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

[Anthony DiPierro]

On 1/21/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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?

Probably the same reasons many Wikipedians refuse a reasonable free
use license for images of themselves.  Two major ones are fear the
image will be altered in some way that will harm them and a desire not
to allow others to profit off of their hard work.

The latter reason isn't going to be resolved, but maybe there are some
ways to appease those with the former reason.  For instance, a license
could be devised which allows an image to be distributed by anyone,
unaltered, in an encyclopedia in any medium (some lawyer-minded folk
would have to come up with a way to allow alterations necessary for
the change in medium but not other alterations).  Then this license
could be allowed for some subset of images which are currently being
used under fair use (album covers and publicity shots are two
categories which immediately come to mind).

Anthony