This help page is a
how-to guide. It details processes or procedures of some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms and practices. It is not one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of
consensus and
vetting. |
This page in a nutshell: The purpose of this page is to provide a brief overview of the procedures in place for handling text-based copyright violations on Wikipedia. |
When looking at a Wikipedia article, you suddenly spot something that looks like it may have been copied and pasted or closely paraphrased from elsewhere (typically from one or several of the sources), or it looks like a machine translation from some foreign text. What can you do?
If the entire article is a problem and any text that doesn't look like a copy-paste could not survive alone as an article:
{{
db-copyvio|url=link to the source text}}
{{
subst:cclean|url=link to the source text}}
at the article's talk page to explain your action.{{
subst:uw-copyvio|article}}
at their talk page.{{
subst:copyvio|url=link to the source text}}
and then look at the bottom right of the big boilerplate template that now replaces the article: it will contain two pre-set lines to copy-paste, one on today's
listing on the Copyright Problems board, the other one on the article's creator or the person who most likely added the copyrighted content.{{
subst:cclean|url=link to the source text}}
at the article's talk page to explain your action.
{{
subst:uw-copyvio|article}}
at their talk page.{{
subst:copyvio|url=link to the source text}}
and then look at the bottom right of the big boilerplate template that now replaces the article: it will contain two pre-set lines to copy-paste, one on today's
listing on the Copyright Problems board, the other one on the article's creator or the person who most likely added the copyrighted content (if you can tell who it was).If you are a bit less in a hurry and the article has been tagged for investigation rather than speedy deletion, you can:
{{
subst:copyvio|url=link to source}}
template at the beginning of the problematic text and add a </div>
at the end of the problematic text. If they added other text, you can check to see if you find other sources that have been copied.If the copyvio or the processes for handling them are unclear, you can do the same as above and the admins who work at the copyright problems board will address it.
If the copyvio only concerns a part of the article and has been added in a manner that it can be reverted to easily without also removing non-infringing content added in other parts of the article, handle this as though it were a Complete infringement (below).
If the copyvio only concerns a part of the article that cannot immediately be reverted to (because other parts of the article have been expanded in the meantime):
{{
subst:cclean|url=link to source}}
tag on the talk page to indicate that you did.Articles that seem to be complete infringements are handled in one of three ways:
{{
subst:copyvio|url=link to the source text}}
, list it at
WP:CP and use the notification generated by the template to let the contributor know how to verify. It will be processed when permission arrives or, failing that, after a week.Important note: Do not hide contributor names, in particular if you recover any content contributed by others, as you would otherwise infringe on their right to be attributed under the CC-BY-SA and GFDL licenses.
Sounds too complex? Tag it with {{
subst:copyvio|url=link to source}}
instead; volunteers at
WP:CP will deal with it.
Wikipedia has several tools that may be useful in checking for copyright problems.
This help page is a
how-to guide. It details processes or procedures of some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms and practices. It is not one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of
consensus and
vetting. |
This page in a nutshell: The purpose of this page is to provide a brief overview of the procedures in place for handling text-based copyright violations on Wikipedia. |
When looking at a Wikipedia article, you suddenly spot something that looks like it may have been copied and pasted or closely paraphrased from elsewhere (typically from one or several of the sources), or it looks like a machine translation from some foreign text. What can you do?
If the entire article is a problem and any text that doesn't look like a copy-paste could not survive alone as an article:
{{
db-copyvio|url=link to the source text}}
{{
subst:cclean|url=link to the source text}}
at the article's talk page to explain your action.{{
subst:uw-copyvio|article}}
at their talk page.{{
subst:copyvio|url=link to the source text}}
and then look at the bottom right of the big boilerplate template that now replaces the article: it will contain two pre-set lines to copy-paste, one on today's
listing on the Copyright Problems board, the other one on the article's creator or the person who most likely added the copyrighted content.{{
subst:cclean|url=link to the source text}}
at the article's talk page to explain your action.
{{
subst:uw-copyvio|article}}
at their talk page.{{
subst:copyvio|url=link to the source text}}
and then look at the bottom right of the big boilerplate template that now replaces the article: it will contain two pre-set lines to copy-paste, one on today's
listing on the Copyright Problems board, the other one on the article's creator or the person who most likely added the copyrighted content (if you can tell who it was).If you are a bit less in a hurry and the article has been tagged for investigation rather than speedy deletion, you can:
{{
subst:copyvio|url=link to source}}
template at the beginning of the problematic text and add a </div>
at the end of the problematic text. If they added other text, you can check to see if you find other sources that have been copied.If the copyvio or the processes for handling them are unclear, you can do the same as above and the admins who work at the copyright problems board will address it.
If the copyvio only concerns a part of the article and has been added in a manner that it can be reverted to easily without also removing non-infringing content added in other parts of the article, handle this as though it were a Complete infringement (below).
If the copyvio only concerns a part of the article that cannot immediately be reverted to (because other parts of the article have been expanded in the meantime):
{{
subst:cclean|url=link to source}}
tag on the talk page to indicate that you did.Articles that seem to be complete infringements are handled in one of three ways:
{{
subst:copyvio|url=link to the source text}}
, list it at
WP:CP and use the notification generated by the template to let the contributor know how to verify. It will be processed when permission arrives or, failing that, after a week.Important note: Do not hide contributor names, in particular if you recover any content contributed by others, as you would otherwise infringe on their right to be attributed under the CC-BY-SA and GFDL licenses.
Sounds too complex? Tag it with {{
subst:copyvio|url=link to source}}
instead; volunteers at
WP:CP will deal with it.
Wikipedia has several tools that may be useful in checking for copyright problems.