Wikipedia:Copyrights
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The goal of Wikipedia is to create an information source in an encyclopedia format that is freely available. The license we use grants free access to our content in the same sense as free software is licensed freely. This principle is known as copyleft. That is to say, Wikipedia content can be copied, modified, and redistributed so long as the new version grants the same freedoms to others and acknowledges the authors of the Wikipedia article used (a direct link back to the article satisfies our author credit requirement). Wikipedia articles therefore will remain free forever and can be used by anybody subject to certain restrictions, most of which serve to ensure that freedom.
To fulfill the above goals, the text contained in Wikipedia is licensed to the public under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). The full text of this license is at Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License.
- Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.
- A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
- Content on Wikipedia is covered by disclaimers.
The text of the GFDL is the only legally binding document; what follows is our interpretation of the GFDL: the rights and obligations of users and contributors.
IMPORTANT: If you want to use content from Wikipedia, first read the Users' rights and obligations section. You should then read the GNU Free Documentation License.
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1.1 Example notice |
Users' rights and obligations
If you want to use Wikipedia materials in your own books/articles/web sites or other publications, you can do so, but you have to follow the GFDL. If you are simply duplicating the Wikipedia article, you must follow section 2 of the GFDL on verbatim copying, as discussed at wikipedia:verbatim copying.
If you create a derivative version by changing or adding content, this entails the following:
- your materials in turn have to be licensed under GFDL,
- you must acknowledge the authorship of the article (section 4B), and
- you must provide access to the "transparent copy" of the material (section 4J). (The "transparent copy" of a Wikipedia article is its wiki text.)
As discussed below in the section direct link-backs as a compliance option, we will regard the latter obligations as fulfilled if you provide a conspicuous link back to the original article at Wikipedia.org.
Example notice
An example notice, for an article that uses the Wikipedia article Foo might read as follows:
- This article is licensed under the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html">GNU Free Documentation License</a>. It uses material from the <a href="http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo">Wikipedia article "Foo"</a>.
("Foo" and the Wikipedia URL must of course be substituted accordingly.)
Alternatively you can distribute your copy of Foo along with a copy of the GFDL (as explained in the text) and list at least five (or all if fewer than five) principal authors on the title page (or top of the document).
In order to be as free as possible (see free content), Wikipedia contains no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, no Back-Cover Texts, no Endorsements, no Acknowledgements, and no Dedications. Therefore, sections 4-G and 4-L, 4-M, and 4-N and any other section dealing with these items in the GNU FDL does not apply to the use of our content. This does not prevent you from exercising your right to add Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts, and/or Back-Cover Texts to versions of our pages that you copy and modify.
Definitions and trademarks
We consider each Wikipedia page (an article is also a page) to be defined as what the GNU FDL calls a Document.
We consider the page history of each Wikipedia page to be the section entitled "History" mentioned in the GNU FDL. We also consider the page history as our list of authors for each Wikipedia page/Document, See section 5 (COMBINING DOCUMENTS) and the text of the GNU FDL for caveats and details.
The publisher of Wikipedia articles is The Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikipedia contains some content (such as low resolution images, screenshots, and short quotations) that are not licensed under terms of the GNU FDL and are instead used under the fair use/fair dealing doctrine of copyright law. The resulting Wikipedia content on Wikipedia.org pages are therefore aggregations as defined by section 7 (AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS) of the GNU FDL. Thus those items used under the fair use/fair dealing doctrine are not individually licensed under terms of the GNU FDL (see Wikipedia:Content disclaimer and the text of the GNU FDL for details).
The Wikimedia Foundation hereby exercise our option to release you of the requirement in section 4-A (MODIFICATIONS) that deals with providing distinct titles to Wikipedia pages that you copy and modify. You may therefore use exactly the same page names as the Wikipedia site uses (see the text of the GNU FDL for details).
You cannot, however, use the Wikipedia or Wikimedia trademarks in such a way as to cause readers to reasonably conclude that your version is an official publication of Wikipedia and/or Wikimedia. Simply stating where the page came from will not be considered a violation of our trademarks, however (in fact such statements are very much appreciated and encouraged).
Direct link-backs as compliance option
We also try to make compliance with the terms of the GNU FDL as easy as possible by giving you the option to provide direct link-backs (or their spelled-out text equivalent for printed copies) to Wikipedia.org pages you copy as an easy way to satisfy many, but not all, GNU FDL requirements (see below).
