Wikivoyage talk:Non-compliant redistribution/Pre-2012 WT non-compliant redistribution

This page is no longer active and is retained for historical reference. Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. Do not assume content on this page is still correct or up-to-date.

These copyvios predate the fork which split WT from WV and are therefore part of that project, not this one - retained for historical reference.

Theft

edit

Moved from Project:travellers' pub by (WT-en) Evan

I think we have our first case of infringement.

http://travel.new-frontier.info/

Yeah yeah "provided in part by wikitravel". Sure... he sticks his own copyright notice undearneath it.

Bah... "I take wikitravel content and alter the colors" is more like it. What a dope.

-- (WT-en) Nils 18:12, 29 Mar 2004 (EST)

I dunno, what would we consider by-sa compliance? Do we need to have individual author attributions? Does that mean he should include the changelogs, or include a list of contributors?

I agree that he's a dope for rebranding his Wikitravel mirror. His site would be more valuable to everybody if it were more of a true mirror. That said he does seem to be doing exaclty what we want the commercial travel guides to do with their paper versions. -- (WT-en) Mark 00:19, 30 Mar 2004 (EST)

He is sticking his copyright in as the main credit then admitting that "some" content may be "in part" from wikitravel, while it's an exact copy. That is definitely deceptive. If an article is a 1:1 copy from wikitravel, he should say so and not stick is copyright underneath it. Individual author attributions is unrealistic, especially in a paper version. -- (WT-en) Nils 02:43, 30 Mar 2004 (EST)

OK, so let's notify him that he should change the copyright notice. Who do you suppose is the most qualified around here to do that? Evan is almost certainly the most read up on the details of the licence, and is one of the founders. -- (WT-en) Mark 03:18, 30 Mar 2004 (EST)

The CC License clearly states that "Attribution. You must give the original author credit." and "Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one." So any article from WikiTravel should be licensed as CC-AS 1.0, not "Copyright 2003-2004 Zeeshan Muhammad." right? --(WT-en) Caffeine 08:36, 30 Mar 2004 (EST)

He didn't clean it up too well huh? http://travel.new-frontier.info/w/Travellers%27_pub --(WT-en) Caffeine 08:42, 30 Mar 2004 (EST)

I've contacted the owner of the site. First, I asked that he comply with the by-sa 1.0 by giving attribution to all contributors; he's rewriting his software to parse the history of each article for that. Second, I asked that he change the copyright notification to make the rights of readers to reuse content clear; he's working on that, too. Third, I asked that he not serve images from Wikitravel embedded in the mirror site pages (for bandwidth reasons); he's complied with that.

I think it's important to remember that letting people republish the guides is one of our goals. Open Content means we want people to mirror, redistribute, rewrite and republish the work we do here. The whole idea is to make more travel information available to more people, after all.

That said, it's important that republishers comply with the license. It's only fair to Wikitravel contributors that their work be reshared in the same spirit it was created in. One of my main tasks right now is making our content easier for people to mirror while still complying with the license. --(WT-en) Evan 12:00, 30 Mar 2004 (EST)

Cool. Sounds like a balanced approach. I'm glad he's interested in complying. Since you're in touch with him perhaps mention that he should be sending a UTF-8 header. -- (WT-en) Mark

I am not a lawyer, but if I read the license correctly, paragraph 7.a. means he's no longer allowed to make use of any wikitravel material since he is already in violation of the license. -- (WT-en) Nils 19:05, 30 Mar 2004 (EST)

I'd also like to point out that he has not changed the copyright notice yet. How hard can that be? -- (WT-en) Nils 19:23, 2 Apr 2004 (EST)

No response occurred (in the form of textual modifications on the Web site to represent the clear label of CCPL-sa) due to lack of communication, I was only contacted by Evans once in the above set of comments time span. -- (WT-en) Zeeshan M 16:07, 19 Apr 2004 (EDT)

I notice that nothing has changed on the mirror. I'd really like to see that copyright notice change pretty much now, so if you could send the guy another note that would be great. -- (WT-en) Mark 09:09, 6 Apr 2004 (EDT)

I've sent him a message too, advising him on paragraph 7.a. and asking him to stop distributing wikitravel material. Let's make an example out of this guy. I hate those who steal other's work. -- (WT-en) Nils 11:11, 6 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Wha? Wikitravel is open content. What are we here for if not to create information that lots of people can read, redistribute, and use? The guy screwed up the license terms, which are hard. I want to make the new-frontier site an example, all right: an example of how to comply with the license and make an honest mirror. Being hostile doesn't help that.

