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

Thu Mar 31 18:38:58 UTC 2005

Very good. Thanks for keeping us informed Christiaan.

Ant

Christiaan Briggs a écrit:
> Answers.com response to my query (below):
> 
> On 31 Mar 2005, at 11:26 am, GuruNet Support wrote:
> 
>> Dear Christiaan,
>>
>> Thank you for contacting GuruNet.
>>
>> We really appreciate your bringing this to our attention, Christiaan,  
>> and have forwarded your message to our Engineering Team. The problem  
>> is that we are working from a dump of Wikipedia content, but  
>> apparently, there is no dump of the Commons data. However, our  
>> engineers are aware of the problem and are looking into a solution  
>> that will work best all around.
>>
>> We'll let you know when we've deployed a solution to this problem.  
>> Similarly, if you could keep us informed of any development at  
>> Wikipedia regarding this matter, we'd really appreciate it.
>>
>> If we can be of any further assistance, please don't hesitate to  
>> contact us.
>>
>> Sincerely yours,
>> Alan Baklor
>> GuruNet Customer Support
>> http://www.gurunet.com
>> The Answer Engine
> 
> 
>> On 28 Mar 2005, at 1:32 am, Christiaan Briggs wrote:
>>
>>> 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
>>