I sent them the following message via http://www.answers.com/main/contact_us.jsp
To whom it concerns,
I'm writing regarding copyright conditions of images from Wikipedia.org used on Answers.com
I noticed recently that many of the Wikipedia images used on Answers.com do not appear to follow copyright conditions (such as crediting authors): http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images
From what I can tell this problem is restricted to images that are uploaded to Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org (rather than directly to Wikipedia), which results in there only being a link to the relevant Wikimedia Commons page rather than a full description on the Wikipedia page.
So for instance this image includes relevant info because it was uploaded directly to Wikipedia (and hence the description was added directly to its Wikipedia page): http://www.answers.com/topic/broads-jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Broads.jpg
However this image does not include image info (and nor, for that matter, does it include the link to the relevant Wikimedia Commons page): http://www.answers.com/topic/bees-collecting-pollen-2004-08-14-jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bees_Collecting_Pollen_2004-08-14.jpg The info of which you will find by following the link on the page above to: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Bees_Collecting_Pollen_2004-08 -14.jpg
This is obviously not an ideal situation from our point of view, as we'd like to have the image info on the Wikipedia image page and not have to direct people to another page, however, for various reasons, we're stuck with the current setup, which looks to have resulted in a technical hitch causing Answers.com not to follow licence conditions.
I'm wouldn't have a foggiest clue about the mechanics of this process but it seems to me that, until Wikipedia deals with this issue at their end, Answers.com still needs to deal with the issue at their end, meaning Answers.com needs to pull the relevant image info from Wikimedia Commons when appropriate (as per the second example above).
I'm in contact with administrators and other editors via a Wikipedia emailing list, so I will be sure to pass on any response you send me.
Thanks for your time, Christiaan Briggs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Christiaan
On 25 Mar 2005, at 7:22 pm, Anthere wrote:
Can you gently write them on the topic then ?
Ant
Christiaan Briggs a écrit:
That they follow conditions of licence. It's up to them how they achieve that isn't it? Christiaan On 25 Mar 2005, at 5:57 pm, Anthere wrote:
Nod. This is probably the key of the problem. Well, the fact the description is missing from all pictures used by wikicommons (we do not really respect our own licence...) has already been raised many times unfortunately.
It is certainly an issue to fix in the future.
Meanwhile, what can we propose to Answers ?
Ant
Christiaan Briggs a écrit:
I think I have an idea of where this problem stems from; when you click on an image in Wikipedia which was originally uploaded to Wikimedia Commons the description (including who the author is) is not included on the Wikipedia page for that image (only a link its page on Wikimedia Commons is included). I would say Answers.com is simply pulling down the content from Wikipedia (and ignoring the link to the Commons page). At the moment Wikipedia image pages only include a link to the corresponding Wikimedia Commons page. I'm not sure what the technical issues are here but it seems to me when a user clicks on an image in Wikipedia the description of the image should be on that page. A couple of ways of achieving this might be to link directly to the image on Wikimedia Commons or to somehow import the text from Wikimedia Commons onto the Wikipedia page. I'm sure there are probably problems associated with these, otherwise I imagine we'd be doing it already. Christiaan Anthere wrote:
I think you are correct that there is possibly a problem as no where is the author of the picture mentionned, nor a link available.
We should mention this to Jimbo
Ant
MacGyverMagic/Mgm a écrit:
> Is anyone else surprised that Answers.com doesn't seem to follow > GFDL or CCbySA conditions with regard to images used from > Wikipedia, such as crediting authors: > > http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images > > Or am I misunderstanding the process? > > Christiaan
Well, I could be misunderstanding the process myself, but aren't they following GFDL by telling us it's a Wikipedia article to start with? Mgm