Ray Saintonge wrote:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
To be valid fair use the article should be about
that specific image in
some significant way. If there was a paragraph or section of the article
addressing it, perhaps - though in that case it would make more sense to
have the image presented individually in that paragraph or section. I'd
say it's best to assume not when the case is in doubt.
This, of course, reflects the English Wikipedia subset of fair use rules.
This thread is on WikiEN-l so that should be assumed by default.
Some editors
are hypersensitive about this sort of thing. I still can't
figure out why the original image of the O RLY? owl isn't fair use in
the article [[O RLY?]], but endless battle isn't worth it.
This photo may be in the public domain by abandonment. This would
happen when an otherwise copyright item has been widely re-distributed
for a long time, and the copyright owner does nothing about it. This
photo was taken by a professional wildlife photographer who should have
a basic understanding of the rules. He uploaded the photo himself. Is
there any record of his complaining about its general use?
I'm told he complained about it in some manner, though I never got to
see the the actual complaint. Some of the gory details can be found at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:Orly.jpg> and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Deletion_review&oldid=50533958#Image:O_RLY.jpg>,
though unfortunately not the specific reasons why the image was
ultimately kept deleted.
Whether the copyright holder objects to fair usage or not shouldn't
actually make a difference, as far as I understand the law; the whole
point of fair use is that under those circumstances we don't _need_
permission. I wish this case had been handled more transparently.