Image talk:Arun-gandhi.gif

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[edit] My uncertainty about the fair-use status of this photo

Obviously someone owns the copyright, not sure if this would qualify as fair use.

- DreamGuy 23:40, August 12, 2005

Dear Dream Guy,

Please check out Federal Judge Taylor's ruling about fair use. According to Taylor:

"The "fair use" exception allows use of material without the permission of the owner if the purpose

is for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship or research."

I've never before heard of such scholarly materials being disputed for copyright violation, especially when there is no copyright notice provided on the site itself. If you might know of any examples, please let me know. Thanks,

-Scott P. 20:46, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fair-use is not a 'blanket excuse' for copyright infringements

I actually have quite a strong background in copyright concerns, thank you, including college level classes specifically about communication law. Fair use is not a blanket excuse to use any photo you want to use. The fact that no copyright notice is provided on the site means nothing, as photos are automatically copyrighted whether there is a notice or not, and the site may simply be violating someone else's photo by using it without permission. If this photo was provided as press release photo by Arun Gandhi's PR staff, then, yes, obviously fair use. If this was a photo someone not connected with him too and was trying to sell to people, we cannot take the work of a third party, infringe upon that person's copyright and market resale and try to claim it as fair use. If that were the case then anyone could use any and all photos anyone else ever took, which is clearly not the case. Until we have a better idea of where this came from, calling it fair use is premature.

-DreamGuy 02:17, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Dear Dream Guy,

Thanks for challenging me to better familiarize myself with copyright law, and to better familiarize myself with the background of this photo. I do agree with you that probably there are far too many people who use the term: 'fair use' far too readily to justify their image uploads. After doing some Internet searches to see what I could about both of these things, the photo and the law, I decided to change the tag to 'public domain'. Here is what I found:

1. The photo has already been released years ago to hundreds of schools, clubs and personal websites over the last several years, along with 100's of others where Arun poses in slightly different positions, yet apparently all in the same meeting hall.
2. There is nobody online anywhere that I could find that was in the business of selling any Arun Gandhi photos.
3. Arun makes no attempts anywhere, nor does anyone else make any attempts, to enforce any copyrights over any photos where Arun is the primary subject.
4. Arun would appear instead to have a vested interest in the free distribution of his photos, as this would appear to further his personal cause of promoting the non-violence of his grandfather.

So, does this sound like a reasonable tag now?

-Scott P. 23:53, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

You made an alright argument for free use, but absolutely not public domain. I'm removing that tag as it's completely baseless. DreamGuy 09:15, August 17, 2005 (UTC)