If we make a Web site that cannot be redistributed or re-used, we have failed, and failed miserably. --(WT-en) Evan 11:31, 6 Apr 2004 (EDT)

For what it's worth, that's what I meant. I just would like for him to change the copyright notice, not take the content down. I also meant to ask Evan to communicate with the guy, since he had already been in contact. Sorry I was so terribly unclear. When I re-read my comment it does sound like I was asking Nils to send a note. Sorry. -- (WT-en) Mark 11:38, 6 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Read your own license. 7.a. says quite clearly, if the lciense is violated, it is revoked. This guy has no right whatsoever to distribute our content, since he has violated our license. Since fixing the copyright notice takes about ten minutes with a global find and replace, I have to assume that he intentionally violates the license. Ergo he should NOT be allowed to distribute our content. -- (WT-en) Nils 13:14, 6 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Okay, that was really badly phrased. Think you get my meaning tho. Anyway, just to let you know, I'll pause any contribution to wikitravel until this mess has been sorted out. Evan's comment does not really fulfill me with hope that my work is protected and appreciated. If any oddball can just come along, take the work we do here and slap his own copyright on it - to sell google adds, no less! - then this that's utterly wrong. I'll return when it has been shown that my work will not be misappropriated. -- (WT-en) Nils 13:31, 6 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Your contributions are extremely appreciated, Nils. You've been an excellent contributor and your thoughts on important issues facing our guide have been invaluable.

If what you're mad about is that the guy is re-using content from Wikitravel, well, I'm sorry it wasn't clear to you that that was an option. Anyone, even bad people, can take our work here, rebrand it, and use it to sell ads. That's part of the deal. I think it's pretty clear on the copyleft page that your work can be used for commercial ventures. I don't call that 'theft' -- I call it "Free Culture".

If what you're mad about is that the guy isn't conforming strictly to the by-sa, well, I think it's going to be a lot easier and less expensive to get him to conform than to get him to shut down. I would really love to have a good example of someone re-using our content, and I would really hate to set the precedent that anyone re-distributing stuff almost but not quite right will have to take it down.

If what you're mad about is that we don't have clear guidelines on how to re-distribute Wikitravel content, or the infrastructure to deal with people who violate the license, well, that goes straight on my plate. As of right now it is my #1 priority to make it easy to redistribute Wikitravel content in compliance with our license.

Let me say that I think the people who contribute to Wikitravel are the most generous and amazing people in the entire world. I think that what they ask in return for sharing their knowledge -- that they get attribution, and that the work stays free -- is not too much to ask. I don't have a lot of legal standing to do so, but I want to make sure that they at least get that respect.

So, I have to ask, Nils: is there any way that travel.new-frontier.info can stay up, and you can be happy? Or is it now 7a all the way? Is the only solution a complete takedown?

By the way, it seems that the copyright notice has been changed to "Copyright 2003-2004 Zeeshan Muhammad. All rights reserved. Main content is licensed under CCPL-sa, contributed by Wikitravel.". It's a step in the right direction, at least. It begs the question of whether the pages on travel.new-frontier.info are derivative works or composite works under our license. I'm not a lawyer and I think it could go either way.

Anyways: thanks for bringing up the issue. --(WT-en) Evan 16:39, 6 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Hey, Evan, whatever you've said to Zeeshan seems to have gotten through. He's apparently re-writing his mirror script and has taken the content down in the meantime. I'll be looking forward to seeing it back up with the correct copyright notice and attributions.

The Web site was disabled as a sign of respect to Nils - as he seems to be a major contributor to this community based Web site. I was made aware of this Wiki thread via my log referrer information. No contact was made by Evan requesting this action. -- (WT-en) Zeeshan M 16:07, 19 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Actually if he were to contribute his mirror script back to the community, now wouldn't that be a lovely thing. ;) -- (WT-en) Mark 01:23, 7 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Evan it's not about rebranding. It's not about selling ads. What makes his behaviour totally unacceptable is that he claims copyright for our work. He does not own that copyright. Not one bit of it. He even had All rights reserved in the tagline, if I remember correctly. The fact that he is doing it out of greed only makes it so much worse, because it means he didn't do it by accident, it was done on pupose. If you cannot see how that is wrong, then I am at an utter loss for words.

Remember, according to the license he has to re-publish his own additions under the same license as well (I am not a lawyer, I am at work, I am annoyed, and I am in no mood to re-read legalese). The only way - in my opinion, which does not amount to all that much when it comes to legal matters - is that he puts the creative commons license under the articles, then attributes wikitravel, and then - maybe - he could claim a copyright for the presentation. Only, presentations are not copyrightable, it's a matter of trademark law if I am correct. If he wants to give himself credit, he can explicitely do so for layout and the mirror script, and of course for any additions he himself writes as long as they're also released under the share-alike license.

