File talk:Baphomet.jpg

Fair Use?

Something occurred to me last night regarding the use of WotC-owned images in our project. The FR Wiki makes use of such images under the protection of fair use, and here they have been presented similarly. However, I don't think use in our project constitutes fair use at all, and I think we need to delete them.

One of the provisions of fair use is that the material must be used in a manner that does not conflict with the owner's intentions. FR Wiki can use these images as such because that project, by definition, is one giant promotion of the Forgotten Realms CS, an IP owned by WotC. Our project, on the other hand, is a giant promotion of the Pathfinder Chronicles CS; in essence we're attempting to use WotC's copyrighted material to promote a product in direct competition with their IP. I don't believe that would hold up as fair use in any court. I think we need to pull the images. -- Heaven's Agent 15:05, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

From what my girlfriend said from her "copywrite issues in the classroom" college class, once the company puts the image on their site as a showcase, it is considered marketing material, which is able to be duplicated more freely (To the point of teachers not even having to cite where they got the picture from) but maybe I understood her wrong, that was like 2 semesters ago, and I'm no lawyer. --Cpt kirstov 16:25, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Educational purposes is a valid case of fair use, and actually spelled out pretty clearly. This instance, though, is a tad different; fair use is deemed appropriate in cases of "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research". Also, four factors are to be considered when determining if usage falls under fair use, the fourth being "The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work".

Pathfinder Chronicles is in such direct competition with WotC's IP, in particular the Forgotten Realm CS, that many consider it the setting's successor; Paizo is literally competing with WotC for the same potential market. Though it can be argued that our usage is educational in nature, simply by extension of what we document we're trying to apply WotC's copyrighted marketing material in a manner that supports their competition. -- Heaven's Agent 16:47, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I think it's worth noting that we are not a classroom and these images are not being used for educational purposes. I'm not sure on the specifics of fair use as a legal grounds for using someone's IP, but I think HA may be correct. That said, one could argue that d20srd using the images from the MM is in direct competition with the WotC produced book, since people can use that resource instead of buying the product. I don't think we should take them down yet, but I will look into some copyright stuff and see what I can uncover.--yoda8myhead 16:49, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

d20srd.org is a slightly different case. What they actually do is open another window that goes to the image on Wizards' site... they don't actually host or display the image locally. This is a technicality, but it is definitely different from what we're doing.

What occurred to me over lunch is that we might approach armature artists about getting permission to use their images for the wiki. Sites like Deviant Art have tons of people who do fantasy sketches. Any thoughts? --Aeakett 17:04, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I had always wondered how d20srd got around it; I knew they worked directly with WotC during implementation, had considered that they had obtained special permission to use the images, but the fact that they're actually leading directly to the source makes lot more sense. As for amateur contributions, they're usually welcome. As long as such images maintain some standard of quality, we have the permission of the author to use them, and we give that author full credit, their use is often acceptable. We already use some fan-created pieces, and I've even considered putting forth some pieces of my own toward the project (except I have doubts that my work's up to the level of quality we'd want to maintain).

Another fact I want to throw out there for consideration is that one of the reasons Paizo changed the appearance of Pathfinder's dragons is that they weren't able to use WotC's imagery or descriptions. -- Heaven's Agent 17:25, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I've looked around at various sites and discussions of this topic and even asked a few people I know who deal with IP law and such and the general consensus is that Fair Use has a pretty narrow definition and our use doesn't really qualify for it. We could probably include covers of WotC books but not internal images, at least not how we're using them. So I agree that they should be removed. Which is sad that we'll have less artwork, since it really makes the site look great, but to be honest, I have been noticing the difference in quality between WotC and Paizo images and I think we are better off only including high quality art on the project anyway. Some of doesn't meet our nonexistent quality standards so I won't be sad to see it go. -- yoda8myhead 21:59, 23 July 2009 (UTC)