Wikipedia authors copying content

I apologize if this had been discussed, but I see examples of Wikipedia authors taking content and images from web sites and integrating them into Wikipedia articles and imagery. The wikipedia author would then post disclaimer for the artwork, saying it is in public domain, even he/she integrated third-party art into "its own" graphic or articles without any permission from the original author. It is clearly illegal, and I suspect Wikipedia does this on a mass scale, but is there any way to stop that?

 

Not publish stuff on the internet? Other than that, no. You can't prevent it but you can do something about it once it happens.

 

That "something" is a prolong legal battle, where Wikipedia claims it is non-profit and, therefore, has no responsibility, or there is a straightforward way to make them comply and at least put a credit on the third-party art? I am wondering if there are any precedents?

 

Sweet. Non-profits can do what they want. Where did you come up with this?

 

This is called "irony." I thought it is obvious from my previous post, that I do not really claim that it can be used as a "defense."

 

Please report here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CP

If we don't know about it we can't clean it up.

There is no mass claiming of non PD work as PD (anyone trying this would get blocked rather quickly). On the other hand wikipedians have a pretty good knowlage of where PD content can be found and all the little odities in copyright that mean thing are PD when you might not expect them to be.

 

Geni:

Thank You. I will submit a particular example. How is this usually resolved? Would Wikipedia just remove the art, or the artist can provide instructions how to credit the art and it would just stay. For example, would Wikipedia remove "no follow" tags from the credit link, in exchange for the author's permission to display the art on Wikipedia pages?

 

If a copyvio is found or brought to our attention (we do our best but can't spot all of them on our own) it is removed.

Permission for use on wikipedia only is not viewed as free by wikipedia and thus cannot be used (and the software wont let you remove nofollow on individual links. We are kinda short of coders).

Could you provide a link to your example?

 

Can't you just delete the content, and put your reason for editing as , 'removal of copyrighted material' then give a source of where the stolen content comes from in the 'discussion pages' ?

 

Doesn't work with images. Doesn't work to well with articles either. Deletion removes things from article histories but only admins can do that.

 

Geni:

I sent you private mail with a particular case.