[Foundation-l] Fair use being badly abused on en.wikipedia

[geni]

On 07/01/2008, Brian Hammer <hammersoft123 at gmail.com> wrote:
> The mission of Wikimedia is to generate "neutral educational content under a
> free content license". The Foundation's resolution from March 2007 states
> that EDP use must be minimal, within narrow limits.
>
> Subsequent to the resolution being passed, a number of efforts were
> undertaken to limit fair use usage on en.wikipedia. This affected
> discographies, episode lists, and character lists. A *huge* number of
> debates erupted over these removals. One such debate was covered at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-05-07/Fair_use.
> The disputes have never ended. For discographies and episode lists,
> the
> debate has simmered down for the most part, with occasional flare ups. For
> character lists, the debate is still raging.
>
> What has been the rule of thumb in removing the images is that an image of
> the character being used for depiction of that character only is allowable
> on that character's particular article, but not on articles collecting
> multiple characters into a single article. The rationale here is that if a
> character is notable enough for an article, they're notable enough for an
> image, and vice versa.

There is no reading of law or policy under which that makes sense.

>Allowances have been made for "cast" type images
> showing multiple characters in a single image from the copyright holder (not
> montages made by editors).
>
> Nevertheless, the debate has raged endlessly, and has recently exploded. It
> stands now on a precipice, and it is highly likely that fair use
> inclusionists will 'win' in that per-character images are going to be
> permitted on character articles (for example, see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogwarts_students ).

So?


> Some discussion exists currently at
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Fair_use_war_being_lost
> and scattered through a variety of sections of
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content
>
> If Wikipedia is truly a free content encyclopedia, if you truly care about
> free content, we must limit fair use usage per the Foundation's resolution.

We have. And because I care about free content I will not fight this
battle. As policy and law stands there is little in the way of support
for the position of useing images in this case if they qualify under
fair use. We are not for the most part going to be able to get free
character photos.

> As it stands now, this debate is lost in favor of people who are more
> focused on whether something is suitable as a guide than focused on being a
> free content resource.

No. The debate has largely ended up favoring free content. There are
some areas where it is unreasonable to expect free content.

> A strong voice from the Foundation would be appreciated, most especially in
> favor of a new section added to clarify the local EDP at the second
> paragraph of this version of the guideline:

The foundation has approved en's  EDP. Anything less than a board
resolution on the matter is irrelevant. It was hard enough putting the
first one together.


>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Non-free_content&oldid=182482742#Unacceptable_images
> (paragraph since removed in an edit war)
>

"clarifications" have no place in and EDP. Your options are to get a
community consensus for a change in the EDP and then board approval or
to accept the current version.

-- 
geni