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

[Wily D]

On Jan 7, 2008 3:53 PM, Brian Hammer <hammersoft123 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 7, 2008 3:17 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > That's why I'm not taking that position. I'm taking the position that
> > "They would almost never sue!", there is a big difference. Even then,
> > that's not my main point. My main point is that even if they do sue
> > (or, at least, complain), then we can always just remove the image at
> > that point. I don't know if that would be enough, which I why I'm
> > asking Mike (who, hopefully, will know).
> >
>
> Fine position to take except you'll eventually be wrong, and they might
> not be so kind as to ask politely first, but instead drag us into court
> first. Would you be willing to front the costs for the Foundation when
> (not if...we have too many fair use images for that to be an if) it
> happens?
>
> Hammersoft
>
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More to the point, we ''cannot'' avoid being sued.  Even if we used
not by public domain images, people still can (and will) sue.
Companies (especially libraries and museums) and individuals routinely
assert copyright where they don't have any basis to it.  The end
result is more like "We cannot know when people will sue, all we can
do is stay well within what's stone-cold legal".  This we do, and
accept that we'll still get sued even if we do nothing wrong.

Cheers
WilyD