[WikiEN-l] Non-free images, there has to be a better way

[Haukur Þorgeirsson]

> Mark, the goal of the project is to make a free encyclopedia. When we
> speak of free we speak of freedom and not price.
> There are already many good unfree encyclopedias, and you can even
> obtain access to them at no cost.

Wikipedia has passed the stage of being comparable
to other encyclopedias you can access at no cost.


> Often the images we have appropriated from the internet are poorly
> suited to our needs. In many cases they have other distracting objects
> in the image, or otherwise fail to clearly illustrate the point which
> needs to be made.  Wikipedia would be much better off if the majority
> of our images were created with the intention of illustrating an
> encyclopedia.

This argument is getting a bit tired. Do you have an
[[IBM 360]] in your backyard? Do you have a [[Z machine]]?


> If Wikipedia isn't getting enough photographs, we should reach out and
> encourage more photographers to join our community.  A lack of content
> isn't an excuse to break the law.

No-one is suggesting we do.


> Every non-free image we incorporate potentially puts many people who
> use our content in the intended fashion in a legally precarious
> position. This risk is not only extends to our users, but also puts
> the Wikimedia Foundation that runs our servers in danger. Thus every
> nonfree image and every insufficiently tagged image we incorporate
> reduces the freedom of Wikipedia. This is simply unacceptable because
> in a large enough scale it defeats the purpose of our project.

It is a simple matter for downstream users
not to include images tagged used-with-permission.
Wikipedia articles very rarely rely on the images
in their main text.

And I can sympathise with people who don't give a
rat's toenail for the current downstream users,
much as I believe in the GFDL.


> There are places where the law in most of the world will permit us to
> use some images which are mostly free because of the nature of our
> use. However since this use is only permissible in a very limited
> scope and in a way which applicable world wide, this use also reduces
> the freedom of Wikipedia and should be avoided even though it is
> permitted by the law where our servers are operated.  Because in some
> cases we can not adequately do our job without borrowing some
> copyrighted content in a way which is legally permissible, we continue
> to permit these images but they must be tagged as such and they should
> be replaced should a replacement become available.

This is confusing to me. It's *fair use* that's currently
allowed - and *that* only works in the US. It's
*used-with-permission* that's forbidden and that
will work anywhere in the world. I'd argue fair-use
is much more dangerous to world wide publication
than used-with-permission is.

And, sadly, it seems that Jimbo's fatwah against UWP has
increased the number of far-fetched rationalizations for
fair use on Wikipedia.

Regards,
Haukur