But claiming copyright for our content, sorry, that is just not possible. I am sorry I had to raise a stink about it. It's the first known license violation though and in my view it's a lot better to act decisively and set an example than to be lenient and try the catch-up game later on. (He did have a week to fix the copyright notice which I think is more than enough to read man sed.) -- (WT-en) Nils 04:29, 7 Apr 2004 (EDT)

He has done approximately the same with Wiktionary but puts the licencing info in a legal page that is not immediately visible. Tends to blow his credibility out of the water once you read the fine print. I suspect the guy does not even understand what copyright is let alone respect it. Mind you he may be in a country where this is completely legal. -- (WT-en) Huttite 11:05, 16 Apr 2004 (EDT)

View my response to such remarks by Nils and Huttite regarding Open Dictionary: Wiktionary: License discussion -- (WT-en) Zeeshan M 16:07, 19 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Theft The Second

edit

Moved from travellers' pub by (WT-en) Evan

Compare Vienna and http://unseenland.com/europe/schengen/index.php?itemid=40

Or Germany and http://unseenland.com/europe/schengen/index.php?itemid=44

Now, I don't know who copied whom on Vienna, but I know what I wrote and that Germany stuff is stolen from WikiTravel. Here we have our second infringement case. They also blatantly violate our license. Who wants to take them down? -- (WT-en) Nils 08:15, 15 Apr 2004 (EDT)

How about this time we concentrate on trying to get them to do it right, instead of "taking them down". -- (WT-en) Mark 09:49, 15 Apr 2004 (EDT)

They also stole Canada, USA, and Brazil. -(WT-en) phma 09:58, 15 Apr 2004 (EDT)

I've sent email to the person listed in whois as the administrative contact asking that they include author names and the license notice. I've also added a page with info on How to re-use Wikitravel guides. Hopefully this gets easier in the future.

I'm also going to ask once again that we dial down the rhetoric a bit. I don't think "theft" and "stolen" are really appropriate terms for incorrectly re-distributing a Free travel guide. A 100% free travel guide is one of our goals. I am not happy with the idea of scaring off any re-distributors who fear upset Wikitravel editors.

Let's AssumeGoodFaith and concentrate on bringing redistributors into compliance with our license rather than branding them as thieves. --(WT-en) Evan 11:11, 15 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Right. Copyright infringement and license violation. The idea is the same, though. And, Evan, if you want a 100% free travel guide, you should have made it in the public domain. Wait, even then it's arguably not 100% free, because sticking your own copyright on public domain material is still 'illegal' (ianal, hence the quotation marks. But I am absolutely sure you can not take someone else's work out of public domain and claim it as your own). There's a hell of a big difference between "we make this available for free" and "we let every greedy freeloader screw us over". I would be a lot more lenient if these people would not run sites with obvious commercial ambitions. -- (WT-en) Nils 15:43, 15 Apr 2004 (EDT)

I find both of these cases amusing.

Neither of the operators of these sites seems to understand how Wiki media works. They must have heard about Wikitravel and thought "Cool, free travel guides I can snarf!" and put it up, either a) deliberately ignoring the licensing, figuring that being non-commercial nobody would bother catching them, or b) not understanding the license. But... did they even bother looking at the content? I would be embarrassed to do what these sites did, and if I came across such a website not knowing it was taken from Wikitravel, I would think it was the most amateurish, incomplete, crappiest travel guide I had ever seen!

But if you know its from Wiki, it's all right because Wiki content has a kind of inherent disclaimer. You know it's incomplete and probably inaccurate in places, but that's all right because you also know that people are always working on it and it'll get up to decent level in the future (just like open-source software).

I think both of these sites, and anyone who tries to do something similar in the future, will soon find out that it's not worth it to put up comprehensive travel guides taken (even following the license) from Wikitravel. The content is too incomplete and changes too fast. Even right now, you know that anyone looking at these sites, as soon as they know the content comes from Wikitravel, will never go there again -- they'll go straight to the source. There's absolutely no market for Wiki mirrors.

I think the best model, perhaps the only viable one, for outside distribution of Wikitravel is individual, coherent articles, by sites with content from various sources. Or in print form by businesses in locations mentioned in the guide itself.

I'm making a bold prediction here, but when Wikitravel content gets as good as the commercial travel guides, it will be so well known that people will automatically assume that if it's not Lonely Planet or Rough Guide, it's Wikitravel. Heck, maybe sites will claim that their original content is from Wikitravel to give it legitimacy.

So I wouldn't worry much about taking down (Nils) or accommodating (Evan) sites like this other than the bare minimum necessary to enforce the license. (It's great that you're doing so.) Otherwise, let them wither away on their own. -- (WT-en) Paul Richter 05:00, 16 Apr 2004 (EDT)

A simple solution for http://unseenland.com/ is to visit the site for your favourite Wikitravel article and post a comment that the source and most up to date and functional version of the article being read is at http://www.wikitravel.org/ . You can post a comment with a full URL that is recognised and displayed on the page! Will have an interesting effect with google searches as it will potentially increase the pagerank of Wikitravel pages! -- (WT-en) Huttite 11:05, 16 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Imakoo

edit

Imakoo is using an old copy of Wikitravel in their "Imakoopedia", with no attribution or linkage of any kind. I have sent a seminastygram to [1]. (WT-en) Jpatokal 08:17, 9 Feb 2005 (EST)

