Can someone help me understand the rules regarding the use of articles obtained from Wikipedia on commercial sites?
First, my websites are "nominally commercial." That is, they're educational websites that have been monetized, primarily by adding Google AdSense.
I've used many images with the permission of the owners or creators. I'm also familiar with the rules of public domain - no permission needed. But it appears that there are at least three other classes of images I need to understand:
1) Wikimedia Commons 2) Creative Commons 3) GNU License
My first question regards the effect of each of these on my overall website. I've been warned that if I use images from one or more of these categories on my websites, it may compromise my entire website. In other words, if I use an image protected by the GNU License, then the entire page on which that image appears may lose its copyright status, instead falling under the provisions of GNU?
Is this true? If so, then this post ends here, because I can't afford to compromise my site in that manner.
If, on the other hand, it is safe to use such images without surrendering ownership of an article, page or website, then exactly how do I cite an image's credit? Consider the photo of a mourning dove near the top right corner of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mourning_dove No sources, credits or permissions are listed at all. Only by clicking the image is a visitor directed to a page that lists all that information.
Can I do the same thing - place an image on my website and simply link it to a page with all the legalese? If so, I would probably create a separate web page that includes the following text associated with another image from that same page and link to it:
/Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Zenaida_macroura2.jpg under the terms of the *GNU Free Documentation License http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License*, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:GNU_Free_Documentation_License".
/Furthermore, I assume I could leave the links intact. In other words, I could simply link "GNU Free Documentation License" to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License - right?
I've read the rules regarding use of such images, but it's confusing. I need some advice and specific examples to avoid doing anything that's going to get me in trouble.
Thanks!