Finlay McWalter wrote:
Folks, Algebra.com (which also goes by the name cooldictionary.com) appears to be leeching images directly from the wikimedia upload server.
What is the accepted means for copying the images from wikipedia? My impression was there was some sort of copyright problem due to the fact that, unlike the text content, the image content of Wikipedia is not, _reliably_ under one of the free licenses such as the GFDL.
On 15/08/05, James A. Bowery jabowery@laboratoryofthestates.com wrote:
Finlay McWalter wrote:
Folks, Algebra.com (which also goes by the name cooldictionary.com) appears to be leeching images directly from the wikimedia upload server.
What is the accepted means for copying the images from wikipedia? My impression was there was some sort of copyright problem due to the fact that, unlike the text content, the image content of Wikipedia is not, _reliably_ under one of the free licenses such as the GFDL.
Image dumps are available from http://download.wikimedia.org/images/ but are to be used "at your own risk" - as explained in http://download.wikimedia.org/images/README_ABOUT_COPYRIGHT.txt
Using the appropriate database dumps you could probably select out a reasonable subset using the template-and-category based labelling system - i.e. delete those with no such tags, those marked as "fair use", and any other licenses likely to be incompatible with your mirror. Obviously, a better system, where this meta-information was built into the dumps, or available neatly standalone, would be nice, but not easy.
Rowan Collins wrote:
On 15/08/05, James A. Bowery jabowery@laboratoryofthestates.com wrote:
Finlay McWalter wrote:
Folks, Algebra.com (which also goes by the name cooldictionary.com) appears to be leeching images directly from the wikimedia upload server.
What is the accepted means for copying the images from wikipedia? My impression was there was some sort of copyright problem due to the fact that, unlike the text content, the image content of Wikipedia is not, _reliably_ under one of the free licenses such as the GFDL.
Image dumps are available from http://download.wikimedia.org/images/ but are to be used "at your own risk" - as explained in http://download.wikimedia.org/images/README_ABOUT_COPYRIGHT.txt
Using the appropriate database dumps you could probably select out a reasonable subset using the template-and-category based labelling system - i.e. delete those with no such tags, those marked as "fair use", and any other licenses likely to be incompatible with your mirror. Obviously, a better system, where this meta-information was built into the dumps, or available neatly standalone, would be nice, but not easy.
Hoi When we publish our content, we specify a license that should be valid for the use of our content. We have chosen GFDL and this implicitly means that the provisions of the GFDL aply to the use of our content by mirors as well. When we have content that is not compatible with the GFDL, we should delete this content. It is not reasonable to expect of a mirror to scrutinize every picture in order to find out if its license is compatible with what we say our license is. In this I think that Commons is doing well by ensuring that its conten is generally usable within what we aim to do given our license.
I am of the opinion that all material that is indicated to be problematic because it cannot be used on a comercial mirror should be removed.
Thanks, GerardM
On 15/08/05, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
I am of the opinion that all material that is indicated to be problematic because it cannot be used on a comercial mirror should be removed.
This is, I believe, a highly contentious issue, and a matter to be decided by individual communities, rather than a technical mailing list. Without going into detail, therefore, I will just point out that the conundrum is between the ideal of a completely free encyclopedia, and the practicalities of an actual useable one.
Personally, I'm all in favour of preferring a GFDL-compatible image over a non-compatible one - or even preferring any freer image of similar quality over any existing one - but would be circumspect about preferring no image at all over a legal but non-GFDL-compatible one. But like I say, this is entirely the wrong forum for that debate.
Rowan Collins wrote:
Image dumps are available from http://download.wikimedia.org/images/ but are to be used "at your own risk" - as explained in http://download.wikimedia.org/images/README_ABOUT_COPYRIGHT.txt
Using the appropriate database dumps you could probably select out a reasonable subset using the template-and-category based labelling system - i.e. delete those with no such tags, those marked as "fair use", and any other licenses likely to be incompatible with your mirror.
This is the sort of information that should be part of a "best practices" Wikipedia: namespace topic.
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