D00d! I hope it wasn't too nasty, because they've got the attribution. Scroll down. -- (WT-en) Mark 08:31, 9 Feb 2005 (EST)

hmmm.. But it's kind of broken... (Like most of the pages there)

 This page was last modified 23:22, 12 Nov 2004 by Evan Prodromou. 
 Based on work by Mark Jaroski, Imakoopedia user(s) Jpatokal and Huttite, 
 Anonymous user(s) of Imakoopedia and others

Try clicking on others of Main_Page -- (WT-en) JanSlupski 08:43, 9 Feb 2005 (EST)

Err, that's totally broken in my book, since it doesn't say "Wikitravel" or link back anywhere. (WT-en) Jpatokal 08:47, 9 Feb 2005 (EST)

Look, these guys are so close to getting it right. Redistribution is one of our goals. We should be politely trying to encourage these guys to fix their mirror, and even offering to help, as opposed to being nasty with them and demanding they take it down or anything like that. -- (WT-en) Mark 08:49, 9 Feb 2005 (EST)

Hmmm again. How to re-use Wikitravel guides says:

 Every page on Wikitravel has a credits block at the end of the page; 
 this should be sufficient for attribution. (...)

If this sentence is not wrong, they are actuall all right. BTW. Do they need to link back or mention Wikitravel? Or just article authors? -- (WT-en) JanSlupski 09:00, 9 Feb 2005 (EST)

I've changed the re-use guide to note that if there's too many authors, there's an overflow page, and that has to be provided. Also, it's inaccurate to call, say, Jpatokal "Imakoopedia user Jpatokal" or any of the anonymous users "Anonymous users of Imakoopedia". But, yes, they're darn close.

As for link back: there is no link-back requirement. Wikitravel, as an entity, has only marginal authority to control distribution of articles -- we control the server, so we can ask that people not abuse that machine's facilities (by framing or mass slurping). But Wikitravel is not a party to the copyright agreement.

Another note: I have a todo to put image credits on-page, too. --(WT-en) Evan 09:27, 9 Feb 2005 (EST)

See my idea how to make attribution easier. -- (WT-en) JanSlupski 10:28, 9 Feb 2005 (EST)

FYI, I never got a reply to my seminastygram, but a "Content based on Wikitravel" linkback has now appeared at the bottom of each page. (WT-en) Jpatokal 21:22, 2 Mar 2005 (EST)

Goneto...

edit

Gonetotravel (http://www.goingtofrance.net, gonetoeurope.net, gonetoasia.net, http://www.gonetojapan.com, etc) is using a copy of Wikitravel in their articles with no attribution. (Press release of the launch) --(WT-en) Quirk 07:29, 3 Mar 2005 (EST)

Here's the guy to blame:

Stephen Joyce

Secret Agent Enterprises Inc.

Phone: (604) 929-8110

Fax: (604) 983-0079

E-mail: media.support@secret-agent.com

I'm sending him a nicegram asking him to provide attribution (as required by the license), a link to the Edit pages (because it would be nice), and alter their Terms of Use (esp. section 11) to comply with CC-SA 1.0 (not 2.0 as they incorrectly link). (WT-en) Jpatokal 07:57, 3 Mar 2005 (EST)

Woo! Stephen replied promptly and agreed to:

1. Add the credit block for pages that use wikitravel content.

2. Include a link back to the original editable wikitravel content page

3. Update the terms of use to exclude content from wikitravel as part

of the Intellectual property clause.

4. Update the CC-SA to 1.0 not 2.0

So they will be compliant and link back too, which means we just got 120+ domains of additional Google linkage. Excellent! They promised to have the changes done by the end of the month. (WT-en) Jpatokal 01:35, 4 Mar 2005 (EST)

Artesix

edit

Not sure about this one: http://artesix.blogspot.com/2005/02/travel-budapest-for-pestistentialists.html It says "Read the rest of the guide: “The Worst of Budapest” (WOB)

Budapest guide courtesy Wikitravel Content from “Worst of Budapest” Pestiside.com" Kinda a confusing copyright blocks... is it worth contacting them? (WT-en) Majnoona 15:21, 27 Mar 2005 (EST)

Japanese Lifestyle

edit

This one popped up in the referrer log: [2]. They state (Article based on Wikitravel article and may be copied freely - pictures are copyright), which is not quite correct, although they do provide a linkback.

