[Foundation-l] commercial use of wikipedia content

Sun Dec 27 14:34:49 UTC 2009

Hi,

I'm evaluating our legal options around commercially using wikipedia
content, if this is not the right forum, please let me know / forward
the question. It might be that the method I describe is not legally
possible, so if there is any similar situation that does or does not
work, please let me know either. I'd like to play safe in this field
and avoid potential issues.

For the sake of example we would like to automatically convert the
page content to a different text and different format (e.g.
automatically create text extracts and compile it into a pdf document)
and sell it as part of a subscription service or even better as a
standalone product. We include all the attributions / links wherever
possible, and mark that the source of the product is Wikipedia. What
else are we required to do before the sell can happen? Is there any
fee or percentage that shall go back to mediawiki foundation in such
cases? Can we restrict the copy or re-distribution of such product?
For the later, I suppose there is nothing we can do, however this
seems to ruin the whole business model, doesn't it?

Thank you for your help,
   Istvan