Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 November 11

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November 11

Status of 'Fair Use' on Fansites & Reposting newspaper articles

I'd like to know the legal status of the following... I'd like to know purely out of personal interest, this is in no way asking legal advice.

Images

When on fansites, fans will invariable use images to illustrate the matter at hand, but because they are usually run by individuals with no official affilation to the celebrity or the music label what is the status of such use? Sometimes you see a quick fair use notice posted somewhere on the site but surely this is still a violation of the Fair Use policy? Thoughts?

Newspaper articles

Quite a few fansites simply repost articles that have been written about a celebrity on serious newspapers and add a link at the bottom along the lines of "source" or "click here to read on". What is the legal status of such use? I know quotes are alowed if sources but this is half an article, sometimes even a whole article. Thanks very much. --91.49.41.140 (talk) 09:18, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Here's my totally non-legal, merely anecdotal observation: There is rampant plagiarism and copyright violation on the internet, of text, images and videos. The internet is way too big to police everything. Plus, there's the "free advertising" aspect, which may result in copyright owners tolerating copyright violations. Some, though, do not. There used to be quite a few Warner cartoons available on youtube. Once Warner got wind of it, they had it stopped and most of those items have disappeared. Wikipedia has much stricter rules, as you know. The "fair use" notices on those sites might be a legal "bluff", or they might be sufficient. Wikipedia does not follow the legal definition of "fair use" - it has its own definition, which is much stricter than the law requires. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:25, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Surprisingly, I think I agree with everything you have written, Bugs.

Most of the use of copyrighted material that is described above would probably not be seen as fair use by the courts. In particular with "fan sites" and etc., see the Twin Peaks and Seinfeld cases described here. They would likely be seen as non-transformative and cutting into the ability of the copyright owner to further monetize their work (by creating their own "fan guides," etc.).

On the other hand, it costs money, and good will, to send out thousands of cease-and-desist orders, and prosecuting your fans for being excited by your project is kind of a dinosaur approach to things. There is no way to look more like the "bad guy" by shutting down fan projects, and the entire ethos of the Web 2.0 approach is to encourage organic fan participation, because marketers finally realized that word of mouth was more important to people than having a carefully calculated message spewing out from Corporate Pravda sources. So fortunately for everyone involved enforcement is pretty low.

All together, though, fair use is a pretty ill-defined law and there is a huge amount of uncertainty and wiggle room. That is sometimes good and sometimes bad. On the whole that uncertainty probably lets more things flourish than might otherwise, even if it makes people very antsy about certain forms of expression. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:20, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Email linked with Facebook

Can anybody help me telling that how to change the email adres linked with FB ? I have tried a lot bt in vain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.163.249.36 (talk) 10:54, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Have you tried updating Account -> Account Settings -> Email? Nanonic (talk) 19:29, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanx to u, its done now. Thanx again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.176.220.162 (talk) 13:04, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

ID this locomotive .

Hi

Could someone please give me a make and model for this locomotive so I can categorize it appropriately. I can provide additional photos if necessary.

Thanks Samuell ^{Lift me up} or _{put me down} 19:51, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Tough to tell from the photo, but it looks like it might be a GE Dash 8-40CM. Googlemeister (talk) 20:56, 11 November 2010 (UTC)