Legal question of the day: if somebody take CC content, modifies it and publishes it without acknowledging the CC license, can we snarf back their modifications? (WT-en) Jpatokal 13:46, 5 May 2005 (EDT)

I sent a letter about this one today! The funny thing is that they link back to Tokyo, not Kyoto. --(WT-en) Evan

Find me Melbourne

edit

[3] has a couple of pages of Melbourne content and not attribution, just a link back. They also dont have any way to respond to their content or otherwise contact them (the "respond" and "contact" links go nowhere)... suggestions? (WT-en) Majnoona 22:28, 6 Jun 2005 (EDT)

Hi this is Hone Watson from FindMelbourne.com. At the bottom of the wikitravel info I used their is a link back to Wikitravel and the title of the link is 'Wikitravel'. I have the creative commons license on my page (just like every page on my site). I thought I had followed all of the guidelines. What else is required?

I've looked at your instructions but I can't find the authors to the specific info I used. If you want people to use your info correctly you've got to make it as easy as possible for them to do it correctly.

Otherwise they will make mistakes.

I recommend you have a specific *example* of the format you want rather than some convoluted instructions which could have easily been written by a lawyer. (People in the real world don't understand lawyer speak.)

By the way a link back to your site is of far more value for building referral traffic and the page rank value of your site than a list of wiki usernames.

My question is, who wrote the info that I used?

iPREPpress -- Wikitravel for iPods?

edit

Anybody got an iPod out there? According to this article, these guys are using Wikitravel content, but there sure aren't any attributions on their pages. (WT-en) Jpatokal 00:03, 30 Jul 2005 (EDT)

iVia Guides for Pocket PC

edit

Up next, iVia Guides. They openly note that their City Guides — currently just London and Guatemala City — use Wikitravel content, but not a word about licensing. $8.99 a pop. (WT-en) Jpatokal 00:19, 30 Jul 2005 (EDT)

Some non-compliant sites

edit

These guys seem to be violating copyleft all over the place. See here for example. They are crediting Wikipedia and releasing the information under GNU!

These folks too aren't crediting or linking back.

Travelers Guide Mexico. No link back and no acknowledgement.

Hope someone picks these up, because I haven't the time.

-- (WT-en) Ravikiran 02:43, 12 Sep 2005 (EDT)

http://zza.okien.pl/ cuts off credit block --(WT-en) JanSlupski 16:02, 22 Oct 2005 (EDT)
http://www.traveltst.ca/ has some imports with credit/license info, but others without (only a note: Copyright 2003, Times Square Travel Ltd.) --(WT-en) JanSlupski 07:42, 23 Nov 2005 (EST)

http://www.visa-bulletin.com/travel-guide/

Bravenet

edit

I sent an message to these guys to ask that they come into compliance. -- (WT-en) Colin 20:50, 2 Feb 2006 (EST)

The site you are refering to is my site, and used similar elements when writing my WikiTravel article about the same area. I have now altered my web site so it has different content to WikiTravel. Hopefully this solves any problems you had. -- (WT-en) leggb 13:07, 2 Feb 2006 (GMT)

If it's 100% your own material then you of course can do whatever you want with it. Nevermind us.

Also, you could always just add the appropriate attribution and license notice and then use any Wikitravel Guide you want wholesale. Those two things are the only requirement. -- (WT-en) Mark 08:22, 3 Feb 2006 (EST)

A Great Fare

edit

These guys [4] don't have full attribution... (WT-en) Majnoona 16:51, 12 April 2006 (EDT)

magicaljourneys.com

edit

See examples on Talk:Washington, D.C. -- (WT-en) Jonboy 20:54, 5 May 2006 (EDT)

HotelsK.net

edit

(WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) found this: [5] which is pretty obviously using Wikitravel content without attribution. It looks like it was copied and adapted by hand (all the URLs are in parentheses, only parts of the page are used), and so far the only city on their site that they've done this for so far (that I found) is Berlin. It also looks like it's a fairly old version of the article. But they're definitely failing the attribution requirement of CC-BY-SA. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 10:15, 2 June 2006 (EDT)

At least they should have used a more updated version and a better format! But it's great to see that it's worth stealing ;-)) (WT-en) Jan 10:43, 5 June 2006 (EDT)

Travel Guide 4 all

edit

http://www.xy.com.pl/travel/ This template must be substituted.

www.coroner.pl

edit

http://www.coroner.pl/travel/en/ -- seems to be the same folks (WT-en) Majnoona 16:48, 13 July 2006 (EDT)

coroner.pl has ripped off 10 language versions with no attribution.

See

I'll try to send them an email in a few days. -- (WT-en) Andrew H. (Sapphire) 19:55, 1 January 2007 (EST)

Actually, they do have pretty clear "Retrieved from Wikitravel page X" links at the bottom of each page? (This isn't what the CC license wants, of course, but it's a stab in the right direction.) (WT-en) Jpatokal 23:07, 1 January 2007 (EST)

Whois information

edit

Albert Jerka, Andrzej Kostrzewa
ul. Sosnowa 6a
71-468 Szczecin
Polska/Poland

+48.91 4243780
domena@az.pl

www.maxtravelz.com

edit

http://www.maxtravelz.com

They seem to have attribution at the bottom of the page -- am I missing something? (WT-en) Maj 23:33, 12 August 2006 (EDT)

look here

They sure don't have attribution on the Cincinnati article. Criminals! -- Sapphire

www.guide360.com

edit

http://www.guide360.com

The Travelati Group apparently runs the website or owns it. I'm going to send an email to the person who registered the domain whose name is Adam Corey. -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 19:02, 10 September 2006 (EDT)

I contacted Mr. Corey and he's added the CC-by-SA 1.0 disclaimer saying that the content from Wikitravel is also available under the CC-by-SA 1.0 license.