- We consider the computer-network location listing requirement mentioned in section 3 (COPYING IN QUANTITY) for verbatim copies that are printed or Opaque, to be satisfied if you provide a direct link-back (or its spelled-out text equivalent for printed copies) somewhere on each page you copy (see the text of the GNU FDL for details and other options - especially for modified copies).
- We consider the author requirement stated in section 4-B (MODIFICATIONS) satisfied if a direct link-back (or its spelled-out text equivalent for printed copies) to the Wikipedia page used is provided (each Wikipedia-hosted page has a page history that provides complete author information). Otherwise at least 5 principal authors (or all authors if less than 5 total for that Wikipedia page) will need to be listed (with links or spelled out equivalents to their Wikipedia user pages) somewhere easily accessible to your version of the Wikipedia page (see the text of the GNU FDL for details).
- We consider the preserve all the copyright notices requirement stated in section 4-B (MODIFICATIONS) to be satisfied if a link-back to a Wikipedia.org page (with a Copyrights link at the bottom of the Wikipedia.org page) is included. You will still need to mention and link/include a copy of the full text of the GNU FDL (see the text of the GNU FDL for details).
- We consider section 4-O (MODIFICATIONS) and the parts of sections 5 (COMBINING DOCUMENTS) and 8 (TRANSLATION) that deal with disclaimers to be satisfied if a link-back to a Wikipedia.org page (with a disclaimer link on the bottom of the Wikipedia.org page) is included. Otherwise a copy of our our disclaimers will need to be included in your copy (see the text of the GNU FDL for details).
The above considerations do not free you from complying with the other terms mentioned in the text of the GNU Free Documentation License.
Fair use materials and special requirements
Occasionally, Wikipedia articles may include images, sounds, or text quotes used under the U.S. Copyright law "fair use" doctrine. In this case, the material should be identified as from an external source (on the image description page, or history page, as appropriate). As "fair use" is specific to the use that you contemplate it is best if your describe the fair use rationale for such specific use either in hidden text in the article or on the image description page. Remember what is fair use for Wikipedia may not be considered a fair use for your intended use of the content in another context.
For example, if we include an image under fair use, you must ensure that your use of the article also qualifies for fair use (this might not be the case, for example, if you were using a Wikipedia article for a commercial use that would otherwise be allowed by the GFDL and the fair use would not be allowed under that commercial use).
Wikipedia does use some text under licenses that are compatible with the GFDL but may require additional terms that we do not require for original Wikipedia text (such as including Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts, or Back-Cover Texts). When using these materials, you have to include those invariant sections verbatim.
An approval process for fair use images at has been proposed at Wikipedia:Fair use. Images which have gone through that process carry the tag:
| {{msg:verifieduse}} |
This file or image is copyrighted. After deliberation on Wikipedia:Fair use, it has been decided that it is eligible for fair use under United States law, and that there are no alternatives to using it under that doctrine. It is therefore contended that this file or image is fair use; if you use it for any non-educational purpose, you may be in violation of copyright law. Wikipedia prefers to use images which are in the public domain or licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License or a similar copyleft license. If you know of any way to obtain this image, or an equivalent one, under such conditions, please post a comment on Wikipedia talk:Fair use, with a link to the article the image is included in. |
Image guidelines
Images and photographs, like written works, are subject to copyright. Someone owns them unless they have been explictly placed in the public domain. Images on the internet need to be licensed directly from the copyright holder or someone able to license on their behalf. In some cases, fair use guidelines may allow a photograph to be used.
Tagging
Image description pages can be tagged with a special tag to indicate the legal status of the images, as described at wikipedia:image copyright tags. It is unclear what should happen if different images have been uploaded with different copyright statuses.
Government photographs
Works produced by employees of the United States federal government in the scope of their employment are public domain by statute. However, note that, despite popular misconception, the US Federal Government can own copyrights that are assigned to it by others. As a general rule photographs on .mil and .gov sites are public domain. However there are some notable exceptions. Check the privacy and security notice of the website. It should also be noted that governments outside the US often do claim copyright over works produced by their employees (for example, Crown Copyright in the United Kingdom). Also, most state governments in the United States do not place their work into the public domain and do in fact own the copyright to their work. Please be careful to check ownership information before copying.
