[Wikipedia-l] Stallman on fair use

[Toby Bartels]

Axel Boldt wrote in part:

>Maybe we can. How about if we give up our current distinction between
>images and text and require a single confirmation whenever people
>upload material to Wikipedia:

>  By uploading material to Wikipedia, you certify that either
>     * the material is in the public domain, or
>     * the copyright owner of the material releases it under GFDL, or
>     * the material can be used under the [[fair use]] doctrine and
>       such fair use will likely extend to all third party users of
>       Wikipedia

>(maybe even with three checkboxes.)

You mean three radio buttons?

But in the case of images (along the lines of album cover thumbnails),
I don't think that we need to worry about future users of Wikipedia
(much less try to guess who's /likely/ to be one of these and who isn't).
This is because images can be easily removed by the future user.
For quotations, we should be able to ensure that the quotation
is fair use for /every/ potential user, so that would be all right.
Thus, there is a practical difference between text and images.


-- Toby