Also, he's attempted to attribute the work by including the statement: "The content on this page was produced as a collaborative work from contributors of Wikitravel. You can view this most recent version of this article, as well as a history of changes and authors who have contributed, on Wikitravel.org and also related content on Wikipedia.org."

Does that cover him and the Travelati Group on the attribution requirement or does he need to also add the name of the authors? -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 14:56, 11 September 2006 (EDT)

I think he has to have the names of the authors; see Project:How to re-use Wikitravel guides. --(WT-en) Evan 16:22, 11 September 2006 (EDT)

www.did-you-mean.com

edit

http://www.did-you-mean.com

CouchSurfing

edit

This is probably the most famous service to improperly redistribute our content. First off, there's absolutely no attribution of the authors. Two, it seems like they are licensing it under CC-by-SA 1.0 and GNU FDL. See [6], [7], [8] and [9]. -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 15:11, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

I'm having a difficult time looking at this, because I keep getting redirected to Hitchwiki.org. When I hit "Stop" quickly enough, it looks like they're embedding that site, Wikipedia, and this site in each page. Weird. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 07:49, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

vinagold.com

edit

http://vinagold.com - http://www.google.com.my/search?q=site%3Avinagold.com&num=100 ~ 60.51.204.185 03:06, 4 May 2007 (EDT)

Maxtravelz.com

edit

Archived from the Pub:

Why is there a page on the web that is completely linked to Wikitravel? Is this OK? It is not current but it is much of Wikitravel cached. See it here.

See Project talk:Non-compliant_redistribution#www.maxtravelz.com

Wikitravel dating service?

edit

Archived from the Pub:

Can anyone tell me what the heck this[10] is? --(WT-en) Peterfitzgerald ^Talk 15:59, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Hey! Cool! This takes the word "community" to a whole new level! -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 16:15, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Ok, seriously, I think they're trying to piggyback off of us thereby increasing that site's Google rank. They say the content is available under GNU FDL. How exactly did you find it? -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 16:17, 9 March 2007 (EST)

I was trying to use google to find any wikitravel pages regarding my automated logout times question ;) --(WT-en) Peterfitzgerald ^Talk 16:21, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Are you using Internet Explorer 6? -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 16:32, 9 March 2007 (EST)

No, I've been using a current version of Firefox. --(WT-en) Peterfitzgerald ^Talk 18:47, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Their motto (like ours): the Traveler Comes First.™ - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 18:03, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Awesome, Todd. -- (WT-en) Jsharpminor • (Talk) • 09:40, 6 June 2007 (EST)

Tripzard

edit

http://www.tripzard.com/

Can someone let me know what Tripzard needs to do to be in compliant? I cited Wikitravel whenever any content was referenced, I was hoping to provide Wikitravel with more popularity, but I will gladly remove anything that is in violation? (WT-en) ry0ohki 19:01, 24 Sept 2007 (EDT)

Really the only thing that jumps out at me is that the CC-by-SA license requires that all redistributed content both include a link to the CC-by-SA license and credit the original authors by listing their names (or usernames when real names are not available). Please see Project:How to re-use Wikitravel guides for more information. So no need to remove content, it's just a matter of providing licensing information and attribution. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 19:49, 24 September 2007 (EDT)

Travature

edit

http://www.travature.com/

This definitely looks like a good faith mirror, but it ~~does not as of yet have proper attribution.~~ The article I checked was the guide to Chicago. When proper attribution is worked out, it should be noted here. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 01:53, 13 September 2007 (EDT)

They do have attribution, it's just hidden in the history page: [11]. They've also unilaterally upped the license version to 3.0.

