Re: Copyrights Permission

Nicholas Korres wrote in part:

>A part from a figure (endoplasmic reticulum) that is taken from wikipedia
>(URL address: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/endoplasmic_reticulum or
>http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endoplasmic_reticulum ) has been
>incorporated into another figure (cell) in my book.

>I can use the part of the figure I have taken from Wikipedia if I
>licensing it under GNU FDL scheme.

Actually, it's not safe to assume that you can use it even then!

Many of the images on Wikipedia are not really covered by the FDL.
(That is why you often see "All *text* on Wikipedia is covered ...".)
Some of these we use under "fair use" doctrines which may not apply to you
(UK law is different from the US/CA law that covers Wikipedia's servers,
and if the book is published for a profit, then that is less protected).
And frankly, there are a few images that just shouldn't be here at all;
we try to get rid of these when we find them, but we do find them sometimes.
(That's true of text as well -- one consequence of letting anybody edit --
but the images don't get the same level of scrutiny from users as the text,
so the text is more trustworthy in every way.)

So in the end, you really should try to track down the source of the image
regardless of whether you can use it under the conditions of the FDL.
And as others have pointed out, once you track down the image's source,
then you may be able to use under more generous permission than the FDL.

Of course, we would encourage you license as much of your book as you can
as freely as possible, on general principle.  Your publisher may disagree. ^_^


-- Toby Bartels, a Wikipedia editor