[WikiEN-l] In defence of properly-used fair use images (was Image:Wp ayb.gif)

[Tony Sidaway]

On 1/21/06, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2. We approach fair use reasonably, not being afraid of using it where
> we need to and with a philosophy of "least likelihood of anybody
> thinking they could sue us and win."

Going down this route is  against Wikipedia's aspirations towards
being a *free* (as in speech) encyclopedia, demonstrates an open
contempt for intellectual property rights that is alien to the free
content principle, and is likely to be used against us with some
success in any future lawsuit.

As a free encyclopedia and the most significant free intellectual
property entity ever created, we must  never advocate, either openly
or in private, the abuse of the intellectual property of others, lest
we taint the entire free content enterprise.

Why is the inclusion of "fair use" content even a question for
Wikipedia?  People don't come to us in their millions for pictures of
movie stars and album covers; for those they can go to better funded
websites that have a considerable revenue and can retain legal
advisers and are in a position to pay royalties on those items that
they use.

We ought to be starting to deprecate fair use images ''in any
context''.  We are in a position now politely to request that, if
editors want to obtain an image for use on Wikipedia, they should
write to the copyright owner on our behalf and with our full blessing,
explaining the free content license and requesting such a license for
a specific image.

Knowing Wikipedia's reach and reputation, why would a content owner
refuse a reasonable free use license over something as trivial as an
image of an album cover?