Pito Salas raises a very interesting question about the wikipedia on his blog, Pito’s Blog – some stuff I just figured out. He notices that information about the musical Hair is the same on the wikipedia and on Freedictionary.com. Pito wonders which entry was the original as neither source cites the other. I have also noticed this on other topics where I found the wikipedia entry to be a copy of something else or the reverse.
This raises some interesting attribution and possibly copyright information questions.
Freedictionary.com includes, at the bottom of articles in their "Encyclopedia" section, a notice that the content is taken from Wikipedia. I'm not sure of the details, but it's likely that this can be considered a use of the content compliant with Wikipedia's license. So it's probably OK.
Posted by: Shimon Rura | November 17, 2004 at 04:43 PM