[WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions

Mon Mar 28 00:32:18 UTC 2005

I sent them the following message via  
http://www.answers.com/main/contact_us.jsp

To whom it concerns,

I'm writing regarding copyright conditions of images from Wikipedia.org  
used on Answers.com

I noticed recently that many of the Wikipedia images used on  
Answers.com do not appear to follow copyright conditions (such as  
crediting authors):
http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images

 From what I can tell this problem is restricted to images that are  
uploaded to Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org (rather than  
directly to Wikipedia), which results in there only being a link to the  
relevant Wikimedia Commons page rather than a full description on the  
Wikipedia page.

So for instance this image includes relevant info because it was  
uploaded directly to Wikipedia (and hence the description was added  
directly to its Wikipedia page):
http://www.answers.com/topic/broads-jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Broads.jpg

However this image does not include image info (and nor, for that  
matter, does it include the link to the relevant Wikimedia Commons  
page):
http://www.answers.com/topic/bees-collecting-pollen-2004-08-14-jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bees_Collecting_Pollen_2004-08-14.jpg
The info of which you will find by following the link on the page above  
to:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Bees_Collecting_Pollen_2004-08 
-14.jpg

This is obviously not an ideal situation from our point of view, as  
we'd like to have the image info on the Wikipedia image page and not  
have to direct people to another page, however, for various reasons,  
we're stuck with the current setup, which looks to have resulted in a  
technical hitch causing Answers.com not to follow licence conditions.

I'm wouldn't have a foggiest clue about the mechanics of this process  
but it seems to me that, until Wikipedia deals with this issue at their  
end, Answers.com still needs to deal with the issue at their end,  
meaning Answers.com needs to pull the relevant image info from  
Wikimedia Commons when appropriate (as per the second example above).

I'm in contact with administrators and other editors via a Wikipedia  
emailing list, so I will be sure to pass on any response you send me.

Thanks for your time,
Christiaan Briggs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Christiaan

On 25 Mar 2005, at 7:22 pm, Anthere wrote:

> Can you gently write them on the topic then ?
>
> Ant
>
>
> Christiaan Briggs a écrit:
>> That they follow conditions of licence. It's up to them how they  
>> achieve that isn't it?
>> Christiaan
>> On 25 Mar 2005, at 5:57 pm, Anthere wrote:
>>> Nod.
>>> This is probably the key of the problem.
>>> Well, the fact the description is missing from all pictures used by  
>>> wikicommons (we do not really respect our own licence...) has  
>>> already been raised many times unfortunately.
>>>
>>> It is certainly an issue to fix in the future.
>>>
>>> Meanwhile, what can we propose to Answers ?
>>>
>>> Ant
>>>
>>> Christiaan Briggs a écrit:
>>>
>>>> I think I have an idea of where this problem stems from; when you  
>>>> click on an image in Wikipedia which was originally uploaded to  
>>>> Wikimedia Commons the description (including who the author is) is  
>>>> not included on the Wikipedia page for that image (only a link its  
>>>> page on Wikimedia Commons is included). I would say Answers.com is  
>>>> simply pulling down the content from Wikipedia (and ignoring the  
>>>> link to the Commons page).
>>>> At the moment Wikipedia image pages only include a link to the  
>>>> corresponding Wikimedia Commons page. I'm not sure what the  
>>>> technical issues are here but it seems to me when a user clicks on  
>>>> an image in Wikipedia the description of the image should be on  
>>>> that page. A couple of ways of achieving this might be to link  
>>>> directly to the image on Wikimedia Commons or to somehow import the  
>>>> text from Wikimedia Commons onto the Wikipedia page. I'm sure there  
>>>> are probably problems associated with these, otherwise I imagine  
>>>> we'd be doing it already.
>>>> Christiaan
>>>> Anthere wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I think you are correct that there is possibly a problem as no  
>>>>> where is the author of the picture mentionned, nor a link  
>>>>> available.
>>>>>
>>>>> We should mention this to Jimbo
>>>>>
>>>>> Ant
>>>>>
>>>>> MacGyverMagic/Mgm a écrit:
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Is anyone else surprised that Answers.com doesn't seem to follow  
>>>>>>> GFDL or CCbySA conditions with regard to images used from  
>>>>>>> Wikipedia, such as crediting authors:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Or am I misunderstanding the process?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Christiaan
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Well, I could be misunderstanding the process myself, but aren't  
>>>>>> they following GFDL by telling us it's a Wikipedia article to  
>>>>>> start with?
>>>>>> Mgm