[WikiEN-l] There are no pictures in Wikipedia any more

[John Lee]

On 9/27/07, Wily D <wilydoppelganger at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/27/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 9/27/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > We do not tolerate unfree text to any significant extent. We do
> > > tolerate a level of unfree media. Thus we put free media behind other
> > > content.
> >
> > This is simply not true; we have significant (important informational
> > content, useful) quotations from other works sprinkled liberally
> > throughout the Encyclopedia.
> >
> > And this is a good thing.
> >
> > And this is entirely and unquestionably (by any reasonable person)
> > legal under fair use.
> >
>
> Indeed, the whole reason fair use (or for example, in my jurisdiction
> fair dealing) exists is because governments recognise we cannot do
> things like write encyclopaedias or newspapers without invoking the
> principle of fair use.
>
> That's probably worth repeating.
>
> We cannot hope to write an encyclopaedia without invoking the
> principles of fair use, or fair dealings.  Doesn't mean we need to
> invoke it to the maximum extent provided for by law, but without any
> at all, we cannot hope to write an encyclopaedia.


Amen. Unlike some others, what concerns me is that we are using unfree
content unnecessarily, in uses suitable for free use but not unfree use.
There are legal circumstances where we could theoretically decorate, say,
[[List of Lost episodes]] with unfree content. That doesn't mean we should
be doing that.

Johnleemk