[WikiEN-l] Re: A Friendly Challenge to Sheldon Rampton

[Jimmy Wales]

cprompt wrote:
> You seem familiar with copyright law. I have considered making Wikipedia 
> a little prettier by finding suitable pictures for some articles. If I 
> find a photograph of, say, a koala, and I want to add it to [[Koala]], 
> is that permissable (if I can attribute the photo)?

Fair use is a grey area for us.  As a non-profit encyclopedia, we are
in a fairly strong position to make fair use of materials so long as
the *other* factors for fair use are reasonably met.

Here's a good article about it for those who need background:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/rice.html

(Interestingly, this article was written by Condoleeza Rice, not
normally famous for copyright analysis!)

HOWEVER, we are also producing a GNU FDL work that we anticipate being
licensed widely, and not everyone who licenses our content will have
the same "fair use" status.  This is at least potentially problematic.

Additionally, if we view part of our charitable mission here as
"expanding the intellectual commons", then we ought to be biased
against "fair use" and in favor of "GNU FDL" images.

The issue is similar to the question of including non-free software
bundled with free software.  I think we should tend to be purists in
this regard.

It's worth noting, though, that we can't be *absolute* purists unless
we are willing to forego even quoting of sources.

--Jimbo