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I'm not an expert on Wikipedia policy, but I would suspect that likelihood of being sued is not a consideration when evaluating if a photo should have a license attached or not.
As far as I can tell, the policy is very simple - photos must have a license. Happy to be corrected if I'm overlooking some policy details here.
The Charlottesville photo he mentioned has no license submitted with it, only excuses for why it's fair use.
Quite the opposite. There's a licensing section that clearly indicates that it's a copyrighted image that's used under fair use.
"Copyrighted image" is not a license, and neither is "fair use". If this fulfills the requirements, they could just write "fair use" under the mugshot.
Copyright is obviously a license.
Yes, that's one way to add a license to a photo. However, as I mentioned, nobody actually did this.
A copyright is the right of the copyright holder to decide who can publish a copyrighted work under which conditions. A license is a document written by the copyright holder that specifies those conditions, and who they apply to. So no, copyright is obviously not a license. "Fair use" is an exception in the American copyright law that allows people to publish a copyrighted work if certain conditions are met. "Copyrighted image under fair use" literally means "we have no license for this, but we believe the fair use exceptions apply".
Do you want to make a bet on how long it will stay up if I reupload the image, and state that it's fair use?
Do you want to actually do it, or to merely feel secure in your continued belief that Wikipedia maliciously deleted that picture (in a manner indistinguishable from neutral routine gruntwork)?
It would be an interesting experiment, but I'm not interested if it turns out a prompt deletion for another made up procedural reason wouldn't change anyone's mind.
And I'm assuming producing another log of innocuous-looking deletions for that same "made-up" procedural reason will not change your mind either? Do you believe organisations are unlikely to have procedural reasons that don't serve political agendas contrary to yours?
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