Copying Wikipedia Content?

I've read a page on wikipedia which I think meant wikipedia content could be copied under GNU free documentation licence. I'm just checking that this is correct, the content I wish to copy is a picture and I want to know is it ok if I put a link under the picture to the wikipedia page i got the picture from, does this break any copyright laws?

 

If you do copy it and they have a problem they will just ask you to take it down

 

Oh that's ok then, I taught there would be some legal problem with it, thanks for that

 

it's published under the free license so you shouldn't have a problem about copyright issues, but as tschrock said in case of anything they'll just tell you to take it off which I highly doubt

 

Generally, copying photos from websites and publishing those same photos on another website does not involve a legal copyright issue unless the copied photos were copyrighted either separately or as part of a copyrighted website, or if the copied photos represent the unique work of an artist who may have failed to obtain a copyright. I see no problem with copying a photo from a wiki page, publishing it on another website and putting a link back to the wiki source. I don't even think Wikipedia would notice it and if they did, they'd probably think you did the right thing by linking back to them. Giving credit where credit is due and all that cheery-ho good old boy kind of stuff, don't you know?

 

Agree with Capistrano

The info and pics on internet is in the Public Domain and therefore available for use by anyone - especially stuff on Wiki as it is user edited.

If you are using it for official use or for reference in school work etc then make sure it is fully referenced but apart from that you are fine

 

Thanks for clearing that up guy's

 

Putting my I am not a lawyer hat on.

Well that's one way to get sued. Everything on the internet is copyright in some way, some sites like Wikipedia do specify that their content is licensed in such a way that it may be copied, even so you do need to check especially for images on Wikipedia, not all of them are licensed in such a way that will allow them to be reused.

Just because a photo or text is on the internet DOES NOT make it Public Domain, just look at the problems people have with Getty Images (Even though they take it to extremes.

Jen

 

Only the written content from wikipedia can be copied freely, but you have to watch out for those images, like JenniP said, becuase some images posted on Wikipedia are copyrighted. You still can't claim to have written any of the content on Wikipedia, though, because I know some people try and do that.

 

half the stuff posted on Wikipedia is copied from other places to start with.

 

Is there an easy way to check if an image on wikipedia is copyrighted?

 

Normally if you click the image it will tell you where it came from and its licensing.

Have a look at these two links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rangers.png

This one shows its not free.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Azerbaijan_blank.png

This one shows its licensed under GNU Free Documentation License and should be reusable within the context of that licence.

Jen

 

Thank you very much for explaining that Jen, do those copyright box's always appear on every picture? The picture I was looking at said it was released into the public domain by it's author which seems to mean its anyone who wants to use it's property, is this true?

 

Every picture I've found but then again I don't get pictures from Wikipedia that often.

Its always best to check with the owner of the picture, however if it says its public domain then it more than likely is, however the person who put it on Wikipedia may not actually had the right to say the image was public domain.

So its a bit of a grey area.

Jen

 

You can copy Wikipedia. Make sure to remove anything they ask (if they do) and you should be fine!

 

Thanks for everyone's help, It'll be a lot easier to work on my site if I don't have to draw every single picture to explain myself

 

Cant you try contacing wikipedia about the issue? Or maybe just give them a creidt link on your blogrol to thank them or something like this then their less likely to ask you to remove the image.

 

That's not the way copyright works, though. So, as a general rule of thumb. I don't use the images from wikipedia.

 

When it comes to images, the people who wrote these posts are ABSOLUTELY WRONG. Several of the other posts have correctly noted that Wikipedia uses images from a variety of sources. Some are public domain but many are not. Some are released under various licenses that contain restrictions. Some are copyrighted by the owner and are used under a claim of "fair use." You cannot draw any conclusions without looking to the facts behind each image.

Even if the image purports to be in the public domain, it may not be. Wikipedia is user-created and someone who posts an image can basically say anything he or she wants, including that he took the picture himself and that he is releasing it into the public domain. Editors try to monitor the images but there is no assurance that anything about the source is true or correct.

 

Obviously the re-use of The Rangers logo is going to be forbidden as that is copyrighted in the "Real World" so not in public domain

However, most images (not a copyrighted or trademarked logo) just used on a website is available for re-use freely