Hi all,

I am forwarding the below conversation to commons-l so it's known for the record that I've warned the webmaster of DifferenceBetween.net about their copyright violations. Less than a day after they got my email, they removed Ouda's image from http://www.differencebetween.net/science/health/difference-between-crunches-... . We will see if the webmaster adds caption lines for all other infringing images, like the image in http://www.differencebetween.net/science/difference-between-cellular-respira... which is a copy of the dual CC-BY-SA/GFDL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Simple_photosynthesis_overview.svg. If the webmaster doesn't, the next step is for us to send a variation on http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Standard_license_violation_letter#Follow... and maybe to add a warning that we will contact his web hosting provider (whois indicates that it's probably 1and1.com). Actually, do you think it's fine to add such a warning, or better not to?

Forwarded conversation follows.

Cheers, --[[en:user:unforgettableid]]

Forwarded conversation Subject: Dear DifferenceBetween.net: international copyright law says you must provide attribution on all non-PD images you have copied from Wikimedia Commons ------------------------

From: unforgettableid unforgettableid@gmail.com Date: Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 3:55 AM To: contact@differencebetween.net, proxy1793534@1and1-private-registration.com Cc: Wikimedia Commons public mailing list commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Mohamed Mostafa Ouda mmustafa8@gmail.com

cc: Wikimedia Commons public mailing list

Dear DifferenceBetween.net staff,

You write on your About page[1], "Images used in our site are either public domain images obtained from wikimedia.org or photos taken by us."  We at Wikimedia Commons appreciate that you mention wikimedia.org on your About page.  But that is not enough.  And in fact, most of the images on wikimedia.org are not public domain.  It is only legal to reuse such images if you follow certain rules.

Let's look at an example image.  A search at www.tineye.com shows that "Difference Between Crunches and Sit ups"[2] reuses an image[3] made by Mohamed Ouda[4].  He made it himself[4] and released it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported (CC-BY-SA-3.0) license[5].  The image description page[3] says that if you reuse the image, "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work)."  In other words, Mr. Ouda has said that in order to reuse the image he made, you must follow his conditions. International copyright law requires it, and common courtesy requires it as well.

It seems to me from various articles[6][7][8] on the Creative Commons (CC) and Wikimedia Commons sites that the proper way to provide attribution for a CC-BY-SA-3.0-licensed image like Mr. Ouda's is to include a one-line photo credit where you use the image, such as:

Mohamed Ouda / CC-BY-SA-3.0

The proper way to provide attribution is a bit different[7][8] if you reuse images with other CC licenses, like CC-BY-SA-2.5 or CC-BY-3.0. It is quite different[7][8] if you reuse images released only under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) or another non-CC license.

1.  Do you have any questions?

2.  Are you ready to start providing attribution on all new images you copy from Wikimedia Commons to your site?

3.  Are you ready to start going through all the old images you have copied from Wikimedia Commons and start providing attribution? www.tineye.com may help you find the source locations for images you have already copied.

Please "Reply to All"; otherwise, it will appear to many of us as if you did not reply at all.

Kind regards, --Unforgettableid

^  [1].  http://www.differencebetween.net/about/ ^  [2].  http://www.differencebetween.net/science/health/difference-between-crunches-... ^  [3].  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crunch.gif ^  [4].  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mohamed_Ouda ^  [5].  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en ^  [6].  http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FFAQ#How_do_I_properly_attribute_a_Creative_... ^  [7].  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Credit_line ^  [8].  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia

---------- From: Difference Between contact@differencebetween.net Date: Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 8:21 PM To: unforgettableid unforgettableid@gmail.com Cc: proxy1793534@1and1-private-registration.com, Wikimedia Commons public mailing list commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Mohamed Mostafa Ouda mmustafa8@gmail.com

Hi, Thank you for pointing out the mistake. We will definitely give attribution to those images that are not in Public domain.  At the beginning we thought all the images available on wikimedia is on Public Domain. But at one point we learnt not all of them are in Public Domain and chose only the Public domain images. We will go through all the images and make sure those images that are not in Public domain will be attributed. Thanks DifferenceBetween.net ------------------------------------------------------------ DifferenceBetween.net - Articles comparing similar terms and objects contact@differencebetween.net +1 646 736 7869