[Foundation-l] Fair use being badly abused on en.wikipedia

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Jan 7, 2008 1:06 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > That said, even what is permitted by law seems to be more restrictive than
> > what is currently occurring on the English Wikipedia.
>
> Really? If that's the case, then Mike needs to step in and tell us.


Woah there. Mike Godwin is not your attorney.

He has more important (and less risky) tasks than following your
contribs and wagging his finger at you for breaking the law.

When you publish material on Wikipedia ensuring that you are
conforming with the law is your responsibility.

In order to avoid multiple posts, I'll just state the rest of what I
would say to the thread here:

There clearly has been plenty of abuse of non-free images on Wikipedia
in the past.  Many cases of diagrams illustrations taken from recent
textbooks and used to illustrate Wikipedia articles on the same
subjects, for example.

The issue at hand here is, I think, one of conflating a half dozen
different types of non-free image issue as one. There are issues of
content shoveled into Wikipedia with nary a thought. There are issues
of clearly illegal unlicensed use of copyrighted material. There are
issues of material whos use discourages the creation of freely
licensed replacements, etc.

Many Wikipedians call all these issues "fair use issues", and while
there often is some amount of overlap, they are not the same.

When we pretend that they are the same we end up talking past each
other, one person concerned about clearly illegal uses, another person
responding that something isn't illegal just because it lacks a
template. It's simply not productive.

I have been watching (and sometimes helping) with these matters as
long as just about anyone else around here.  I am quiet convinced that
the worst of the issues have greatly improved over time, and that the
average cases are not spirialing out of control.

Please take a breath and relax.  Then thank the people around you who
have been working on these issues, no matter what 'side' they appear
to be arguing today. These are hard and stressful matters to work on
and the people standing up to them deserve everyone's support, if not
agreement.

Just remember that passion is often the enemy of reason. There are
solid objective reasons that can be invoked to support your arguments
on these subjects. Use them. And realize that all who are taking the
time to address this battle care deeply for the project even if they
do not share your exact position.