On 12/6/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Why do we need to resort to fair use if we have
permission to use the
image anyway? Surely "permission for non-commercial use" images are
preferable to "fair use" images...if nothing else, we can use them at
full resolution.
Steve
The confusion here originates in the fact that Wikipedia uses the term
fair use to refer to two different things. First is the legal concept
of fair use. Second is our "fair use policy", which should properly
be called our "unfree image policy" or something similar. You are
correct that with permission, non-commercial, and no derivatives
images have, for our immediate usage, certain advantages over images
used only under (legal) fair use. They still, however, require a
"fair use rationale"--that is, an explanation of why they are
compliant with our standards for using unfree images, which are based
not only on immediate legal requirements but also on other concerns,
such as the legal concerns of reusers of our content and the goals of
the project.
It would be sensible, of course, if we are going to have these two
distinct concepts, to separate them out in our nomenclature, but a
recent proposal to do this seems to be running into appreciable
opposition from folks who support basing our unfree image policy only
on immediate legal concerns.
--
Robth
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Robth)