Yup, Wikipedia wants your images, I just learned this from another photographer the other day and thought I was too good not to share.
Before you start uploading images "willy nilly" it is important to understand one (big) thing "You have to license them under a copyright license that allows anyone (including 3rd parties not affiliated with Wikipedia) to copy and use them, for any purpose, including commercially. These licenses are irrevocable."
They suggest using Creative Commons.
You can read more details about submitting images at their "The professional photographers guide to contributing images to Wikipedia" page.
Why on earth would you want to irrevocably license one of your images for ever and ever? Because as part of the the image credit Wikipedia provides is your name AND a link to your website, that could be HUGE exposure. HUGE!
You can also upload lo res images making them pretty much useless for anything other than the purpose they were uploaded and intended for.
Here are a few more links that you may find useful if getting exposure to a bazillion people worldwide is of interest to you:
The Wikipedia Commons Upload Page
The Wikipedia Fulfilling a Request Page
Wikipedia Featured Pictures
One last thing, you have several ways to upload your images (like to a general "pool" of images for them to cull through), or go to a specific category/post (like your town, state, etc.) and submit images specifically for it.
I went to the state of Maine Wiki page (and this is similar for all pages) and towards the very bottom of the post is this "Edit" box:
By clicking on the "Images and Media" you will be taken to the page that allows you to upload images.
One last thing, you will not be able to upload picture anonymously, you do need to create a Wikipedia account.
4 comments:
Thanks for the post, great info. I have mixed feelings about this tho...at least they are being up front about what could happen with the images that are submitted.
And let’s face it, if folks really want to snag one of your images from the web they are going to, and the upside of this regarding the potential exposure (a slight pun intended) I think makes it worth the risk.
This is great news! I was just reading another article about how getting photos submitted to WiKi can be a huge resource for web traffic but the article failed to mention how to go about it. Thanks for the great insights.
I think you have observed some very interesting details, regfards for
the post.
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