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!