[WikiEN-l] Google Earth screenshots

[Stephen Bain]

On 11/23/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
> What should we do with the screenshots taken from Google Earth?
> I see that more and more of them are uploaded on en.wiki, for example
> to illustrate things such as high-schools or cities. But, does the
> fair-use claim hold up?

Delete them all. Unless they're used in [[Google Earth]] to
demonstrate how the program looks, there's simply no valid reason to
include them when:

a) free alternatives are almost always available via WorldWind
(especially for the US)
b) the coordinates templates [1] allow people to easily look the same
information up themselves, with only two clicks of the mouse, and with
no copyright issues whatsoever.

> Note that some of the images claim "PD".

In that case the uploaders need a stern talking to. It's hard to
imagine that people don't realise that imagery from Google Earth is
copyrighted when it's plastered all over the bottom of the screen, and
appears in the screenshots.

--
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Coordinates_templates

-- 
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com