Adapting a work from Wikipedia

F

Fahad

Veteran
Hi,

Are there any issues using information and media contained on Wikipedia for a production?

The information would be presented non-verbatim. Only the media would be identical.

For example, say you’re making a documentary on spaghetti. The script would be something like:

***************************
man eating spaghetti

“Hmm.. delicious. Did you know spaghetti is made of …”

Picture of spaghetti

Chopin is playing in the background
****************************

The information is adapted from Wikipedia. The music and picture are downloaded from Wikimedia Commons.

Assuming due diligence in confirming the copyright status of the information and media, is there a liability?

Thanks!


edit: of course, getting any kind of information from Wikipedia is debated, but that's another matter. :)
 
Last edited:
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Also, if the pictures/music are on Wikiepedia, then they're public domain.

The only thing I can think of is if a media file was under one of the creative commons licenses that require attribution, or require not for profit reproduction.
 
Beware that many of the "open-source" licenses require that any derivative works be similarly "open-source" which would mean that you could not claim ownership of your work, either.
 
Fahad said:
Also, if the pictures/music are on Wikiepedia, then they're public domain.
Click to expand...

The mere presence of something on Wikipedia does *not* mean that it is in the public domain. It is possible that it was posted without permission; more likely, it was licensed in some way.

The first rule of thumb is never to assume that anything you find anywhere is in the public domain...
 
KMR said:
The mere presence of something on Wikipedia does *not* mean that it is in the public domain. It is possible that it was posted without permission; more likely, it was licensed in some way.

The first rule of thumb is never to assume that anything you find anywhere is in the public domain...
Click to expand...


^^Very true. Thanks for the clarification.


Oddly enough, I couldn't find this information on Wikipedia's FAQ section.
 
From Wikipedia's 'Terms of Use'...

Information for re-users

You can re-use content from Wikimedia projects freely, with the exception of content that is used under "fair use" exemptions, or similar exemptions of copyright law. Please follow the guidelines below:
Re-use of text:
  • Attribution: To re-distribute a text page in any form, provide credit to the authors either by including a) a hyperlink (where possible) or URL to the page or pages you are re-using, b) a hyperlink (where possible) or URL to an alternative, stable online copy which is freely accessible, which conforms with the license, and which provides credit to the authors in a manner equivalent to the credit given on this website, or c) a list of all authors. (Any list of authors may be filtered to exclude very small or irrelevant contributions.) This applies to text developed by the Wikimedia community. Text from external sources may attach additional attribution requirements to the work, which we will strive to indicate clearly to you. For example, a page may have a banner or other notation indicating that some or all of its content was originally published somewhere else. Where such notations are visible in the page itself, they should generally be preserved by re-users.
  • Copyleft/Share Alike: If you make modifications or additions to the page you re-use, you must license them under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0 or later.
  • Indicate changes: If you make modifications or additions, you must indicate in a reasonable fashion that the original work has been modified. If you are re-using the page in a wiki, for example, indicating this in the page history is sufficient.
  • Licensing notice: Each copy or modified version that you distribute must include a licensing notice stating that the work is released under CC-BY-SA and either a) a hyperlink or URL to the text of the license or b) a copy of the license. For this purpose, a suitable URL is: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Additional availability of text under the GNU Free Documentation License:
  • For compatibility reasons, any page which does not incorporate text that is exclusively available under CC-BY-SA or a CC-BY-SA-compatible license is also available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. In order to determine whether a page is available under the GFDL, review the page footer, page history, and discussion page for attribution of single-licensed content that is not GFDL-compatible. All text published before June 15th, 2009 was released under the GFDL, and you may also use the page history to retrieve content published before that date to ensure GFDL compatibility.
Re-use of non-text media:
  • Where not otherwise noted, non-text media files are available under various free culture licenses, consistent with the Wikimedia Foundation Licensing Policy. Please view the media description page for details about the license of any specific media file.
 
^^that's exactly what i was looking for. i've read it before but couldn't find it again... oops.

this should make it easier.

Thanks a lot chapelgrovefilms!
 
KMR said:
The mere presence of something on Wikipedia does *not* mean that it is in the public domain. It is possible that it was posted without permission; more likely, it was licensed in some way.

The first rule of thumb is never to assume that anything you find anywhere is in the public domain...
Click to expand...

totally agree, man.
 
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