It's not a mirror though, it's a fork. If you click on the "Edit" buttons, you edit their local copies. (WT-en) Jpatokal 02:12, 13 September 2007 (EDT)

They do have attribution, ~~but not proper attribution—(WT-en) Mark should certainly be on the Chicago history/attribution page.~~ --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 02:18, 13 September 2007 (EDT)

~~Yeah, the history only shows who has modified the article since it was imported to their site~~ (Update: my bad, didn't notice the authors in the left nav). It looks like they got the content from Wikitravel using the Special:Export tool to get the current version, and that tool doesn't provide contributor history. Yet another argument for providing proper database dumps... -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 02:53, 13 September 2007 (EDT)

Hi Guys, Jeremy here from Travature. We actually manually remade the content (no tool). You can read my story about why we didn't use a dump in the Datadump talk section. We have quite a few from our team working on it, but its a slow process thats open for human errors. On our site when you go to the article history, there should be two things on the right main column it shows all authors since we received the article. On the left hand side it shows all authors from Wikitravel and World66 that were awesome enough to start the guide before we began working on it. Like I said, this is manual, so I've seen instances where my team has missed a person when they are copying and pasting the author list from wikitravel. From what I can tell Chicago has all the right wikitravel authors listed (Peter and Mark are listed), however maybe theirs a mistake or a typo somewhere?? We will definitely fix any an all author omissions made.-- (WT-en) Jeremy ^(talk) 02:53, 12 September 2007 (EDT)

So it is, my mistake. Good luck to you! --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 03:20, 13 September 2007 (EDT)

I can't believe you're doing that manually! boggle Eg. the Pywikipediabot framework works just fine with Wikitravel, and it can extract a pretty comma-separated list of all contributors to an article with a single command. (WT-en) Jpatokal 06:40, 13 September 2007 (EDT)

Did it manually because we wanted to change the format. Nothing against the WT format, but part of the difference of vision on our end is reviews for restaurants and hotels so we had to pull out some sections. We also wanted the summarys separate so we could use them with maps and such. Plus in the long run we want the tone and style to change so we just thought it made sense to look over content as we brought it in. Of course this is why we have 1/50th of the WT articles. An XML dump could have meant we could automate part of the process, but no worries. Thanks for the suggesstion though. And just to reiterate, if any body finds an article where we missed an author or something Please Let Me Know! Hopefully in the long run, we'll be able to build content on our end, that you WT folks might find valuable enough to use here. - (WT-en) Jeremy 12:49, 13 September 2007 (PDT)

myvacationsto

edit

http://www.myvacationsto.com/wiki

Non compliant: as of yet no attribution, no licensing information, and not so much as an acknowledgment that the content is from WT. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 20:02, 24 September 2007 (EDT)

Bangkok Trader

edit

Issue 11, October 2007 - page 12 "Getting In, Out, and All Around Bangkok" is copied straight from Bangkok#Get in and Bangkok#Get around. No attribution, no licensing information, no mention whatsoever.

Managing director: Alan S. Verstein
Editor/Director: Eric A. Nernberg

CS wiki

edit

There's work from Wikitravel on the CouchSurfing wiki, I'd like to see them adopt the Creative Commons license instead of removing it though. (WT-en) guaka 13:32, 7 October 2007 (EDT)

Vinagold

edit

Our content, real time embedded but with license, attribution and any mention of wikitravel dropped. Don't see any contact details. --(WT-en) NJR_ZA 18:01, 12 October 2007 (EDT)

http://www.world-travel-guide.net

edit

Copy of wikitravel at some stage in the past, but without license and attribution. --(WT-en) NJR_ZA 02:33, 13 October 2007 (EDT)

http://www.oceanru.com/travel/Main_Page

edit

Very old copy of wikitravel. No license, no attribution. --(WT-en) NJR_ZA 02:35, 13 October 2007 (EDT)

http://www.eurochallenges.com/dating/Main_Page

edit

Current copy of wikitravel, but with all content relicensed as GFDL. --(WT-en) NJR_ZA 02:38, 13 October 2007 (EDT)

http://www.1blueplanet.net

edit

Multiple copyright violations from various sources, including wikitravel [12]. Claimed as Copyright 2007. Designed by 1Blueplanet. No CC-By-SA license, no attribution --(WT-en) NJR_ZA 03:17, 13 October 2007 (EDT)

http://www.nordictravelguides.com/

edit

Copies of Wikitravel content re: the Nordic countries, no license or attribution. (WT-en) Jpatokal 06:49, 11 November 2007 (EST)

Fixed. (WT-en) Jpatokal 02:15, 30 October 2009 (EDT)

http://www.northernmarianaislandscrawler.com/

edit

All the links they list which end in "Travel Guide" mirror Wikitravel and show no license or attribution. -- (WT-en) OldPine 16:01, 23 November 2007 (EST)

Etriptips.com

edit

Yet another. http://www.etriptips.com/wiki/Cincinnati -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 05:07, 17 December 2007 (EST)

Now this one is interesting, see [13]. Seems that the software they are using to power their site is actually owned by Internet Brands. What a cheek, use IB software to redistribute content that you have stolen from an IB website.

