 
something like the GPL and GFDL.

This is relatively recent in terms of American copyright standards, 
where you could assume abandonded copyright if it wasn't registered with 
the Library of Congress, or if the copyright wasn't renewed. 
 Politically, I think that is a much more valid way to address copyright 
where only those things that people are willing to say "I want this 
copyrighted!" can get that kind of protection, but that isn't current law.

In the case of most publicity shots (perhaps not book and album covers), 
I don't think the people being photographed really care all that much 
about copyright.  The photographer, perhaps a little bit, but they are 
getting paid for the photos wheither anybody pays royalties or not, and 
strong copyright is not their bread and butter for those kind of photos.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning