User talk:Jenolen/WP:KATWALSH (proposed)

Is this proposal up for discussion?

If so, the licensing part makes a lot of sense but the fair use part seems overly restrictive and slightly misdirected. Fair use is a bedrock principle under US copyright laws for a reason, and there is an analogous reason why we need such freedoms in Wikipedia. It allows people to conduct full discourse on matters that arise within the commercial realm, without allowing big companies to control by copyright what is said about them. The point is not that news, opinion, commentary, etc., are impossible without using copyrighted quotes and images; they are. Communication is still possible in a text only world, or a world in which people say you have to go look up the original for yourself. However, the communication is degraded, less compelling. Everyone else in the world, from news stations to fiction works, from musicians to encyclopedias, samples pieces of the world and presents them back as commentary. Wikipedia is the most widely used, most comprehensive, and arguably the most important reference work there is. If we degrade the quality of the articles for a perceived lowest common denominator of potential re-use, then Wikipedia will make itself less relevant and could eventually fail on this issue. There are certain kinds of images that are always going to be problematic and we should categorize them and give them extra scrutiny. There are others like famous quotations or corporate logos used to identify a company that are so widely accepted for nearly any kind of application that it is hard to imagine that a re-use of the article would ever be inappropriate; they should be allowed without further question and if someone wants to make some esoteric type of derivative work (e.g. a logo for their own company) that they are the ones, not Wikipedia, who should bear the burden of figuring out the copyright status. And then there will always be an in between, things like promo photos of actors or film clips, where we have to use evolving guidelines and not a one-size-fits-all policy. There are some simple technical solutions for a lot of this -- for example, an album cover used in a discussion about the album. It would be simple to require that all such image reference be placed in an infobox or some other template with appropriate tags as to fair use status, ownership, etc. That is the way the rest of the world handles fair use images (they have a rights management system so they know where it came from and the extent of permitted use). If Wikipedia has even the most rudimentary system, that will make it easy for anybody who re-uses or makes derivative works to deal with. In the case of the article about the album they will get the whole album with the picture in an infobox. Depending on how they feel about copyrights they can take or leave the image. At worst they get the article without the image, so at the very worst they are in the same position that the rest of the wikiverse would be in without a restrictive policy that bans such images; at best the 99% of re-uses where fair use does apply gets a better article and doesn't have to go to commercial sites for more compelling content. Wikidemo 20:48, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is really our perogative.

She says that this outlines a Board resolution which will be forthcoming. If this is true, then the statement here must take precedence over our policy, because local consensus can't override decisions of the Foundation. -Amarkov moo! 19:43, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Silly

This is a rather silly way of putting it, and "shall be considered more authoritative" is way too bureaucratic for Wikipedia. Rather, if the board passes such a motion, we should simply amend the relevant policy pages (e.g. NONFREE) to reflect that. Far less confusing that way. >Radiant< 07:53, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem being that some editors - actually, some admins - are refering to this letter by Kat as a more authoritative statement of Wikipedia policies than our ACTUAL policies. So why not codify it? Jenolen ^{speak it!} 07:56, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Because it's confusing, that's why you should amend the actual policy page rather than putting this in some obscure place. >Radiant< 08:11, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

And I think that's underway. But if admins are going to refer people to this document as somehow superceding WP:NONFREE, don't you think we should at least give the document the appearance of something that is actual Wikipedia policy? Or should we just tell the admins who say "See Kat Walsh's statement" to knock that off? Jenolen ^{speak it!} 08:25, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

• It's good that it's underway. My point is that having two contradicting policies on this matter is ultimately confusing. >Radiant< 10:31, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's a matter of "contradicting" -- the way this statment is being used in deletion arguments, etc. makes it quite clear that it is supposed to supercede WP:NONFREE. So yes, further adjustment to that policy may be required (as if it isn't already always under adjustment)... Jenolen ^{speak it!} 20:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC)