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

It's more then just our legal risk in keeping those images and text. Under 
US copyright law, we should be legally allowed to use some copyrighted 
material under fair use guidelines without causing any problems. There are 
several problems with fair use:
1) Fair Use only applies in the US and a small handful of other countries. 
In countries where fair use is not legal, all instances of it are considered 
copyright infringement. In these countries, it is not legal to print or 
distribute wikibooks containing fair use media.
2) Fair use, or other limited licensing (such as "the author allows this 
image to be used on wikibooks only") reduces our ability to print, 
distribute, and modify our texts. Derivative works, a cornerstone of the 
GFDL are not compatable with fair use, and using two incompatable licenses 
on a single aggregate project (such as a wikibook) is simply not possible.
3) Many people assume that text or an image can be released under fair use 
when it can't be. Images that are uploaded under "fair use" are usually (as 
you pointed out) not properly tagged or referenced. These instances of 
misuse do constitute copyright infringement, and that could bring lawsuits.
We allowed fair use for a pretty long time on our project, but it isn't the 
kind of fight that we should be pursuing any longer. There are too many 
problems with it. -

--Andrew Whitworth (Whiteknight)


>From: "Matthew Benedict" <[email protected]>
>Reply-To: Wikimedia textbook discussion <[email protected]>
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] Textbook-l Digest, Vol 33, Issue 8
>Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:07:29 -0500
>
>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:
> > Send Textbook-l mailing list submissions to
> >         [email protected]
> >
> > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> >         http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
> > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> >         textbook-l-request-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org
> >
> > You can reach the person managing the list at
> >         textbook-l-owner-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org
> >
> > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> > than "Re: Contents of Textbook-l digest..."
> >
> > Today's Topics:
> >
> >    1. Regarding fair use (Iamunknown)
> >
> >
> > ---------- 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
> >
> >
> > --===============8126416904983688626==--
> > _______________________________________________
> > Textbook-l mailing list
> > [email protected]
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
> >
> >
>
>_______________________________________________
>Textbook-l mailing list
>[email protected]
>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l

_________________________________________________________________
Find a local pizza place, movie theater, and more….then map the best route! 
http://maps.live.com/?icid=hmtag1&FORM=MGAC01

_______________________________________________
Textbook-l mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l