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This is a project to replace modern book covers used to illustrate articles about books in the public domain. These images are not really acceptable under the "replaceable" clause of our fair use policy,[1] since the books' original covers, title pages, etc. would be free. The list below includes articles that rely on such illustrations unnecessarily, and, where they've been found, links to images that could replace those illustrations.
There are several very good reasons to do this:
- Our policy states that free images are always preferable to non-free images.[2]
- Including an image of the first edition is much more encyclopedic; it provides real information about the book, rather than about a modern publisher.
- It educates our users and the public about the history of these books and about the value of freely licensed material.
- ^ For a lengthy and very useful discussion of the replaceability issue, see User:Chowbok/Robth's RFU Explanation.
- ^ And, indeed, the collective character of the project should incline us even further in this direction than policy currently states. As Jimbo Wales has said, "My own view, which is at the extreme end of the spectrum I know, and therefore not (yet) formal policy in every case, is that we ought to have almost no fair use, outside of a very narrow class of images that are of unique historical importance."