[WikiEN-l] WMF licensing policy announced

[David Gerard]

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy

[...]
Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP):
a project-specific policy, in accordance with United States law and
the law of countries where the project content is predominantly
accessed (if any), that recognizes the limitations of copyright law
(including case law) as applicable to the project, and permits the
upload of copyrighted materials that can be legally used in the
context of the project, regardless of their licensing status. Examples
include: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fair_use and
http://pl.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Dozwolony_u%C5%BCytek.
[...]
In addition, with the exception of Wikimedia Commons, each project
community may develop and adopt an EDP. Non-free content used under an
EDP must be identified in a machine-readable format so that it can be
easily identified by users of the site as well as re-users.

Such EDPs must be minimal. Their use, with limited exception, should
be to illustrate historically significant events, to include
identifying protected works such as logos, or to complement (within
narrow limits) articles about copyrighted contemporary works. An EDP
may not allow material where we can reasonably expect someone to
upload a freely licensed file for the same purpose, such as is the
case for almost all portraits of living notable individuals. Any
content used under an EDP must be replaced with a freely licensed work
whenever one is available which will serve the same educational
purpose.

Media used under EDPs are subject to deletion if they lack an
applicable rationale. They must be used only in the context of other
freely licensed content.

For the projects which currently have an EDP in place, the following
action shall be taken:

As of March 23, 2007, all new media uploaded under unacceptable
licenses (as defined above) and lacking an exemption rationale should
be deleted, and existing media under such licenses should go through a
discussion process where it is determined whether such a rationale
exists; if not, they should be deleted as well.


Now then - en:wp does have an EDP in place, so we can't quite Burn All
{{fairuse}} yet. But the above does give us room to narrow fair-use
abuse sensibly. Particularly for living famous people who are out in
public a lot, may I suggest.


- d.