[WikiEN-l] The wiki Paradoxes from my perspective (was Re: Uploading images should be a privilige, not a right)

[Michael Hopcroft]

Some problems I see with this:

If you are doing an article on any subject related to popular culture, 
you are in a serious bind, because any film, television or comic image 
is under copyright BY DEFINITION, even if the creators of the work you 
are illustrating the article about had nothing to do with that image's 
creation.  For example, ANY picture of Superman would be in violation 
regardless of its age or source, because the image of Superman is itself 
someone else's intellectual property (in this case Time Warner).

This, and the dispute over fancruft in the other thread, is compounding 
the dillemma I am facing over whether I can accept the idea of contuing 
to be involved with Wikipedia. If uploading images is such a legally and 
ethically complicated thing, then is not the editing of Wikipedia itself 
even more so? The civil penalties for libel and slander are much more 
severe than those for copyright violation, after all.

My point is that I find myself questioning, almost as I did at the 
beginning of my involvement with the project, the reason for it and the 
point to it. The very concept of "An encyclopedia anyone can edit" is a 
complete contradiction in logic. The purpose of any encyclopedia is to 
provide a reliable baseline from which one can gain enough groundwork to 
do additional research about a topic without being led horrifically 
astray. This purpose is utterly defeated by the ability of anyone, 
anywhere in the world to alter and delete articles at will. while one 
can certainbly show off what one knows or thinks he knows by editing 
Wikipedia, the question is what does anyone actually gain from READING it?

I am wondering whether we are not all engaged in some gigantic folly 
that is destroying not only our own credibility but that of the Internet 
as a whole.