[Wikipedia-l] Fair use question

[Erik Moeller]

Axel:

> I would favor a policy against all fair use photos.

That would seriously undermine the quality of Wikipedia as an educational  
resource. We cannot realistically acquire licenses, so fair use is often  
the only way we can get photos, esp. of dead people or important historic  
events, into the Wikipedia.

Instead of doing this, we should implement the category scheme I have  
suggested on wikitech-l. Then we could put

[[Category:Fair use photo]]

on image pages that contain fair use photos, and any user whose use would  
go beyond the limits as defined by the US Copyright Code could opt to  
exclude such photos from his edition of Wikipedia relatively easily (by  
replacing all links to such photos with external links, for example).

Of course, fair use should not be used as a blanket excuse to import  
photos into Wikipedia. The pictures imported should have clear and obvious  
educational value. Is that true for every album cover? Certainly not. Is  
it true for photos of war crimes? Almost certainly.

The fair use issue is a thorny one, but we need to find a middle ground  
that does not impose a too strict regime of self-censorship, but which  
also does not get us into legal trouble.

Regards,

Erik