Re: are images GFDL'd?

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>> My position is that adding an image where this is not the case
>> potentially infringes the copyright of all prior contributors to a
>> page, as well as severely impeding our overall goal of being an
>> *open content* encyclopedia.
>
>I'm not 100% sure how it infringes the copyright of all prior
>contributors to the page, there are some thorny questions there that I
>don't really understand all that well.  

IANAL. But I do have extensive experience with copyleft and free
content licences (having worked on among other things PlanetMath, Linux
Documentation Project, GNU Miscfiles, Project Gutenberg, TheOpenCD and
various KDE projects).

I agree with Martin that we're in violation of the copyright of prior
users, primarily because users licence their work under GNU FDL, so the
only way we can use their contributions is if we also release our content
under the GNU FDL.

However we're not doing so, Because of the line "and that you add no other
conditionswhatsoever to those of this License" in the GNU FDL (most viral
copyleft licences have a similar line). What it essentially means is that
we cannot impose _any_ further restriction on redistribution beyond those
given in the GNU FDL, which is what we are doing when we include "fair
use" images. Therefore as we stand at the moment the pages on which we
include "fair use" images are not in compliance with the GNU FDL.

Moreover the fact that we have been knowingly allowing people to include
"fair use" images while at the same time declaring them to be "free" could
be used against us if Wikipedia was ever taken to court in a copyright
infringement case.

With regards to quotes we may be on safer ground because with quotes the
application of fair use legislation is likely to be more GNU FDL
compatible (quotes tend to be small enough that virtually any use would
be fair use as long as the quote is attributed - something which is
guaranteed by the GNU FDL). 

Imran
-- 
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran