[Foundation-l] precisions about the recent WMF "fair use" decision

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 2/11/07, rfrangi at libero.it <rfrangi at libero.it> wrote:
> You see, when we decided to accept images "used with permission" and or with the NC clause, it was done for the very same reasons on en.wiki copyrighted material is used claiming fair use. This is our workaround for not being able to claim fair use, in fact, you will notice that there are cases in which the same image appears on en.wiki with the fair use template and on it.wiki with the "used with permission" or NC template.
>
> That's the reason why, when we are told we should remove those images, but on en.wiki fair use is just ok, people get pissed and obviously talks about U.S. centrism.
>
> In this thread someone said that renounce to fair use would be  an intollerable limitation to the freedom of speech. The way we use NC and "used with permission" images is by any respect equivalent to the way you use copyrighted material claiming fair use.
>
> So in the end having to phase out those images, for us, is an intollerable limitation to our freedom of speech.

This is not the case at all.. You can continue to accept "with
permissions" images, so long as they would also qualify as Fair Use.

If what you are saying is completely true, that you only use "with
permissions" because there is no fair use in your local law then no
images would need to be deleted at all.

However, this does not appear to be the case on itwiki:
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciale:PuntanoQui/Template:Copyrighted

Where very many of these images could have be recreated as free works
by anyone.. many of them are even the works of wikipedians but they
are not released as free content.