[WikiEN-l] Re: Legal paranoia

[Michael Turley]

On 8/5/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> In a claim of fair use, one needs to consider the four factors.  Let's
> analyse the use of such lists in terms of those factors.
>     1.  Purpose and Character.  It is a non-profit usage that stimulates
> creativity.
>     2.  Nature of the copied work.  A factual list of article titles,
> without regard to how those titles are expressed, in a standard manner.
> Indeed, our given-name-first way of listing personal names is "more
> original" than the usual way of listing names.
>     3.  Substantiality.  A mere list of titles is certainly minor
> compared to the whole articles, and our list will be diminishing in size.
>     4.  Market effect.  May marginaly have a positive market effect
> since it's a list of things we DON'T have.  A person wanting the
> information  would need to look it up in the source work.

Each of these four factors do not have to be considered separately to
the exclusion of the others,IIRC, the courts consider them both
separately and in combination.

Addressing #1 & #4 together:  Our use is non-profit usage that
stimulates creativity, certainly, which in turn directly results in
the reduction of the market values of EB and Encarta.  How can that
possibly be fair use?  I don't think it can.

I see several other potential problems that damage Wikipedia's claim
to fair use.  I think we're right to take them down at this time.

-- 
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused