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The introductory note says: "Permission to reproduce content under the copyright license and technical conditions which apply to Wikipedia's content (see below and Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks) has already been granted to anyone anywhere without limitation [...]". I suggest to drop the part "without limitation" it is misleading or wrong, since the licenses impose limitations on the use. -- G.Hagedorn ( talk) 08:14, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Hi. Feedback needed on the usability of text on historical markers for states in the US (as opposed to federal government). The question is raised at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2009 May 17, which see for more background, including links to a few other discussions.
It is my belief that this text is copyrighted except in those states that release government work into public domain or in those cases where it can be verified that copyright has lapsed (since we cannot presume). I would think we could make an easy fair use claim in an article about a specific landmark. I think we run into a problem, though, when we're compiling them into lists, as at List of New York State Historic Markers in Cortland County, New York (the article in question), New Hampshire Historical Markers (with its transcribed lists) and List of historical highway markers in Hampshire County, West Virginia (brought up for comparison at CP). In aggregate, use is less transformative.
Since this affects quite a few articles, I wanted to request feedback. Please weigh in. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:40, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
I recently enrolled on a short course with The Open University, namely S189, Understanding the Weather. They supplied me with a DVD that contains, among other things, lots of pictures of clouds. The majority of those pictures are copied from Wikipedia, and are acknowledged as such. In some cases the text alongside the picture name-checks the GFDL, in some cases not. There is no copy of the GFDL on the DVD, and the DVD is marked "Copyright (c) 2008 The Open University. All rights reserved. No part of this disk may be reproduced or copied onto computing or other media, or adapted, without written permission from The Open University." Am I right in thinking that the university is breaching the terms of the GFDL by doing this? GrahamN ( talk) 00:39, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. I was pretty sure they were in the wrong, but I just wanted a second opinion. What a nerve, eh? I plan to write them a letter asking for an explanation. GrahamN ( talk) 21:10, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
This is raised on this talk page, but the current policy is not very clear on it. Or rather, if read very strictly, it is as if you're not allowed to quote at all unless you explicitly claim "fair use":
This seems very harsh. The policy does mention later that "Wikipedia articles may also include quotations, images, or other media under the U.S. Copyright law "fair use" doctrine in accordance with our guidelines for non-free content." In any case, see #Hoping to get a simple definition of copyvio included above, seems like a good proposal. CopoCop ( talk) 01:12, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
I've altered the "using copyrighted works from others" section both to acknowledge co-licensing and to clarify "fair use." First, Wikipedia does not accept "fair use" in its straightforward definition, and I think it's misleading to imply that we do. As NFC notes, our standards are deliberately more strict that US fair use allowances. Also, the earlier text was clearly written with media in mind and not at all with the thought of utilizing quotations of text, which is also using part of a copyrighted work under fair use. How does one note the fact, along with the relevant names and dates? At the talk page? Clearly not standard practice. My hope is that by referring to NFC explicitly "for specific details on when and how to utilize such material" we succinctly cover both media and text. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:22, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Please add this iw for Bengali wikipedia. [[bn:উইকিপেডিয়া:কপিরাইট]].- - Jayanta Nath ( Talk| Contrb) 10:12, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Hi. I'm trying to come by a workable solution for dealing with massive, cross-article infringement by single contributors. I've opened two sections on the subject at Wikipedia talk:Copyright violations: one on how to clean them up and another on how to work with the contributors who place them. This is a big issue on Wikipedia that I deal with routinely. The processes we have in place simply are not intended for this kind of situation, and I would be extremely grateful for assistance in working out processes that are. Please contribute there. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:13, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Folks, Can someone help with this. I've followed through the links for this template, which appears widely used, and am not convinced that it is correct. The template alleges that Philippines Government works are public domain but the relevant section of the Philippines copyright laws state (my emphasis)
SEC. 176. Works of the Government. – 176.1. No copyright shall subsist in any work of the Government of the Philippines. However, prior approval of the government agency or office wherein the work is created shall be necessary for exploitation of such work for profit. Such agency or office may, among other things, impose as a condition the payment of royalties
The highlighted section seems to contradict the previous but my reading is that Philippines Government works are not free. Rather than PD my reading is the the works are covered by something similar to the CC "NonCommercial 1.0" licence which is not free for wikipedia purposes. Thoughts anyone ? - Peripitus (Talk) 06:16, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't think anyone has asked the Philippine government whether it has relinquished its rights under Sec. 176.1 (or even if it could, without a change in the law), so it is presumptuous to claim that they don't see this as copyright. Section and chapter titles are not usually considered in the interpretation of statutes but, if there was any doubt in the matter, one can look at sec. 176.2, immediately following the paragraph in dispute here, which self-evidently gives force to Art. 2bis (3) of the Berne Convention. That is, it creates internationally recognised copyright where otherwise it would not exist. A reading of the paragraph which does not interpret this restriction as a copyright restriction is a reading which pretends that the paragraph ends at the first full stop. Physchim62 (talk) 13:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
The Philippine WikiProject is aware of this problem for a few years now. Our view is to treat media like this as if it were fair use (of course it's not applied uniformly due to the massive amount of work needed). There's a plan to lobby to remove the second sentence in the law but that's for the future and not the here and now. -- seav ( talk) 02:10, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
What is to be done in situations where:
I am right now seeing this happen to the article Plenum cable for which I have personally created several illustrations in order to make the text of the article easier to understand:
It seems recently someone has decided to rip the text and my illustrative work from Wikipedia which they are now claiming as their own work, and have recently requested a speedy deletion of plenum cable for infringing their work:
* http://www.lanshack.com/pdf/PlenumVsRiser.pdf
What really can be done by Wikipedia editors contributing in good faith to the encyclopedia, to assert that their uploaded material is the original content source?
To whom will Wikipedia typically side? Siding with the outsider is certainly the far easier option, since it merely requires a painless deletion of the disputed content from the encyclopedia. Trying to get an outsider to take down uncited content that came from Wikipedia may require an expensive civil court case that Wikipedia appears ill-prepared to take on as a nonprofit organization.
It appears that at least in terms of my stolen/uncited-source illustrations that they took, I have created my own solution to the problem. My illustrations are uploaded as "baked" PNGs and JPEGs which cannot be easily reedited or used to recreate the original drawing files. Additionally I am retaining my original drawing files used to create the PNG/JPG and this drawing information cannot be extracted from my uploaded images.
I am not going to upload my original drawing files as proof of origination since these thieving bastards would be free to download those as well to use as evidence that "they created it" as well.
Note that by doing this I am flying in the face of another unwritten policy of Wikipedia. Many editors want drawings on here uploaded in a free open re-editable standard such as SVG. If I had created these as SVGs I would have no "unbaked origination evidence" to fall back on as the original creator of the content. If an editor on Wikipedia wants to make an SVG of my uploaded work and cites back to me, that is fine but at least I retain the original drawing files as proof of origination.
Since these original drawing files (made with Office 2007 no less, ack) are my only evidence that the work is from me originally I am not particularly inclined to upload it directly to Wikipedia for all to download and claim as their own evidence of origination. I will only give this evidence to someone I trust and since most anyone can become an administrator over time, handing it to the administrators class doesn't provide sufficient safeguards. Such a copyleft/takedown thief also could strive for adminship to gain access to such materials.
Maybe I'll let Jimbo look at my origination evidence. DMahalko ( talk) 01:33, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
The question has been raised as to whether or not Mississippi law is PD, specifically with regard to this document. I have not yet found any indication. Mississippi.gov says, "You should assume that everything you see or read on the Site is copyright-protected unless otherwise noted, and may not be used except as provided in these Terms and Conditions." and "You may print or download material displayed on the Site for noncommercial, personal use only, provided you also retain all copyright and other proprietary notices contained on the materials. You may not, however, sell, reverse engineer, distribute, modify, transmit, reuse, repost, use, or create derivative works based on the content of the Site in whole or in part for any purpose, without written permission from Mississippi.gov, its authorized agents and contractors, or the owner of such content in each instance." [1]. I don't see anything at [2] about copyright status. Anyone have any insight? -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:19, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
While on the topic, note that even foreign law is not copyright in the US. See s:Template:PD-GovEdict and s:Wikisource:Proposed_deletions/Archives/2008-05#Crown_Copyright_waiver. The important point of that discussion is that since lawsuits for copyright infringement depend on the work in question being registered as copyrighted by the US Copyright Office. As far as I know, no law has ever been granted a copyright, and the Copyright Office has sworn black and blue that they will not grant a copyright to any enacted law - they will take it to the Supreme Court if they have to. John Vandenberg ( chat) 04:37, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
The sheet music is available in this 0.5 MB PDF (pp.5&6) on the Mississippi Secretary of State website. John Vandenberg ( chat) 09:51, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
On a somewhat unrelated note, but since I saw "lyrics" pop up on my watchlist: I'm currently in discussion with Pamela at Gracenote, which hosts fully licensed song lyrics. We worked through a reliable method of linking the lyrics and she set about working with their IT staff to simplify the access method and I was going to post at WT:SONG, but then they apparently got cold feet, possibly because someone took notice of what I was saying: "we might want to massively link to your site, from the world's biggest encyclopedia and 4th most-trafficked website". I'm still waiting for the callback and discretion is appreciated, but there is a site out there with fully-licensed lyrics which we can link to on a limited basis if the lyrics are there. Limited basis at least until they buy another 75 servers or so, I doubt they'll miss the hits from en.wikipedia.org! Franamax ( talk) 14:22, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
Can anyone offer any insight into the copyright status of [6]? It is not explicitly disclaimed, although it is not explicitly reserved either (images are; no mention is made of text). Footnote says, "The user must assume responsibility for compliance with federal copyright law (Title 17, United States Code) or any other issues involved in the use of the item(s) listed." WP:PD offers no guidance on Mississippi. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:12, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
I think this material is deprecated by Wikipedia's new licensing terms, which now permit CC-BY-SA and GFDL or CC-BY-SA compatible only, since Wikimedia:Terms of Use says the GFDL source must be "unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts." Accordingly, I'm removing it. I'm tucking it here in case I'm mistaken. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
Under Wikipedia's current copyright conditions, and with the current facilities of the MediaWiki software, it is only possible to include in Wikipedia external GFDL materials that contain invariant sections or cover texts, if all of the following apply,
- You are the copyright holder of these external GFDL materials (or: you have the explicit, i.e. written, permission of the copyright holder to do what follows);
- The length and nature of these invariant sections and cover texts does not exceed what can be placed in an edit summary;
- You are satisfied that these invariant sections and cover texts are not listed elsewhere than in the "page history" of the page where these external materials are placed;
- You are satisfied that further copies of Wikipedia content are distributed under the standard GFDL application of "with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts" (in other words, for the copies derived from wikipedia, you agree that these parts of the text contributed by you will no longer be considered as "invariant sections" or "cover texts" in the GFDL sense);
- The original invariant sections and/or cover texts are contained in the edit summary of the edit with which you introduce the thus GFDLed materials in wikipedia (so, that if "permanent deletion" would be applied to that edit, both the thus GFDLed material and its invariant sections and cover texts are jointly deleted).
Seen the stringent conditions above, it is very desirable to replace GFDL texts with invariant sections (or with cover texts) by original content without invariant sections (or cover texts) whenever possible.
I think I have brought it up to date. I have incorporated quite a bit of text directly from Wikimedia:Terms of Use (all noted in edit summary, for attribution). Please review. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
Second time I've seen a question with wide-ranging implications concerning music charts come up at WP:CP. The soup du jour: Top Hot 100 Hits of 2008. The fundamental questions: is there sufficient creativity in the selection criteria of Billboard's Hot 100 rankings for Billboard to put teeth in that "© 2008 Nielsen Business Media, Inc", because those of us who were around for that DMCA takedown on sports markets TV listings know they will if they can (and even, some suggested then, if they can't). Fallout: if we can't use it, probably many of the bluelinks at Template:Top Hot 100 Hits will also represent problems. Selection criteria for the Billboard Hot 100 is a weighted evaluation of retail for singles, albums, and airplay that has been modified over the years. Wikiprecedent: New Zealand's top singles, 9/2008. So, selection criteria: objective enough to use, or selective enough to restrict? What say we? -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:55, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
Good job finding that quote. It's vague, and probably deliberately so. I was advise that we treat the list as copyrighted unless (1) Billboard says they don't think it's copyrighted, (2) Mike Godwin and/or the WMF say they think it's not copyrighted, or (3) we can find the formula and reproduce the results. Note that average price data for baseball cards was once successfully defended in court as copyrighted, since the compilers claimed they were choosing which venues to survey and which exceptions to exclude. – Quadell ( talk) 20:04, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm inclined to think that almost all of that should be moved to Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights—with the exception, obviously, of the US copyright information which would be patently inappropriate there. Thoughts? -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
The paragraph:
The licenses Wikipedia uses grant free access to our content in the same sense that free software is licensed freely. This principle is known as copyleft in contrast to typical copyright licenses. Wikipedia content can be copied, modified, and redistributed if and only if the copied version is made available on the same terms to others and acknowledgment of the authors of the Wikipedia article used is included (a link back to the article is generally thought to satisfy the attribution requirement; see below for more details). Copied Wikipedia content will therefore remain free under appropriate license and can continue to be used by anyone subject to certain restrictions, most of which aim to ensure that freedom.
Should have the second sentence moved to the end, like this:
The licenses Wikipedia uses grant free access to our content in the same sense that free software is licensed freely. Wikipedia content can be copied, modified, and redistributed if and only if the copied version is made available on the same terms to others and acknowledgment of the authors of the Wikipedia article used is included (a link back to the article is generally thought to satisfy the attribution requirement; see below for more details). Copied Wikipedia content will therefore remain free under appropriate license and can continue to be used by anyone subject to certain restrictions, most of which aim to ensure that freedom. This principle is known as copyleft in contrast to typical copyright licenses.
In fact, as detailed in Wikipedia:Copyright_FAQ#Copyleft_licenses, copyleft does not refer simply to the concept of being licensed freely, but to the more specific concept of requiring redistribution in the same terms.-- Pot ( talk) 18:01, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Is there a category for articles that have imported text from Creative-Commons only sources? I think this would help both re-users and people working on Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. If such a category doesn't exist, I can help create it. A possible name would be Category:Articles with imported Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 text. Superm401 - Talk 00:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
There's a copyright question at WT:CP that could use more eyes concerning a chart duplicated in many points from an existing chart. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:27, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
I notice that the article on Truman Capote quotes the entire (short) New York Times article on the Clutter slayings that inspired his book "In Cold Blood". Because it is quoted in full, the quotation does not seem like fair use to me, but I'm no lawyer. Just thought I'd draw attention to it. Phiwum ( talk) 15:12, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
Hi. There's a question at an FLC that may impact several other featured lists or featured list candidates (including Crafoord Prize. In both of these cases, we have list articles about prize or award winners with a quoted reference to the reasons that they received the honor. In both cases, the quoted reasons add up to a fairly substantial portion of the source. Rewriting in original language will be difficult, but for the most part, not impossible. The question is whether the use of quoted material there is extensive enough to represent a copyright concern and a problem under WP:NFC. Some of the quoted snippets may not have enough originality to represent a copyright concern; others do. Opinions welcome, here or there. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:50, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Please add
Wikipedia:Identifying copyrights in links. --
Wavelength (
talk) 03:13, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
Please add
Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --
Wavelength (
talk) 18:43, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm bringing this up here after a quick chat with Jclemens. While working on WP:SCV, I flagged Baksar for G12, finding it still way too close to the source for comfort. Jcelemens declined suggesting AfD or PROD (which is of course absolutely fine for any other borderline CSD cases). I then tagged that article for copyvio and listed at WP:CP, and when I went to notify Jclemens, I noticed another editor had a very simlar discussion on the same matters just before me. Jclemens graciously agreed to submit these for comment here since we're both interpreting consensus on such cases a bit differently. What do you recon is the best course of action? MLauba ( talk) 21:31, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Reposting the below from my talk page for other opinions. Note that the article was flagged by CorenSearchBot and is now listed at WP:CP. The community's input would be appreciated. Thanks. MLauba ( talk) 12:15, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Could you point out how exactly is the article a copyright violation? It is very little text, mostly information from his CV, which is difficult to paraphrase in any other way than what is currently in the article. If this is a copyvio, then by the same logic we should delete all "List of publications" sections from all articles of academics, as these are usually also directly taken from the person's CV. Please explain. Offliner ( talk) 10:52, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Also, please personally compare the article text [10] and the resume [11]. Offliner ( talk) 10:54, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
This is the source:
Andrei P. Tsygankov is Professor at the departments of Political Science and International Relations at San Francisco State University. He teaches Russian/post-Soviet, comparative, and international politics since August 2000. A Russian native, Tsygankov is a graduate of Moscow State University (Candidate of Sciences, 1991) and University of Southern California (Ph.D., 2000).
This is the article:
Andrei Tsygankov is Professor at the departments of Political Science and International Relations at San Francisco State University, where he teaches Russian and post-Soviet, comparative, and international politics.
Now please explain why this is a copyright violation. How does the information need to be worded so that it's not? Please give an example. Offliner ( talk) 11:01, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Text from Trafford Training Centre has been lifted and used almost verbatim (one word was altered) in the narration of a short documentary made by Manchester United F.C. about the centre, but no credit has been attributed to Wikipedia or the authors of that specific article. This is clearly a violation of the GFDL and/or the Creative Commons license that the article was submitted under. As one of the contributors to the article, and the author of the specific passage that was lifted, I had intended to telephone Manchester United to inform them of this, but I wondered what other Wikipedians would suggest as an alternative course of action first. – Pee Jay 01:45, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Could you please add als:Wikipedia:Lizenzbestimmungen? Thanks, -- Holder ( talk) 19:48, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
I would like to address the subject of the copyright of motion picture stills. First, a definition. A motion picture still is a still photograph taken by a still photographer (usually on a 4 x 5 negative) before or after a scene is photographed by a motion picture camera. It is not a frame enlargement or a screen capture.
For over a hundred years now, stills have been distributed freely (usually as 8 x 10 prints) by the studios to motion picture distributors, exhibitors, and to the media to publicize motion pictures. Typically, the still would carry a copyright notice on the bottom of the front, and a "snipe" (caption) on the back describing the scene pictured and what actors appear. Often a summary of the film's production credits would also appear at the bottom of the front.
The studios virtually never renewed the copyright on these motion picture stills. In over a decade of using the U.S. Copyright Office copyright renewal database, I have yet to see any renewal of the copyright for a motion picture still published before 1964 (those published from 1964 onward received an automatic copyright term renewal).
I bring this up at Wikipedia because there are those who attempt to throw roadblocks in the use of these pre-1964 stills. Some still erroneously assume that stills are frame enlargements, and thus are protected by the film's copyright. Others will understand that stills are separate works, but will claim that they probably are covered as derivative works, adaptations so to speak, of the film. I come here today to say that a federal court has in effect said that is not so. And this federal court is right in the Wikipedia Foundation's backyard.
The case involved the loss of copyright due to the failure to display a proper copyright notice on motion picture stills. However, the important thing to note is that no theory of a derivative copyright was recognized by the court. The copyright of the stills stood or fell on their own, as separate works from the film that they publicized. Here I quote from one of the case's headnotes at Westlaw:
This would also have implications for the copyright of motion picture posters published before 1964.
I hope that Wikipedia administrators and editors will keep this in mind when dealing with the use of published pre-1964 motion picture stills and movie posters from American motion pictures. — Walloon ( talk) 19:07, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
There is a discussion on Talk:Star Sapphire (comics) regarding image File:StarSapphires01.jpg. The image used for the group Star Sapphires in the hero box. The image comes from Green Lantern: Blackest Night #0 which was part of Free Comic Book Day and could be interpreted as promotional material; however, the image seems to be part of a characters description page, similar to that of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and use of the images in wiki, let alone in the herobox, is a direct reduplication of their intended purpose, which I understand to be a copyright or fair-use violation. Additional input either here, or on the talk page would be appreciated. - Sharp962 ( talk) 19:49, 24 July 2009 (UTC).
There is a question of licensing at Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems#James Temple. A contributor long ago placed content here that was licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA, which (of course) has never been compatible with Wikipedia's license. The article has subsequently been heavily edited and contains substantial new material (it has grown from 286 words to ~1570). The question is, since CC-By-NC-SA requires that "If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a licence identical to this one", are the contents contributed here by subsequent editors also a copyright violation of that original source, since the license is incompatible? In other words, must the roughly 1200 words of creative content that was contributed by Wikipedians be deleted along with the original text, if we cannot obtain permission to license the original under CC-By-SA? Please give feedback there. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:12, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
{{ editprotected}}
Could an admin please update the link to Wikipedia:Standard GFDL violation letter in the If you are the owner of Wikipedia-hosted content being used without your permission section of the page to Wikipedia:Standard license violation letter?
The current link is outdated, and could lead readers to assume that Wikipedia is still solely under the GFDL.
Thanks twilsonb ( talk) 01:23, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
I came across the U.S. General Services Administration Historic Building Posters & Brochures series, so I wrote the administrator of that program to ask if the text and images on those pages was in the public domain, or otherwise available to be used by Wikipedia. She replied, by email:
I have since copied all of the text of those pages to my userspace, indexed at User:BD2412/courthouses, with an attribution note at the bottom (which is clearly permissible under the express license granted by the GSA). The text will need a lot of work in terms of wikification, layout, and tone, and may end up much altered before it is moved to article space. My question is, does the permission provided by the GSA suffice to permit our use of the material, modified or not, in article space? As a matter of copyright law it certainly does, but does this also meet our internal policy requirements? bd2412 T 14:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
I am proposing that images and media files uploaded after a cutoff date and licensed only under the GFDL be prohibited and subject to speedy deletion. Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Image use policy (not here). Stifle ( talk) 10:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Is it copyright violation if one copies one page of wikipedia to another other page within wikipedia without mentioning which article the stuff was copied from? I suppose not. But what about directly translating from Wikipedia in one language to Wikipedia in another language without attributing it to contributors of the original wikipedia? Would that constitute a copyright violation? Would you please quote the policy that applies here. Thanks -- DoostdarWiki ( talk) 06:43, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Not sure about this one. I have a logo of a defunct company that was published in 1918. The company probably stopped using the logo around 1923 but I think the company itself survived until the 1970s. My question is, should I upload this under {{PD-1923}} because it's an image published prior to 1923, or should I still use the "fair use" tag for logos? Thanks. Gatoclass ( talk) 13:58, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
I've got a policy application question based on a recent copyright problem, pertaining to Wikipedia:Public domain and Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights. The latter says, without disclaimer, "Any work published before 1923 is in the public domain in the United States, regardless of its source country...." The former says, with footnote, "In the U.S., any work published before January 1, 1923 anywhere in the world is in the public domain." That footnote further adds:
Strictly speaking, only U.S. works published before January 1 1923 and foreign works published in compliance with U.S. formalities (registration, © notice) before that date are in the public domain in the U.S. For non-U.S. works published without compliance with U.S. formalities (i.e., without © notice), the situation is a bit more complicated:
- If published before 1909, such works are in the public domain in the U.S.
- If published between 1909 and 1922 (inclusive) in a language other than English, the Ninth Circuit has considered them as "unpublished works" according to Peter Hirtle and following the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case Twin Books v. Disney in 1996. The case was about the book Bambi, A Life in the Woods; the decision is heavily criticized in Nimmer on Copyright ( ISBN 0-820-51465-9), the standard commentary on U.S. copyright law.
- If published between 1909 and 1922 (inclusive) in English, they are highly likely to be PD, given that the aforementioned controversial case was only about a work published in a foreign language.
- Additionally, any work first published outside of the United States without copyright notice prior to 1989, when the U.S. joined the Berne Convention, is in the public domain in the U.S. if it was in the public domain in its country of origin on the URAA date (in most cases January 1, 1996). See the section on country-specific rules for more information.
Also, the 1923 cut-off date applies only to the U.S. This means foreign works first published before 1923 are in the public domain in the U.S., but may still be copyrighted outside the U.S.
Given the footnote at the former, the statement at the latter seems misleading. My work never really dealt with the early stuff, but it seems we need to clarify a bit gray area. My copyright work off Wikipedia has never involved material of this age, so I am not as familiar with it as with some other aspects. But, based on the footnote, it seems we should alter those guidelines to read "Any work published before 1909 is in the public domain in the United States, regardless of its source country...." and add a further statement that "Works published between 1909 and January 1, 1923 may also be public domain in the United States, depending on the details of original publication" (including footnote of explanation). Is it possible to include some practical advice on how to verify the pd status of works published between 1909 and 1923?
Since this is mentioned in both those guidelines and is a standard often applied in determining whether content is PD, I thought to bring it up here, where it may attract more notice. I'll request input at the talk pages of both of those guidelines. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:50, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
I tagged the above aricle and a similar one since they are verbatim copies from another website. Please see: A-History-of-SindVol-II license url and more detailed info. Information about the book status from the book url provided above: Date Added10/24/2007 Category Uncategorized. TagsHistory, of, India, Indian, conquest, history, ArabGroupsGroup_add Copyright Attribution Non-commercial However since then it has come to my attention that the book itself was published in 1902. Does that make it public domain? If this is the case, can (or should) the website requirement under their more restrictive copyright license be bypassed? Should the article remain here as is and the CSD tag removed? Thanks. Dr.K. logos 15:15, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
I need an admin to dab contributory infringement to contributory copyright infringement. -- UncleDouggie ( talk) 23:35, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
I understand that the issue of UK Crown Copyright has been discussed at great length in the past, with the conclusion that such material is not suitable for Wikipedia even if it is covered by the waiver. I would be grateful if I could be directed to a record or summary of the debate on this topic before I waste people's time bringing it up again. Thanks — Labalius ( talk) 13:27, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia currently has the process pages for Help:Merge and WP:Split, but no clear guideline in place to ensure that contributors understand the attribution requirements for reusing text within Wikipedia. It is brushed on at WP:C, but not clear, and I believe that expanding its coverage there would muddy the waters of that policy's primary purpose. I would like to propose this new guideline to govern Help:Merge and WP:Split and to which contributors may easily be pointed when they inadvertently violate copyright by failing to attribute (and this happens all the time). Feedback and assistance at that talk page in reaching consensus would be very much appreciated. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:10, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia has several processes in place for dealing with limited copyright concerns--single articles or files, even a small grouping of these--but no workable process for dealing with massive multiple point infringement. While WP:COPYCLEAN has attempted to fill this gap with Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Contributor surveys, this solution is not ideal. It is difficult to publicize and to regulate, and in addition it may seem to suggest exclusivity. I hope that generalizing clean-up will encourage other contributors as well as making it easier to publicize the investigation option at relevant policies and guidelines. (To substantiate the need for this, I need only point out the listings currently at Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Contributor surveys and those few which have already archived. Additionally, these come up routinely at ANI, where response is hit-and-miss, depending on who is reviewing ANI in a given day.) The processes proposed are based on existing policies and practices for handling copyright problems (I've worked with many of these); the board is inspired in large part by WP:SPI. More information is available at the process page and in the purpose statement at the process talk.
I think this is critically needed. Wikipedia has chosen to address copyright concerns proactively, demonstrating due diligence, and when we know a contributor has widely violated copyright, we must have a streamlined process for handling it. The primary point for text copyright issues, WP:CP, cannot handle this specific situation: a listing such as Wikipedia:CCI/Singingdaisies would bring it to a halt.
Please help address this need. Your comments are much welcome at WT:CCI. :) -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:38, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Hi. A question has been raised about the PD status of public records in the State of Illinois. Evidently, "Information presented on the Secretary of State’s web site is considered public information and may be distributed or copied. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credit is requested." It doesn't mention modification, and I'm not sure if this is specific enough to be considered a release into public domain. With respect to text, it seems that we could defensibly incorporate extensive quotations, but can we work it directly into text to be modified as we do with US government text? -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:04, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
An interesting case not explicitly covered in
WP:ELNEVER: According to the article about the British film
Things to Come the film "lapsed into the public domain in the United States in 1964 [but] copyright remained in force in the UK, the European Union, and elsewhere". The Internet Archive, with headquarters in San Francisco, is thus distributing the film legally in the US. This case is not unique as there are several more films in PD in the US only but that may be copyrighted somewhere else in the world. It would be really sad if WP could not link to theese films. I suggest we change the sentence in WP:ELNEVER
from:
"Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work."
to either:
"Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work or is otherwise distributing the work legally."
or:
"Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work or is otherwise distributing the work legally in its country of origin."
(or some other clarification) and leave the legality of downloading to the websites' visitors. If we instead decide that this linking is not allowed the sentence should be clarified accordingly. --
Bensin (
talk) 00:21, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
←I'm not entirely sure what's wanted here with respect to this policy. :) At this point, I don't think I would support amending it to include this specific situation. Policies typically need to remain general to avoid bloat. While the Internet Archive itself may merit the mention it has, it is prone to being cited in any article. This would seem to affect a small subsection. The sentence amendments proposed at the head seem rather specific to WP:ELNEVER. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:29, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
18-Nov-2009: I have found a legal source for song lyrics, LyricsTime.com, which (for 2 years) has had no slow, pop-up adverts, but might not have some particular songs. See:
That webpage, for the musical Show Boat, has a bottom DISCLAIMER:
I think that disclaimer sufficiently covers the copyright concerns, and plus having no sluggish pop-up ads (for over 2 years), I think it should be considered an acceptable, linkable source for text that describes or analyzes song lyrics. - Wikid77 ( talk) 17:42, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
The UK government has just released thousands of aerial reconnaissance photographs from the Second World War. Of course, they have tried to do so under a personal/educational use only licence… what's more, the licence is subject to Scots law which, while being a noble and ancient legal system, rarely has much to say about copyright matters! If anyone feels like complaining about this ludicrous situation, feel free: the home page for the collection is here. Physchim62 (talk) 14:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
There is the template {{PD-BritishGov}} to tag images which are claimed to be in the public domain under these rules." I don't think we want to import all '10 million' or so images, however.-- Elvey ( talk) 19:57, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Hi. There is a question about university rankings at Wikipedia talk:CP#Global University Ranking. More feedback would be very much appreciated. :) -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:12, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Martin Schneider looks like a translation of the german article de:Martin Schneider but the history is missing, the fact it is a translation isn't mentioned anywhere either. Is there any place to report this so the history can be imported (or at least a template added or whatever should be done in that case? -- Schuhpuppe ( talk) 22:50, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
{{
editrequested}}
Current text:
Let's provide more info here. How 'bout making "most" or "check copyright information" link to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_the_U.S._government#State_and_Local_Governments_in_Florida.2C_California.2C_and_Minnesota
Here's the replacement text I suggest:
-- Elvey ( talk) 18:27, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Good day,
In the context of the "any day now" trial on Flagged Revisions, the thought's been floating around (well, OK, I plead guilty on at least part of that) on running User:CorenSearchBot(CSB) on newly patrolled revisions in order to start tracking down on all of these copyvios added in existing articles.
This discussion here is meant to determine how the new bot should be implemented and how we will interact with it.
For context, Patrolled Revisions are generated whenever a user with the Reviewer flag (yet to be determined who gets this flag and how) validates changes on an article, these changes will then, and only then, appear to the viewer.
Reviewers need to conform to the following criteria in order to "sign off" a new revision (or series of revisions) for public viewing:
The item about copyvio is the one that will present the biggest headache for human reviewers. There's therefore been some considerations given to unleash CorenSearchBot on newly patrolled revisions to help out cracking down on these.
I see two main challenges to overcome:
Here are some of my own thoughts around these.
Thoughts? MLauba ( talk) 16:34, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
I have stumbled across Codon adaptation index and the article is a direct copy of the site listed, but the site does not have a copyright on it. What is WP policy in this case? -- MWOAP ( talk) 03:00, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm conforming WP:LOP to the recent changes, and I see that page has a "legal and copyright" section. That suggests this page and maybe WP:COPYVIO should be in the legal cat, but that's up to anyone who wants to argue the point on this page. It looks like we're done with the general categorization effort. - Dank ( push to talk) 19:31, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
In an effort to try to come up with some solutions for massive and/or chronic backlogs on copyright issues (such as at WP:PUF, WP:SCV and WP:CCI), I've opened a discussion at Areas for Reform. Please contribute, if you have any ideas. I think there's a critical need. At this moment, WP:PUF has images that have been listed for over three months, while there are literally hundreds of articles and images still waiting review at WP:CCI. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:40, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Forgot to add the legal policy template; I've done that now. We haven't really had the discussion about what it should look like ... we only got consensus that we might want it to be different from the usual policy template. There haven't been any complaints so far about the spartan look of the current one, so maybe people are okay with it as is, but if you'd like to change it, feel free to suggest a change at Template:legal policy. - Dank ( push to talk) 18:41, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
Looking for a quick decision that will reduce the list of legal policy pages from 11 to 7; link is WT:POLICY#Tweak to list of legal policies. That would make a legal policy sidebar more appealing. - Dank ( push to talk) 02:49, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
I have a recently-published book which covers the early years of aviation. All of the images used are said to come from Getty Images. It claims "Photographs (c) 1997 Getty Images". Since some of the early images, e.g. in the first decades of the 20th century, were taken in the USA and Europe by unknown photographers over 70 years ago, these would presumably be considered as being in the public domain. Is the retrospective copyright claim by Getty Images legally valid and enforceable? There is no image attribution appendix in the book. Thanks. -- TraceyR ( talk) 09:25, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
{{ Editprotected}} Please add WP:COPYEDITORS, Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors to the 2nd DAB hatnote. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 18:37, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Does anyone know the answer to this? (a) If I ask someone to take a photograph of me, and they do so on their cell phone, do they own the copyright, or do I? (b) If they take the photograph of me on my cell phone, does that change the copyright?
The image in question has become famous. The subject of the image has released it under cc-by. The question is whether he has the right to do that, or does the photographer need to be the one who releases it? SlimVirgin TALK contribs 20:14, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Hi. A question has been raised at WT:CP about yet another list article. Determining whether these violate copyright requires determining whether human creativity is involved in the information. More input would be very much appreciated there. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Hello. I don't know if this has been asked before, but I have a question. If an image is currently unavailable as free-use but is still on here, having (at the time of its upload) been cleared as free-use, is it possible to crop that image and still claim free-use? The image in question is this, which I would like to use to crop out images of Victor Cook and Greg Weisman. Thank you, The Flash I am Jack's complete lack of surprise 00:44, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
When indisputably copyrighted material is not available online, or only available behind a paywall, and the material appears on a open web site with a correct citation, does the Wikipedia editor have to prove that the appearance of the material on this open web site is authorized by the copyright holder to the publisher of the open web site before citing it in an Wikipedia article with a link to that web site? If the answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no, please elaborate. patsw ( talk) 03:04, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
If WP:COPYLINK is explicit about the burden of proof issue I raise here, please point that out. My read of WP:COPYLINK is that only if the editor is aware of the copyright violation does a prohibition apply:
“ | ...if you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright... | ” |
patsw ( talk) 04:32, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
I believe Drrll does not have a burden of proof to show that Discoverthenetworks.org obtained permission from Harper's. If DTN were notorious as lyrics web sites or if Harper's went public with a complaint against DTN, then that would be a trigger for "if you know..." and the link would not be allowed. patsw ( talk) 02:36, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
This page has this text: Someone holds the copyright unless they have been explicitly placed in the public domain. Images, video and sound files on the internet need to be licensed directly from the copyright holder or someone able to license on their behalf.
I suggest that this wording is more accurate: We presume that all works are subject to someone's copyright unless they can be shown to be in the public domain. Copyrighted images, video and sound files on the internet need to be licensed directly from the copyright holder or someone able to license on their behalf.
I suggest this change because there are some works which are not subject to copyright, and never have been. Thus "placed in the public domain" is not accurate because they were never copyrighted. Similarly, these works don't need to be licensed from anyone.
Anybody object to this change? -- RussNelson ( talk) 00:16, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I suggest the following editing of the section If you are the owner of Wikipedia-hosted content being used without your permission.
Suggested edit... --
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 23:01, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
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; see
Request for immediate removal of copyright violation. 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 and replace it with the words {{copyvio|URL or place you published the text}} but the text will still beremain in the page history until a volunteer administrator reviews your action and
deletes the infringing material. Either way, we will, of course, need some evidence to support your claim of ownership.
Inversely, iIf you are the editor of a Wikipedia article and have found a copy hosted without following the licensing requirements for attribution, please see
Wikipedia:Standard license violation letter.
I put the following hatnote on the page Copying. I know it's weird, but this is how I search for Wikipedia guideline or policy pages. Over time, I suppose I'll remember "WP:" if I know that's the sort of thing I'm searching for. In the case of the hatnote below, though, I needed some guidance on copying and pasting where two articles, one a stub, had similar content and I felt I needed to redirect the stub.
I brought this up on The Village Pump, but got no answer there. I shouldn't have asked a two-part question, I guess. I thought there was a template problem involving the hatnote I was using to format. Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:06, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
In "Copyright laws by country"
according to Jimbo Wales, the founder of Wikipedia,
Please change to;
according to Jimbo Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia,
...according to the precedents in e.g. Jimmy Wales etc. Thanks, Chzz ► 05:56, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
Done
So linking to an actual infringing site is a clearly stated no-no, but what about torrent sites? This and the drama immediately following it prompted my curiousity. Maybe I'm just not up on the intricacies of copyright law, but is contributing (linking to the torrent site) to contributory infringement (the torrent site's torrent allowing infringement) still contributory infringement? VernoWhitney ( talk) 22:48, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
I have restored full protection to this page. The admin who protected it in 2008 did so under the following rationale: "legal, high-visibility, vandalism". The first two of these continue to apply. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:17, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
In long-overdue follow-up to Wikipedia talk:Copyrights/Archive 13#Copyright laws by country, I've relocated the several country specific information bits to Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights. It is obviously woefully incomplete here. I believe based on the response that I got then that this should be non-controversial, but of course am prepared to bow to consensus if I'm wrong. If I am wrong about controversy here, we'll have to update the material on countries without copyright relations with the United States, as the text did not reflect the most recent circular.
Do the changes seem appropriate? ( [17], [18]) -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:05, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
In wikipedia, there are alot of different franchises such as Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Crash Bandicoot, Star Wars, Mickey Mouse, etc, which are copyrighted by a company such as Nintendo, Disney, etc. We have articles on their characters, movies, games, etc. How is this not a copyright violation? SeanWheeler ( talk) 02:16, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
I am concerned that the current plot section constitutes a copyright problem in its level of detail. At the time I am writing this, it is 3,049 words - using an academic estimate of 400 words per page, it would fill almost 8 pages in a standard scholarly book. I believe this crosses the line of acceptable summary, creating a derivative work. See Twin Peaks v. Publications International. The Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)#Plot summaries notes that "The length of a plot summary should be carefully balanced with the length of the other sections." WP:PLOT notes that while "a concise plot summary is usually appropriate", the purpose of an article on a piece of fiction is not to retell its plot, but to discuss reception and significance. I believe the summary needs to be cut to a small percentage of its length and balanced with additional material that provides critical commentary; otherwise, there is little transformative about the content, and we are merely saving readers the trouble of buying the book. That we are non-profit is no defense; as WP:NFC points out, we are not only concerned with our own use, but that of our reusers.
I am seeking further opinions; having interacted with this article before (though as an admin), I would be grateful for additional eyes. I'm asking this here rather than at WT:CP because while dealing with a single article, it really has broader implication. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:32, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
"Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors." Should we really be supporting the moral legitimacy of copyright in this way? I suggest excising that sentence from the page. The remaining content will make it clear that the reason we don't link to copyvios is that the government won't let us. It's not that there would be anything morally wrong with linking to it; it's just that the government holds a gun to our heads and says, "Don't do it or we'll fine/imprison you." Tisane talk/ stalk 02:38, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
There may be (US) case law which states that linking to a copyright violation may be contributory copyright violation, but the preliminary injunction in Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry was "dissolved and vacated", and the final settlement had no such finding. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:10, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
I've found that if you're going to commit civil disobedience, it's better to do it as part of a group than individually; the government can easily crush individuals. The peer-to-peer copyright violators get a slap on the wrist, if any punishment at all, because there are too many of them to throw them all in the clink for extended periods; plus, studies show most people don't view copyright as being a huge moral issue. Tisane talk/ stalk 16:11, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
The introductory note says: "Permission to reproduce content under the copyright license and technical conditions which apply to Wikipedia's content (see below and Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks) has already been granted to anyone anywhere without limitation [...]". I suggest to drop the part "without limitation" it is misleading or wrong, since the licenses impose limitations on the use. -- G.Hagedorn ( talk) 08:14, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Hi. Feedback needed on the usability of text on historical markers for states in the US (as opposed to federal government). The question is raised at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2009 May 17, which see for more background, including links to a few other discussions.
It is my belief that this text is copyrighted except in those states that release government work into public domain or in those cases where it can be verified that copyright has lapsed (since we cannot presume). I would think we could make an easy fair use claim in an article about a specific landmark. I think we run into a problem, though, when we're compiling them into lists, as at List of New York State Historic Markers in Cortland County, New York (the article in question), New Hampshire Historical Markers (with its transcribed lists) and List of historical highway markers in Hampshire County, West Virginia (brought up for comparison at CP). In aggregate, use is less transformative.
Since this affects quite a few articles, I wanted to request feedback. Please weigh in. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:40, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
I recently enrolled on a short course with The Open University, namely S189, Understanding the Weather. They supplied me with a DVD that contains, among other things, lots of pictures of clouds. The majority of those pictures are copied from Wikipedia, and are acknowledged as such. In some cases the text alongside the picture name-checks the GFDL, in some cases not. There is no copy of the GFDL on the DVD, and the DVD is marked "Copyright (c) 2008 The Open University. All rights reserved. No part of this disk may be reproduced or copied onto computing or other media, or adapted, without written permission from The Open University." Am I right in thinking that the university is breaching the terms of the GFDL by doing this? GrahamN ( talk) 00:39, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. I was pretty sure they were in the wrong, but I just wanted a second opinion. What a nerve, eh? I plan to write them a letter asking for an explanation. GrahamN ( talk) 21:10, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
This is raised on this talk page, but the current policy is not very clear on it. Or rather, if read very strictly, it is as if you're not allowed to quote at all unless you explicitly claim "fair use":
This seems very harsh. The policy does mention later that "Wikipedia articles may also include quotations, images, or other media under the U.S. Copyright law "fair use" doctrine in accordance with our guidelines for non-free content." In any case, see #Hoping to get a simple definition of copyvio included above, seems like a good proposal. CopoCop ( talk) 01:12, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
I've altered the "using copyrighted works from others" section both to acknowledge co-licensing and to clarify "fair use." First, Wikipedia does not accept "fair use" in its straightforward definition, and I think it's misleading to imply that we do. As NFC notes, our standards are deliberately more strict that US fair use allowances. Also, the earlier text was clearly written with media in mind and not at all with the thought of utilizing quotations of text, which is also using part of a copyrighted work under fair use. How does one note the fact, along with the relevant names and dates? At the talk page? Clearly not standard practice. My hope is that by referring to NFC explicitly "for specific details on when and how to utilize such material" we succinctly cover both media and text. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:22, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Please add this iw for Bengali wikipedia. [[bn:উইকিপেডিয়া:কপিরাইট]].- - Jayanta Nath ( Talk| Contrb) 10:12, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Hi. I'm trying to come by a workable solution for dealing with massive, cross-article infringement by single contributors. I've opened two sections on the subject at Wikipedia talk:Copyright violations: one on how to clean them up and another on how to work with the contributors who place them. This is a big issue on Wikipedia that I deal with routinely. The processes we have in place simply are not intended for this kind of situation, and I would be extremely grateful for assistance in working out processes that are. Please contribute there. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:13, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Folks, Can someone help with this. I've followed through the links for this template, which appears widely used, and am not convinced that it is correct. The template alleges that Philippines Government works are public domain but the relevant section of the Philippines copyright laws state (my emphasis)
SEC. 176. Works of the Government. – 176.1. No copyright shall subsist in any work of the Government of the Philippines. However, prior approval of the government agency or office wherein the work is created shall be necessary for exploitation of such work for profit. Such agency or office may, among other things, impose as a condition the payment of royalties
The highlighted section seems to contradict the previous but my reading is that Philippines Government works are not free. Rather than PD my reading is the the works are covered by something similar to the CC "NonCommercial 1.0" licence which is not free for wikipedia purposes. Thoughts anyone ? - Peripitus (Talk) 06:16, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't think anyone has asked the Philippine government whether it has relinquished its rights under Sec. 176.1 (or even if it could, without a change in the law), so it is presumptuous to claim that they don't see this as copyright. Section and chapter titles are not usually considered in the interpretation of statutes but, if there was any doubt in the matter, one can look at sec. 176.2, immediately following the paragraph in dispute here, which self-evidently gives force to Art. 2bis (3) of the Berne Convention. That is, it creates internationally recognised copyright where otherwise it would not exist. A reading of the paragraph which does not interpret this restriction as a copyright restriction is a reading which pretends that the paragraph ends at the first full stop. Physchim62 (talk) 13:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
The Philippine WikiProject is aware of this problem for a few years now. Our view is to treat media like this as if it were fair use (of course it's not applied uniformly due to the massive amount of work needed). There's a plan to lobby to remove the second sentence in the law but that's for the future and not the here and now. -- seav ( talk) 02:10, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
What is to be done in situations where:
I am right now seeing this happen to the article Plenum cable for which I have personally created several illustrations in order to make the text of the article easier to understand:
It seems recently someone has decided to rip the text and my illustrative work from Wikipedia which they are now claiming as their own work, and have recently requested a speedy deletion of plenum cable for infringing their work:
* http://www.lanshack.com/pdf/PlenumVsRiser.pdf
What really can be done by Wikipedia editors contributing in good faith to the encyclopedia, to assert that their uploaded material is the original content source?
To whom will Wikipedia typically side? Siding with the outsider is certainly the far easier option, since it merely requires a painless deletion of the disputed content from the encyclopedia. Trying to get an outsider to take down uncited content that came from Wikipedia may require an expensive civil court case that Wikipedia appears ill-prepared to take on as a nonprofit organization.
It appears that at least in terms of my stolen/uncited-source illustrations that they took, I have created my own solution to the problem. My illustrations are uploaded as "baked" PNGs and JPEGs which cannot be easily reedited or used to recreate the original drawing files. Additionally I am retaining my original drawing files used to create the PNG/JPG and this drawing information cannot be extracted from my uploaded images.
I am not going to upload my original drawing files as proof of origination since these thieving bastards would be free to download those as well to use as evidence that "they created it" as well.
Note that by doing this I am flying in the face of another unwritten policy of Wikipedia. Many editors want drawings on here uploaded in a free open re-editable standard such as SVG. If I had created these as SVGs I would have no "unbaked origination evidence" to fall back on as the original creator of the content. If an editor on Wikipedia wants to make an SVG of my uploaded work and cites back to me, that is fine but at least I retain the original drawing files as proof of origination.
Since these original drawing files (made with Office 2007 no less, ack) are my only evidence that the work is from me originally I am not particularly inclined to upload it directly to Wikipedia for all to download and claim as their own evidence of origination. I will only give this evidence to someone I trust and since most anyone can become an administrator over time, handing it to the administrators class doesn't provide sufficient safeguards. Such a copyleft/takedown thief also could strive for adminship to gain access to such materials.
Maybe I'll let Jimbo look at my origination evidence. DMahalko ( talk) 01:33, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
The question has been raised as to whether or not Mississippi law is PD, specifically with regard to this document. I have not yet found any indication. Mississippi.gov says, "You should assume that everything you see or read on the Site is copyright-protected unless otherwise noted, and may not be used except as provided in these Terms and Conditions." and "You may print or download material displayed on the Site for noncommercial, personal use only, provided you also retain all copyright and other proprietary notices contained on the materials. You may not, however, sell, reverse engineer, distribute, modify, transmit, reuse, repost, use, or create derivative works based on the content of the Site in whole or in part for any purpose, without written permission from Mississippi.gov, its authorized agents and contractors, or the owner of such content in each instance." [1]. I don't see anything at [2] about copyright status. Anyone have any insight? -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:19, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
While on the topic, note that even foreign law is not copyright in the US. See s:Template:PD-GovEdict and s:Wikisource:Proposed_deletions/Archives/2008-05#Crown_Copyright_waiver. The important point of that discussion is that since lawsuits for copyright infringement depend on the work in question being registered as copyrighted by the US Copyright Office. As far as I know, no law has ever been granted a copyright, and the Copyright Office has sworn black and blue that they will not grant a copyright to any enacted law - they will take it to the Supreme Court if they have to. John Vandenberg ( chat) 04:37, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
The sheet music is available in this 0.5 MB PDF (pp.5&6) on the Mississippi Secretary of State website. John Vandenberg ( chat) 09:51, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
On a somewhat unrelated note, but since I saw "lyrics" pop up on my watchlist: I'm currently in discussion with Pamela at Gracenote, which hosts fully licensed song lyrics. We worked through a reliable method of linking the lyrics and she set about working with their IT staff to simplify the access method and I was going to post at WT:SONG, but then they apparently got cold feet, possibly because someone took notice of what I was saying: "we might want to massively link to your site, from the world's biggest encyclopedia and 4th most-trafficked website". I'm still waiting for the callback and discretion is appreciated, but there is a site out there with fully-licensed lyrics which we can link to on a limited basis if the lyrics are there. Limited basis at least until they buy another 75 servers or so, I doubt they'll miss the hits from en.wikipedia.org! Franamax ( talk) 14:22, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
Can anyone offer any insight into the copyright status of [6]? It is not explicitly disclaimed, although it is not explicitly reserved either (images are; no mention is made of text). Footnote says, "The user must assume responsibility for compliance with federal copyright law (Title 17, United States Code) or any other issues involved in the use of the item(s) listed." WP:PD offers no guidance on Mississippi. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:12, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
I think this material is deprecated by Wikipedia's new licensing terms, which now permit CC-BY-SA and GFDL or CC-BY-SA compatible only, since Wikimedia:Terms of Use says the GFDL source must be "unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts." Accordingly, I'm removing it. I'm tucking it here in case I'm mistaken. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
Under Wikipedia's current copyright conditions, and with the current facilities of the MediaWiki software, it is only possible to include in Wikipedia external GFDL materials that contain invariant sections or cover texts, if all of the following apply,
- You are the copyright holder of these external GFDL materials (or: you have the explicit, i.e. written, permission of the copyright holder to do what follows);
- The length and nature of these invariant sections and cover texts does not exceed what can be placed in an edit summary;
- You are satisfied that these invariant sections and cover texts are not listed elsewhere than in the "page history" of the page where these external materials are placed;
- You are satisfied that further copies of Wikipedia content are distributed under the standard GFDL application of "with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts" (in other words, for the copies derived from wikipedia, you agree that these parts of the text contributed by you will no longer be considered as "invariant sections" or "cover texts" in the GFDL sense);
- The original invariant sections and/or cover texts are contained in the edit summary of the edit with which you introduce the thus GFDLed materials in wikipedia (so, that if "permanent deletion" would be applied to that edit, both the thus GFDLed material and its invariant sections and cover texts are jointly deleted).
Seen the stringent conditions above, it is very desirable to replace GFDL texts with invariant sections (or with cover texts) by original content without invariant sections (or cover texts) whenever possible.
I think I have brought it up to date. I have incorporated quite a bit of text directly from Wikimedia:Terms of Use (all noted in edit summary, for attribution). Please review. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
Second time I've seen a question with wide-ranging implications concerning music charts come up at WP:CP. The soup du jour: Top Hot 100 Hits of 2008. The fundamental questions: is there sufficient creativity in the selection criteria of Billboard's Hot 100 rankings for Billboard to put teeth in that "© 2008 Nielsen Business Media, Inc", because those of us who were around for that DMCA takedown on sports markets TV listings know they will if they can (and even, some suggested then, if they can't). Fallout: if we can't use it, probably many of the bluelinks at Template:Top Hot 100 Hits will also represent problems. Selection criteria for the Billboard Hot 100 is a weighted evaluation of retail for singles, albums, and airplay that has been modified over the years. Wikiprecedent: New Zealand's top singles, 9/2008. So, selection criteria: objective enough to use, or selective enough to restrict? What say we? -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:55, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
Good job finding that quote. It's vague, and probably deliberately so. I was advise that we treat the list as copyrighted unless (1) Billboard says they don't think it's copyrighted, (2) Mike Godwin and/or the WMF say they think it's not copyrighted, or (3) we can find the formula and reproduce the results. Note that average price data for baseball cards was once successfully defended in court as copyrighted, since the compilers claimed they were choosing which venues to survey and which exceptions to exclude. – Quadell ( talk) 20:04, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm inclined to think that almost all of that should be moved to Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights—with the exception, obviously, of the US copyright information which would be patently inappropriate there. Thoughts? -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
The paragraph:
The licenses Wikipedia uses grant free access to our content in the same sense that free software is licensed freely. This principle is known as copyleft in contrast to typical copyright licenses. Wikipedia content can be copied, modified, and redistributed if and only if the copied version is made available on the same terms to others and acknowledgment of the authors of the Wikipedia article used is included (a link back to the article is generally thought to satisfy the attribution requirement; see below for more details). Copied Wikipedia content will therefore remain free under appropriate license and can continue to be used by anyone subject to certain restrictions, most of which aim to ensure that freedom.
Should have the second sentence moved to the end, like this:
The licenses Wikipedia uses grant free access to our content in the same sense that free software is licensed freely. Wikipedia content can be copied, modified, and redistributed if and only if the copied version is made available on the same terms to others and acknowledgment of the authors of the Wikipedia article used is included (a link back to the article is generally thought to satisfy the attribution requirement; see below for more details). Copied Wikipedia content will therefore remain free under appropriate license and can continue to be used by anyone subject to certain restrictions, most of which aim to ensure that freedom. This principle is known as copyleft in contrast to typical copyright licenses.
In fact, as detailed in Wikipedia:Copyright_FAQ#Copyleft_licenses, copyleft does not refer simply to the concept of being licensed freely, but to the more specific concept of requiring redistribution in the same terms.-- Pot ( talk) 18:01, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Is there a category for articles that have imported text from Creative-Commons only sources? I think this would help both re-users and people working on Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. If such a category doesn't exist, I can help create it. A possible name would be Category:Articles with imported Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 text. Superm401 - Talk 00:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
There's a copyright question at WT:CP that could use more eyes concerning a chart duplicated in many points from an existing chart. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:27, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
I notice that the article on Truman Capote quotes the entire (short) New York Times article on the Clutter slayings that inspired his book "In Cold Blood". Because it is quoted in full, the quotation does not seem like fair use to me, but I'm no lawyer. Just thought I'd draw attention to it. Phiwum ( talk) 15:12, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
Hi. There's a question at an FLC that may impact several other featured lists or featured list candidates (including Crafoord Prize. In both of these cases, we have list articles about prize or award winners with a quoted reference to the reasons that they received the honor. In both cases, the quoted reasons add up to a fairly substantial portion of the source. Rewriting in original language will be difficult, but for the most part, not impossible. The question is whether the use of quoted material there is extensive enough to represent a copyright concern and a problem under WP:NFC. Some of the quoted snippets may not have enough originality to represent a copyright concern; others do. Opinions welcome, here or there. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:50, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Please add
Wikipedia:Identifying copyrights in links. --
Wavelength (
talk) 03:13, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
Please add
Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --
Wavelength (
talk) 18:43, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm bringing this up here after a quick chat with Jclemens. While working on WP:SCV, I flagged Baksar for G12, finding it still way too close to the source for comfort. Jcelemens declined suggesting AfD or PROD (which is of course absolutely fine for any other borderline CSD cases). I then tagged that article for copyvio and listed at WP:CP, and when I went to notify Jclemens, I noticed another editor had a very simlar discussion on the same matters just before me. Jclemens graciously agreed to submit these for comment here since we're both interpreting consensus on such cases a bit differently. What do you recon is the best course of action? MLauba ( talk) 21:31, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Reposting the below from my talk page for other opinions. Note that the article was flagged by CorenSearchBot and is now listed at WP:CP. The community's input would be appreciated. Thanks. MLauba ( talk) 12:15, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Could you point out how exactly is the article a copyright violation? It is very little text, mostly information from his CV, which is difficult to paraphrase in any other way than what is currently in the article. If this is a copyvio, then by the same logic we should delete all "List of publications" sections from all articles of academics, as these are usually also directly taken from the person's CV. Please explain. Offliner ( talk) 10:52, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Also, please personally compare the article text [10] and the resume [11]. Offliner ( talk) 10:54, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
This is the source:
Andrei P. Tsygankov is Professor at the departments of Political Science and International Relations at San Francisco State University. He teaches Russian/post-Soviet, comparative, and international politics since August 2000. A Russian native, Tsygankov is a graduate of Moscow State University (Candidate of Sciences, 1991) and University of Southern California (Ph.D., 2000).
This is the article:
Andrei Tsygankov is Professor at the departments of Political Science and International Relations at San Francisco State University, where he teaches Russian and post-Soviet, comparative, and international politics.
Now please explain why this is a copyright violation. How does the information need to be worded so that it's not? Please give an example. Offliner ( talk) 11:01, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Text from Trafford Training Centre has been lifted and used almost verbatim (one word was altered) in the narration of a short documentary made by Manchester United F.C. about the centre, but no credit has been attributed to Wikipedia or the authors of that specific article. This is clearly a violation of the GFDL and/or the Creative Commons license that the article was submitted under. As one of the contributors to the article, and the author of the specific passage that was lifted, I had intended to telephone Manchester United to inform them of this, but I wondered what other Wikipedians would suggest as an alternative course of action first. – Pee Jay 01:45, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Could you please add als:Wikipedia:Lizenzbestimmungen? Thanks, -- Holder ( talk) 19:48, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
I would like to address the subject of the copyright of motion picture stills. First, a definition. A motion picture still is a still photograph taken by a still photographer (usually on a 4 x 5 negative) before or after a scene is photographed by a motion picture camera. It is not a frame enlargement or a screen capture.
