[Wikipedia-l] Stallman on fair use

[Jimmy Wales]

Lee Pilich wrote:
> I still think getting rid of all instances of fair use is a bad
> idea, though. In not being allowed to quote from modern books,
> interviews, speeches, articles, films... well, anything, we'd be
> imposing a limit which, presumably, other encyclopaedias don't have
> to deal with. And I don't see how we can practically allow some
> kinds of fair use but not others (I might be wrong on that one,
> though - I might be wrong on everything).

Well, I agree with you, at least to a point.  I think it would be
an absurd conclusion that we can't quote from any copyrighted work.
Here's the example article that I showed to Lessig and Stallman:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howl

That's an article about Allen Ginsburg's famous poem _Howl_.

On the other hand, I'm also absolutely not comfortable with some of
the images that we currently have on the server, even though I think
it is fairly clear that *we* can use them under fair use.

Others, I'm uncomfortable with because it isn't clear to me that
*we* can use them, see for example:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britney_Spears

That's a nice sketch, and if it was done by some Wikipedian who
released it GNU FDL, I'm excited to know it.  But if it was hoisted
from a website somewhere, it's pretty clear that it's inappropriate
for us to use it under "fair use".  (Part of the trouble is that fair
use is a difficult and vague doctrine, of course.)

This page explains little:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BrithneySpears.jpg

"Used in Plish edition"

I think that means "Polish" edition, because the image also appears
there:
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britney_Spears

--Jimbo