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