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

[Andrew Whitworth]

On Jan 10, 2008 7:37 PM, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> There is an awful lot of material we use and justify by saying "well,
> we couldn't use anything else" - we should be very wary of believing
> this to be a justification that we *need* it.

I agree with this sentiment entirely. Just because an image is
irreplacable does not mean it has intrinsic value. For instance, the
cover image of a book or CD or DVD is hardly "important". That is,
unless there is something special and unique about that particular
cover that makes it worthy of pointing out especially.

On en.wikibooks, the biggest hurdle we have is in the software
guidebooks for proprietart software packages. For instance, it's
difficult to teach Adobe Photoshop without including some screenshots
of the interface. (we have a book on GIMP too, before anybody
complains). Fair use should be invoked when the image is essential to
the book or article. If it is not essential, then it is mere
decoration, and fair use seems like a bit of a gamble to employ on
decorations.

--Andrew Whitworth