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

[Ray Saintonge]

David Gerard wrote:

>On 08/02/07, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>How does ND exclude and fair use not? What does fair use enable? If done
>>well, the same image in the same way can be used in the same article and
>>also in changes to the article provided they are not major. If there were
>>not a fair use image, but an ND one, you could do that AND MORE.
>>    
>>
>Define "derivative" for the purposes of "no derivatives." e.g.
>Resizing is a derivative. "ND" is deeply flawed.
>
I suppose that so too would using only part of a photograph, as when you 
trim a full-length photo of someone down to a head shot.  The problem 
with these licensing restrictions is that they reflect conditions that 
we don't need to accept, and which would be difficult to control.  If we 
were to accept them they would still need to follow a standard 
agreement, or we could be stuck with a all sorts of subtle conditions 
that nobody knows about except the individuals involved with drafting 
the licence.  These could come back to haunt us years from now.  Do we 
really want to start tracking masses of licensing agreements for a 
century or more?

At least with fair use there is accessible law there that can be used in 
a legal argument.  That law may not be the best possilble, but you avoid 
the pitfalls that can come out of writing contracts.

Ec