On Saturday, February 12, 2005 10:54 AM, commons-l-bounces@wikimedia.org <> wrote:
[Re-ordered]
Josh Gerdes wrote:
David Blomstrom wrote:
Wikipedia uses a series of location maps on articles about the states, like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming - the the map on the right side of the page, just below the state flag and seal.
It sounds like I'm allowed to use these images on my website as long as I include the proper credit. The only problem is the credits are awfully long for images this small; I don't want to insert a big credit on each page.
So I wanted to ask if these maps belong to Wikipedia in the first place...or are they public domain?
Incidentally, I will be linking my pags to Wikipedia; in fact, I already have.
Thank you.
Yes, you must include the proper credits, at least for those who modified the pictures from the public domain original. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:U.S._county_map, those images were created by Eric Pierce (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wapcaplet) and James D. Forrester (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jdforrester). I believe that in this case, crediting the two authors and linking to the Wikipedia article should be sufficient. It would also be polite, though not legally necessary, to credit the creator of the original public domain image, The General Libraries of The University of Texas at Austin (http://www.lib.utexas.edu). However, you should probably read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights#Users.27_rig hts_and_obligations
for more details.
Josh Gerdes [[en:User:JoshG]]
OK, thanks. I have one more question. I have no problem offering the proper credit; I just don't want to post a bunch of extra text by every single image. I'd rather have a clean design, like on the Wikipedia pages (which don't mention the University of Texas. :)
Therefore, would I be allowed to simply add the word "Credits," linked to a page that offers all the credit information, including the names of the individuals you cited in your e-mail, the University of Texas, etc.?
Thank you.
BTW, I have released my contributions to the US-State images under the Creative Commons Attribution and Attribution with Share-Alike licences, second versions and above, after being asked to by Ram-man. Not sure about Eric, however, and I really don't have any idea as to which ones I created and which of them did he, though I did do final touch-ups to all 3300-odd ones. Thus you can use at least some of them under the CC-BY or CC-BY-SA, instead of GFDL, if that's easier.
HTH.
Yours,