First a few words about a specific example, but please also read to
the bottom where I make MY MAIN POINT.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivian_Gas_War
This is a generally good article-in-progress, and the photos are very
nice, but I find them highly problematic.
There are currently 3 images on the page, all taken from
indymedia.org. Two of them are likely taken by IndyMedia activists,
and it strikes me as unlikely that they will complain about our use,
fair use doctrine or no. IndyMedia is an extremely political website
whose views are, ahem, quite different from my own, but nonetheless I
suspect that they have no beef with our NPOV policy.
It *does* strike me as likely that they would object vociferously,
though, to re-use by potential re-licensees, and I think that in a
case like this, _even if our use_ qualifies as "fair use", re-use by
_many_ other people would _not_ qualify.
For that reason, I think that these images, and images from similar
sources, should not be used in Wikipedia.
The third image, the professionally-done graphical map showing the
events of October 12, was taken from IndyMedia, but even the person
who uploaded (Stevertigo) notes "Fair Use//maybe problem -- untraced
source--via Indymedia". Ai-yi-yi! Very bad!
-------------
MY MAIN POINT
"The Independent Media Center is a network of collectively run media
outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings
of the truth. We work out of a love and inspiration for people who
continue to work for a better world, despite corporate media's
distortions and unwillingness to cover the efforts to free humanity."
Their efforts in this area, as far as I've been able to determine,
mainly consist of promoting tyranny around the world as an antidote to
the problems of freedom and prosperity. ;-) But my own political
leanings aside, it *does* seem likely to me that the IndyMedia people
could be quickly convinced to adopt a policy consistent with their own
stated goals, i.e. to release all their images under a free license.
If they could be so persuaded, then there would be no problem at all
with our use of their images. They would achieve some of their goals,
I suppose, by getting their images included in a respectable source,
as well as being cited by that source.
And here's where I think a too-easy reliance on the crutch of "fair
use" can be harmful. We have an opportunity before us to encourage a
likely receptive audience to engage in free licensing, and yet we have
passed on that because it's just too easy to take their content and
mumble and wave our hands about fair use, knowing full well that they
probably won't complain anyway.
Fair use is a dangerous crutch, and I *really* think we need to start
reforming our fair use practices to be *much* more strict.
Fair use is an absolute necessity for us in some contexts. But it
should be used judiciously and with great care, and only when every
other (freely licensed) alternative has been exhausted.
In this case, I think that hasn't happened. We used the images (well,
Stevertigo did) because they were good, and because it was easy.
--Jimbo