Re: Textbook-l Digest, Vol 33, Issue 8

Now that I have thought some more about it, I do feel that the use of
fair use images should be limited, but the problem is where do we draw
the line? We'd have to ask ourselves if the value of using the images
in the book outweighs the legal risk of listing it under fair use,
especially if the books will eventually be published in some manner,
as I presume is one eventual goal for any book on the project. I think
that only in extreme cases (such as maybe those european history
images) should fair use be presumed, and these cases should be clearly
defined, perhaps on a case-by-case or strict categorical basis.

As for textual quotations, I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that the
presumption of fair use for these (provided they are properly cited of
course) is more common than the presumption of fair use for images. If
we're going to do that we'll need some kind of standard method to
describe the rationale for the fair use argument, like wikipedia has
for images (i.e. this is a screenshot used only for illustration, this
is a low-res company logo used to show what it looks like, etc).

Speaking of citation, one problem with current fair use images is that
a lot of them don't really cite the source properly; i.e. who created
it? From what source was it derived? This information should be in the
image page, but often they just have descriptions of what the image
is, not where it came from or who the current copyright holder is,
which can cause problems of its own.

Regards,

Mattb112885


On 2/16/07, textbook-l-request-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org
<textbook-l-request-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org> wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Regarding fair use (Iamunknown)
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>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Iamunknown <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 00:52:49 -0700
> Subject: [Textbook-l] Regarding fair use
> I really don't want fair use to go totally away, but I agree that it should
> be significantly limited. The clause, "Because of our commitment to free
> content, this non-free media should not be used when it is reasonably
> possible to replace with free media that would serve the same educational
> purpose," in Kat Walsh's statement comes to mind. While I have expreseed
> concern on-wiki and on-mailing list before about unlicensed images, many
> which, if licensed properly, would remained unlicensed and used under fair
> use, I think that we should not outright ban unlicensed content used under
> fair use. In particular, we should allow very very limited use of non-free
> media when it would be practically impossible to use free media -- the media
> used in the European History wikibook comes to mind -- and for small textual
> quotations. What are everyone else's feelings?
>
> -Iamunknown
>
>
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