Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Wikipedia and the Bible

I type in "the bible." The first thing I click on once I arrive at the page is this picture:




The interesting thing about this picture is that, unlike the other one, it is copyrighted. However, the copyright holder allows the public to use his image according to the terms set by the GNU Free Documentation License:



"I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following licenses:

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.Subject to disclaimers.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License."


The "Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to legally build upon and share." Therefore, I am legally posting this image. (By the way, the Creative Commons page displays these words above the article:


"This article or section seems to contain embedded lists that may require cleanup.To meet Wikipedia's style guidelines, please help improve this article by: removing items which are not notable, encyclopedic, or helpful from the list(s); incorporating appropriate items into the main body of the article; and discussing this issue on the talk page.")


According to the GNU Free Documentation License, I am allowed to "copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or non commercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License." I'm not really sure what "provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice...are reproduced in all copies" practially means for this blog, so hopefully simply providing the link suffices. :)


Wikipedia is so loaded with references for every word and image that appears on the site. For example, this image to the right has a name: Text-x-generic.svg. This image is also a file from the Wikimedia Commons.

(By the way, this is the "Picture of the Day" being displayed on the Wikimedia Commons Main Page right now:


This image has no copyright. It "has been released into the public domain by its author, Laitche. This applies worldwide." Interestingly enough, there is this notice: "In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so:Laitche grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.")


Links.


Images.


The Wikipedian pursuit of knowledge continues.

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