[WikiEN-l] NASA meatballs and wikipedia meatheads

[Ian Woollard]

On 01/04/2008, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
> What are their rationales? That US government produced symbols can't
>  be put in images inside of wikipedia even though the image is Public
>  Domain by law?

I'm not entirely sure; they seem to be claiming that the meatball
itself is copyright (but it ISN'T). If you read the wikipedia's
[[Template:PD-USGov-NASA]] this template says it is, but:

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/policies.html#Guidelines

*doesn't* claim this, and I checked the regulations and they say that
the meatball is PD; but that you have to get permission to use it.

It seems to be a confusion relating to the fact that you or me can't
just stick the meatball logo on anything (since that would be
basically FRAUD ;-) ), but that's not maintained via copyright law (in
fact the meatball specifically is public domain!); but there's a
specific *law* that says you can't do that without permission from
NASA.

The thing is, all the material we've added to the wikipedia
essentially has pre-existing permission that it can bear the meatball
when it was originally published by NASA. But the deletionist morons
seem to be just deleting everything willy-nilly.

>  Can't fight fair use guys though.

The deletionists certainly seem to be 8-(

>  Peter