FBI Vs. Wikipedia

[InformationGeek]

Doesn't the FBI have more important things to do?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100803/od_yblog_upshot/fbi-will-fight-valiantly-to-protect-the-integrity-of-its-seal-from-internet-encyclopedians

[Rev. Powell]

Hopefully Wikipedia will stick to its guns and fight this out in court.  What a terrible waste of public funds by the FBI. 

[Newt]

Hang on...Wiki deliberately provides lo-res images of copyrighted material (album covers come to mind) in order to protect the image owners.  Are they really posting a high-res image of the seal of a quality that could be used to produce bogus ID?  That sounds unlikely.  Or is the quality of the image not the issue?

[Rev. Powell]

The image does appear to be hi-res.  However, the FBI's position is fairly ridiculous, since the same image is available on documents on their own website (which is where Wikipedia picked it up) and on every official communication they make.  If Wikipedia took it down I suspect it would have 0 effect on counterfeiting. 

On the other hand, I may have been a bit too hasty in criticizing the FBI.  Wikipedia could meet them halfway by using a lower-res image, and by changing the background (as the FBI does on their own homepage) to make the image more difficult to copy.  Perhaps if they had been less heavy-handed in expressing their concern Wikipedia would have responded less sarcastically to their threats.