Celebrity photographs
This is based on the image guidelines at IMDB, so it especially applies to celebrity photographs, but also can apply to other pictures. Legitimate photographs generally come from three different places with permission.
- The studios, producers, magazine publisher, or media outlet that originally shot the photograph.
- Agencies that represent the photographers who shot the photos or the photographer themself (the latter especially for amateur photographs)
- Submissions from the celebrity themselves or a legal representatives of the celebrity.
Contributors' rights and obligations
If you contribute material to Wikipedia, you thereby license it to the public under the GFDL (with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts). In order to contribute, you therefore must be in a position to grant this license, which means that either
- you own the copyright to the material, for instance because you produced it yourself, or
- you acquired the material from a source that allows the licensing under GFDL, for instance because the material is in the public domain or is itself published under GFDL.
In the first case, you retain copyright to your materials. You can later republish and relicense them in any way you like. However, you can never retract the GFDL license for the versions you placed here: that material will remain under GFDL forever. In the second case, if you incorporate external GFDL materials, as a requirement of the GFDL, you need to acknowledge the authorship and provide a link back to the network location of the original copy. If the original copy required invariant sections, you have to incorporate those into the Wikipedia article; it is however very desirable to replace GFDL texts with invariant sections by original content without invariant sections whenever possible.
Using copyrighted work from others
If you use part of a copyrighted work under "fair use", or if you obtain special permission to use a copyrighted work from the copyright holder under the terms of our license, you must make a note of that fact (along with names and dates). It is our goal to be able to freely redistribute as much of Wikipedia's material as possible, so original images and sound files licensed under the GFDL or in the public domain are greatly preferred to copyrighted media files used under fair use. See Wikipedia:Boilerplate request for permission for a form letter asking a copyright holder to grant us a license to use their work under terms of the GFDL.
Never use materials that infringe the copyrights of others. This could create legal liabilities and seriously hurt the project. If in doubt, write it yourself.
Note that copyright law governs the creative expression of ideas, not the ideas or information themselves. Therefore, it is perfectly legal to read an encyclopedia article or other work, reformulate it in your own words, and submit it to Wikipedia. (See plagiarism and fair use for discussions of how much reformulation is necessary in a general context.)
Linking to copyrighted works
Linking to copyrighted works is usually not a problem, as long as you have made a reasonable effort to determine that the page in question is not violating someone else's copyright. If it is, please do not link to the page. Whether such a link is contributory infringement is currently being debated in the courts, but in any case, linking to a site that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on us.
If you find a copyright infringement
It is not the job of rank-and-file Wikipedians to police every article for possible copyright infringement, but if you suspect one, you should at the very least bring up the issue on that page's talk page. Others can then examine the situation and take action if needed. The most helpful piece of information you can provide is a URL or other reference to what you believe may be the source of the text.
Some cases will be false alarms. For example, if the contributor was in fact the author of the text that is published elsewhere under different terms, that does not affect their right to post it here under the GFDL. Also, sometimes you will find text elsewhere on the Web that was copied from Wikipedia. In both of these cases, it is a good idea to make a note in the talk page to discourage such false alarms in the future.
If some of the content of a page really is an infringement, then the infringing content should be removed, and a note to that effect should be made on the talk page, along with the original source. If the author's permission is obtained later, the text can be restored.
If all of the content of a page is a suspected copyright infringement, then the page should be listed it on Wikipedia:Possible copyright infringements and the content of the article replaced by the standard notice which you can find there. If, after a week, the page still appears to be a copyright infringment, then it may be deleted following the procedures on the votes page.
In extreme cases of contributors continuing to post copyrighted material after appropriate warnings, such users may be blocked from editing to protect the project.
If you are the owner of Wikipedia-hosted content being used without your permission
If you are the owner of content that is being used on Wikipedia without your permission, then you may request the page be immediately removed from Wikipedia by following this link. You can also contact our Designated agent to have it permanently removed, but it may take up to a week for the page to be deleted that way (you may also blank the page but the text will still be in the page history). Either way, we will, of course, need some evidence to support your claim of ownership.
See also
- The Wikipedia:Contributing FAQ for questions on copyright.
- Wikipedia's designated agent under OCILLA
- Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia as a source
- Wikipedia:Standard GFDL violation letter
- Wikipedia:Possible copyright infringements
- Wikipedia:Spotting possible copyright violations
Further discussion...
