I am a moderator for the popular Wikidot site known as The Backrooms Wikidot (http://backrooms-wiki.wikidot.com/) and I have some questions about licensing images.
For a while now, we have been following the Creative Commons policies for the images in our articles, only using ones licensed to be usable. You can find more specifics about our image use policy here: http://backrooms-wiki.wikidot.com/image-use-policy
This, however, has served to be severely limiting. Finding good images that relate to the Backrooms or Liminal Spaces licensed as these specific licenses is challenging. This causes our articles to often not have a good Backrooms-related/liminal atmosphere that is required, and many users have expressed frustration over not being able to use images they find or express their ideas in the way they want to.
Additionally, I believe this is a reason our wiki is being outperformed by other Backrooms Wikis like the one on Fandom since they do not place any importance on image licensing and this has been very successful for them. They have never faced any legal action despite being more popular, and their writers are allowed to use any images meaning their articles are more immersive.
As a result, I am reaching out to discuss and ask wether we really need to comply with CC image policies. Couldn't we technically fall under fair use due to our Wiki being a non-profit creative writing community that educates readers on the lore of the Backrooms and fosters creative writing skills? Is it possible Wikidot itself covers this for us already? Is it possible for us to start using normal images?
- Univ
