[vox-tech] [OT] Uploading an image to Wikipedia (licensing)

[Carl Boettiger]

Wikipedia requires the image use a free license, which they define to mean
one which allows both commercial use and derivative work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_copyright_tags/Free_licenses

In creative commons terms, that allows licenses that require attribution
(by) and the "viral" share alike (sa) clause (like GSL for software), but
not creative commons licenses that require non-commercial (nc) use only or
allow no derivative (nd) works to be based on the content.  You should let
your friend know that "to use this image on wikipedia" means others can use
the image commercially and they can make derivative works based on the
image.  If both of those are okay, then you can upload it.

So it doesn't have to be BSD style / public domain (it can require
either/both attribution and share-alike), but it does have to allow
commercial and derivative use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_copyright_tags/Deprecated  Hope
that helps.

-Carl

On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 10:00 PM, Bill Broadley <bill at broadley.org> wrote:

>
> > Does anyone understand the Wikipedia policy and/or has a higher
> > tolerance for understanding licenses than I do (which is admittedly
> > very low).  My sense is that the image owner wants his picture to be
> > used for the Wikipedia article, but may be unwilling to allow the
> > image to be used for commercial purposes.
>
> I believe the basic idea is that photos much be completely free to be on
> wikipedia, much like the bsd license which allows a company to both use and
> modify without contributing back the changes.  Both commercial, non
> commercial, and non wikipedia use much be allowed.  So unless it's public
> domain you can't use it.  Thus the terrible photos for most hollywood
> folks.
>
> So saying "Wikipedia may use it" is not enough.
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-- 
Carl Boettiger
Population Biology, UC Davis
http://two.ucdavis.edu/~cboettig
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