[Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this week

[Ray Saintonge]

rfrangi at libero.it wrote:

>>So, I'm against using non-commercial images unless we're using them
>>under fair use because we don't have a substitute.
>>
>>If we use a fair-use image, a commercial organization can at least take
>>whole Wikipedia pages and re-use them. On the contrary, non-commercial
>>images must be removed if they don't meet fair-use criteria.
>>    
>>
>Fair use images have to be removed as well if you reuse the contents in places where the concept of fair use does not exist.
>
Not necessarily.  It depends on the origin of the image.  If the image 
is owned by an American of an American subject he should not get greater 
protection in Italy than he does in his own country.

>>The key here is that we're producing a free-content *encyclopedia* on
>>Wikipedia, not a free library of the media used to create the content.
>>(Wikimedia Commons *is* a project creating a free library of media.)
>>This means the final goal is free-content articles. Non-commercial
>>images undermine that goal.
>>    
>>
>Fair use undermine that goal as well. Fair use is not a license, is "an excuse to use copyrighted material". As such,  it does not protect you from a legal action and in the end a judge will decide if an image is used "fairly" or not.
>
Fair use is neither a licence nor an excuse; it is an exception to 
copyright.  Nothing protects anyone from a legal action by a determined 
complainer, not even being excessively cautions in applying the law.  If 
a judge decides that it was not used fairly, then it was not fair use.  
This does not negate the idea of fair use; it just means that the claim 
was factually incorrect.

>Beside that, please understand that you can't force a community to abandon NC's, when they consider fair use as being worse than NC. No way. As long as fair use will be allowed on en.wiki, NC's will be allowed on it.wiki. I wish both will not be accepted, but NC is a licence, fair use is a trick, so for what concerns me, if the latter stays, the former will stay as well. 
>
Fair use is not a "trick"  One should not depend on the other.

Ec