No working contact email on the site, so I've send the domain administrator (as provided by whois) an email requesting compliance or content removal. Should they fail to respond, I'll create an account on their wiki and start deleting all content that I contributed. --(WT-en) Nick 15:33, 29 February 2008 (EST)

I have received a reply from etriptips on the compliance request I have send them. They have committed to remedy the situation (quote We fully intent to remedy this situation to everyone's satisfaction in the coming days) and promised to provide feedback in the next couple days. I'll keep and eye on the progress and report back here. --(WT-en) Nick 01:31, 2 March 2008 (EST)

perfectescapes.com

edit

Their entire world travel guide is copied from Wikitravel -- click through to the cities and you'll get intros, see, do, eat etc. No acknowledgements or attribution of any kind and full copyright claimed for themselves. (WT-en) Jpatokal 05:28, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

Fixed -- copyright notices appended to bottom. (WT-en) Jpatokal 00:45, 1 October 2009 (EDT)

wiki dot travel dot com

edit

Pretty sleazy bunch. Can't find any published contact info either, although mails to webmaster@travel.com and rik.brown@travel.com did go through. (WT-en) Jpatokal 00:42, 1 October 2009 (EDT)

Got a reply saying that they'll take down the content until they can fix it. (WT-en) Jpatokal 22:19, 8 October 2009 (EDT)

Earth.org

edit

Earth.org[15] are reusing parts of our content, apparently they have an automated import proccess in place. But it's still in beta, all user content is under a CC license (3.0), and they seem like a fairly friendly bunch.

I left a note on the blog telling about the missing CC identifier on their pages, that the lack of attribution is a problem, as well as outlining the CC 1.0 vs 3.0 issue.

Got a response, and they will look into it, I've no reason not to trust them, but I wouldn't hurt checking back in a month or two and see if they are in compliance. --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) ^talk 16:14, 29 October 2009 (EDT)

Nanuk's

edit

[16] uses content lifted straight from Nusa Lembongan with no attribution. Emails to the owner and messages on the relevant WT user page are unanswered. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 04:13, 30 October 2009 (EDT)

Travellerspoint.com Jodphur

edit

[17] calls itself the Jodphur Wiki Travel Guide and lifts some WT content. I cannot see any attribution. And they re-licence as by-sa/3.0/. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 10:43, 11 December 2009 (EST)

Hi, I'm Peter, one of the administrators of Travellerspoint. We actively discourage that kind of behaviour, so it's unfortunate if one of our members has copied stuff from here anyway. As I'm sure you understand though, we are reliant on the efforts of our contributors and it is not a trivial task to verify whether members have the right to copy content. For instance, it's possible that they wrote this content on their own site first and then copied it to both Wikitravel and Travellerspoint. Chasing this down for every sentence in our guide is not a realistic task. Are you game to find out where the content first appeared? It appears in a lot of places other than WT as well, often under copyright even. If you like, you're more than welcome to edit out anything that you can verify has been copied to our site against the terms of your license. --203.206.165.46 20:45, 16 December 2009 (EST)

This is indeed a problem not unique to your site—we deal with the same. Thank you for stopping by to explain. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 01:27, 17 December 2009 (EST)

inusa.us

edit

Hello! I'm GorillaWarfare (User:GorillaWarfare at Wikipedia). I was dealing with a copyvio problem on a Wikipedia page and found [18], which appears to be a non-compliant website. I'd contact the owner myself, but because I'm not a frequent contributor to Wikitravel, I'd probably forget about it. (WT-en) GorillaWarfare 22:15, 10 January 2011 (EST)

wikitravel.com.au

edit

Uses wikitravel content, and claims their own copyright over user submitted material. Notification sent to website has had no response. --(WT-en) inas 22:23, 10 January 2011 (EST)

Optiqal Books

edit

This publisher sells eBook travel guides made of the wiki pages. I checked Ubud and Dubai.

http://www.amazon.de/s?_encoding=UTF8&search-alias=digital-text&field-author=Optiqal%20Books

You can see a fuller (perhaps full?) list of Opitqal travel books available for Kindle here: http://books.blogkindle.com/a/Optiqal+Books/2. Looking at the front cover photos, I suspect all have Wikitravel content. Nothing wrong with that at all, providing the correct attribution is provided. Has anyone purchased one of these so we can check?--(WT-en) Burmesedays 00:27, 4 August 2011 (EDT)

： I haven't, but from the sample pages, they are exact copy of the wikiTravel content. If you are browsing the US site instead (amazon.com vs amazon.de), you'll see the sample pages. No credit is given to wikitravel; no attribution. Is there a way to contact amazon? (WT-en) Jianhuang 01:53, 9 October 2011 (EDT)

ProGuides iPhone apps

edit

This company has produced about 200 apps for various individual destinations using Wikitravel content, selling them separately for $1-$5 each. Pretty shady if you ask me, considering the fact that iTravelFree will give you the whole she-bang for free, but I suppose it's not necessarily illegal, depending on its implementation. On the description pages of that website, they write "All rights reserved 2009. Content Provided by Wiki Travel," but of course that isn't enough, and I don't know how it is implemented within the apps themselves. Has anyone checked this out? (WT-en) texugo 01:01, 4 October 2011 (EDT)