Board Thread:Questions and answers/@comment-30049823-20200120220238/@comment-27306930-20200123031405

I deal with this all the time at work. 107 of the US Copyright Act states:

"... the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."

The other general qualification is: The Fair Use Doctrine allows for limited and reasonable uses as long as the use does not interfere with or impede the owners’ rights to do with the work as they wish.

This wiki meets BOTH of those criteria. I am not privy to how iSoaker or BlasterHub requested their images be taken down, but it sounds like they do not have a clear understanding of their rights, or what constitutes Fair Use. There is no such thing as a "blanket request". If a copyright owner identifies a specific infringement, they have the right to request the copyrighted work be removed. But there's no legal precedence for preventing someone from reproducing ANY or ALL works an owner claims to have a copyright on. US courts have consistently ruled that it's on a case by case basis.

That being said, it might be a copyright infringement to copy every picture from a particular article, especially if they are reproduced in the same order with the same subtext. But even if we did, as long as it's identified as a criticism, a commentary, or a news report, then it falls well within the definition of Fair Use. A citation might be nice, but it's not required.