I don't think that's really equivalent, for reasons others above me have mentioned.

Also, I would have thought that on a *fannish* site, "we will not archive people's work without their permission," which is a nigh-universal fannish norm, should trump "this is legally permissible." After all, it's ordinarily not against the law to out people's offline identities, either, but they don't permit it on Fanlore (unless the fan has already outed herself). Yes, this is more restrictive in the case of images than it is of stories or vids, but, well, that's just the nature of the medium.

I'm sure all this has happened without ill intent, but the committee needs to reconsider this policy. (I suspect that this particular set of circumstances hadn't been carefully thought through before.) Don't you use little preview thumbnails of part of the image? Couldn't they use those, coupled with a direct link?