Image Creative Commons Question

Hi, I'm trying to make sure that all the images and videos I use in my blog are legit and that I'm not infringing on copyright.

I write reviews of a lot of popular topics, and I often find I want to include a picture of a celebrity or sports star. I've thought that wikipedia might be my best bet.

I tried to look up the terms of the particular license of the images. From wikipedia:

What exactly does this mean? Can I upload the image onto my wordpress media library? How else would I display the image on my site?

They don't really make it clear what I need to do to "mention the license terms." On each image, it says "must attribute the work according to the terms specified by the author" but then it doesn't clearly say that anywhere either.

Can anyone help me out?

 

I've browsed the forums more now, and I seem to be answering my own questions.

This is handled on an image by image basis and can involve tracking down the individual profiles of Flickr users and seeing what they say about using their work. Sometimes they say it can only be used for non-commercial purpose, it seems.

 

Which part of "attribute to the author" and "mention the license terms" don't you understand? Because the authors on Wikipedia can be complex, it might be sufficient to credit Wikipedia and link to the Wikipedia page for the original image...AND to link to the license.

However, notice that on Wikipedia, many celebrity images are excerpts from movies or other copyrighted material, and those are being used under fair use clauses which may not apply to their use on other sites. You have to look at the description page for each image to see what its copyright and licensing status is.

 

Yeah, when I posted this before I was a little frustrated because it was difficult to find "the manner specified by the author" to attribute (ex. many are vague, some only allow non-commercial use) I was just looking for easy answers and shouldn't have made this thread.

Thanks though, you make a good point about fair use for celeb/movie images. I think a lot of us don't realize that.

 

Is this copyrighted?

 

It can be frustrating, but you are right that there are no easy answers. Figuring out how to attribute the work to the author often involves an element of guess work. If the author has released his work for commercial use with attribution, I figure that as long as you make a good faith attempt to figure out the "how" part, they are unlikely to quibble with you. I have released photos with CC licenses myself and as long as users put my name somewhere, I don't really care. One of the trickier issues is where someone posts photos under a user name but, with a little digging, you can turn up their real name. If I can figure out the real name, I will always use it but I am never sure whether someone really wants their real name attached to the photos when they have chosen a more anonymous user name.

 

Yes, their real name is probably their legal name. But they might have registered their online name as a business name, so their online name might also be a legal name. My understanding is that individuals can generally use any aliases as long as they're not trying to evade responsibility or the law, so I treat their online name as sufficient and assume they'll answer any inquiries from a judge.

On Wikipedia, linking to the page which describes an image is a link to the page with the list of authors and its history. An image on Wikipedia might have been uploaded by one person, moved to another server by another person, converted from raster to vector format by someone else, and had the colors adjusted by yet another person, then someone else uploaded a higher resolution version of the image and others then improved that version. By linking to the page with the image history, all the creators get some credit.