For over a hundred years now, stills have been distributed freely (usually as 8 x 10 prints) by the studios to motion picture distributors, exhibitors, and to the media to publicize motion pictures. Typically, the still would carry a copyright notice on the bottom of the front, and a "snipe" (caption) on the back describing the scene pictured and what actors appear. Often a summary of the film's production credits would also appear at the bottom of the front.
The studios virtually never renewed the copyright on these motion picture stills. In over a decade of using the U.S. Copyright Office copyright renewal database, I have yet to see any renewal of the copyright for a motion picture still published before 1964 (those published from 1964 onward received an automatic copyright term renewal).
I bring this up at Wikipedia because there are those who attempt to throw roadblocks in the use of these pre-1964 stills. Some still erroneously assume that stills are frame enlargements, and thus are protected by the film's copyright. Others will understand that stills are separate works, but will claim that they probably are covered as derivative works, adaptations so to speak, of the film. I come here today to say that a federal court has in effect said that is not so. And this federal court is right in the Wikipedia Foundation's backyard.
The case involved the loss of copyright due to the failure to display a proper copyright notice on motion picture stills. However, the important thing to note is that no theory of a derivative copyright was recognized by the court. The copyright of the stills stood or fell on their own, as separate works from the film that they publicized. Here I quote from one of the case's headnotes at Westlaw:
This would also have implications for the copyright of motion picture posters published before 1964.
I hope that Wikipedia administrators and editors will keep this in mind when dealing with the use of published pre-1964 motion picture stills and movie posters from American motion pictures. — Walloon ( talk) 19:07, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
There is a discussion on Talk:Star Sapphire (comics) regarding image File:StarSapphires01.jpg. The image used for the group Star Sapphires in the hero box. The image comes from Green Lantern: Blackest Night #0 which was part of Free Comic Book Day and could be interpreted as promotional material; however, the image seems to be part of a characters description page, similar to that of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and use of the images in wiki, let alone in the herobox, is a direct reduplication of their intended purpose, which I understand to be a copyright or fair-use violation. Additional input either here, or on the talk page would be appreciated. - Sharp962 ( talk) 19:49, 24 July 2009 (UTC).
There is a question of licensing at Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems#James Temple. A contributor long ago placed content here that was licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA, which (of course) has never been compatible with Wikipedia's license. The article has subsequently been heavily edited and contains substantial new material (it has grown from 286 words to ~1570). The question is, since CC-By-NC-SA requires that "If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a licence identical to this one", are the contents contributed here by subsequent editors also a copyright violation of that original source, since the license is incompatible? In other words, must the roughly 1200 words of creative content that was contributed by Wikipedians be deleted along with the original text, if we cannot obtain permission to license the original under CC-By-SA? Please give feedback there. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:12, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
{{ editprotected}}
Could an admin please update the link to Wikipedia:Standard GFDL violation letter in the If you are the owner of Wikipedia-hosted content being used without your permission section of the page to Wikipedia:Standard license violation letter?
The current link is outdated, and could lead readers to assume that Wikipedia is still solely under the GFDL.
Thanks twilsonb ( talk) 01:23, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
I came across the U.S. General Services Administration Historic Building Posters & Brochures series, so I wrote the administrator of that program to ask if the text and images on those pages was in the public domain, or otherwise available to be used by Wikipedia. She replied, by email:
I have since copied all of the text of those pages to my userspace, indexed at User:BD2412/courthouses, with an attribution note at the bottom (which is clearly permissible under the express license granted by the GSA). The text will need a lot of work in terms of wikification, layout, and tone, and may end up much altered before it is moved to article space. My question is, does the permission provided by the GSA suffice to permit our use of the material, modified or not, in article space? As a matter of copyright law it certainly does, but does this also meet our internal policy requirements? bd2412 T 14:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
I am proposing that images and media files uploaded after a cutoff date and licensed only under the GFDL be prohibited and subject to speedy deletion. Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Image use policy (not here). Stifle ( talk) 10:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Is it copyright violation if one copies one page of wikipedia to another other page within wikipedia without mentioning which article the stuff was copied from? I suppose not. But what about directly translating from Wikipedia in one language to Wikipedia in another language without attributing it to contributors of the original wikipedia? Would that constitute a copyright violation? Would you please quote the policy that applies here. Thanks -- DoostdarWiki ( talk) 06:43, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Not sure about this one. I have a logo of a defunct company that was published in 1918. The company probably stopped using the logo around 1923 but I think the company itself survived until the 1970s. My question is, should I upload this under {{PD-1923}} because it's an image published prior to 1923, or should I still use the "fair use" tag for logos? Thanks. Gatoclass ( talk) 13:58, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
I've got a policy application question based on a recent copyright problem, pertaining to Wikipedia:Public domain and Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights. The latter says, without disclaimer, "Any work published before 1923 is in the public domain in the United States, regardless of its source country...." The former says, with footnote, "In the U.S., any work published before January 1, 1923 anywhere in the world is in the public domain." That footnote further adds:
Strictly speaking, only U.S. works published before January 1 1923 and foreign works published in compliance with U.S. formalities (registration, © notice) before that date are in the public domain in the U.S. For non-U.S. works published without compliance with U.S. formalities (i.e., without © notice), the situation is a bit more complicated:
- If published before 1909, such works are in the public domain in the U.S.
- If published between 1909 and 1922 (inclusive) in a language other than English, the Ninth Circuit has considered them as "unpublished works" according to Peter Hirtle and following the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case Twin Books v. Disney in 1996. The case was about the book Bambi, A Life in the Woods; the decision is heavily criticized in Nimmer on Copyright ( ISBN 0-820-51465-9), the standard commentary on U.S. copyright law.
- If published between 1909 and 1922 (inclusive) in English, they are highly likely to be PD, given that the aforementioned controversial case was only about a work published in a foreign language.
- Additionally, any work first published outside of the United States without copyright notice prior to 1989, when the U.S. joined the Berne Convention, is in the public domain in the U.S. if it was in the public domain in its country of origin on the URAA date (in most cases January 1, 1996). See the section on country-specific rules for more information.
Also, the 1923 cut-off date applies only to the U.S. This means foreign works first published before 1923 are in the public domain in the U.S., but may still be copyrighted outside the U.S.
Given the footnote at the former, the statement at the latter seems misleading. My work never really dealt with the early stuff, but it seems we need to clarify a bit gray area. My copyright work off Wikipedia has never involved material of this age, so I am not as familiar with it as with some other aspects. But, based on the footnote, it seems we should alter those guidelines to read "Any work published before 1909 is in the public domain in the United States, regardless of its source country...." and add a further statement that "Works published between 1909 and January 1, 1923 may also be public domain in the United States, depending on the details of original publication" (including footnote of explanation). Is it possible to include some practical advice on how to verify the pd status of works published between 1909 and 1923?
Since this is mentioned in both those guidelines and is a standard often applied in determining whether content is PD, I thought to bring it up here, where it may attract more notice. I'll request input at the talk pages of both of those guidelines. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:50, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
I tagged the above aricle and a similar one since they are verbatim copies from another website. Please see: A-History-of-SindVol-II license url and more detailed info. Information about the book status from the book url provided above: Date Added10/24/2007 Category Uncategorized. TagsHistory, of, India, Indian, conquest, history, ArabGroupsGroup_add Copyright Attribution Non-commercial However since then it has come to my attention that the book itself was published in 1902. Does that make it public domain? If this is the case, can (or should) the website requirement under their more restrictive copyright license be bypassed? Should the article remain here as is and the CSD tag removed? Thanks. Dr.K. logos 15:15, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
I need an admin to dab contributory infringement to contributory copyright infringement. -- UncleDouggie ( talk) 23:35, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
I understand that the issue of UK Crown Copyright has been discussed at great length in the past, with the conclusion that such material is not suitable for Wikipedia even if it is covered by the waiver. I would be grateful if I could be directed to a record or summary of the debate on this topic before I waste people's time bringing it up again. Thanks — Labalius ( talk) 13:27, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia currently has the process pages for Help:Merge and WP:Split, but no clear guideline in place to ensure that contributors understand the attribution requirements for reusing text within Wikipedia. It is brushed on at WP:C, but not clear, and I believe that expanding its coverage there would muddy the waters of that policy's primary purpose. I would like to propose this new guideline to govern Help:Merge and WP:Split and to which contributors may easily be pointed when they inadvertently violate copyright by failing to attribute (and this happens all the time). Feedback and assistance at that talk page in reaching consensus would be very much appreciated. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:10, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia has several processes in place for dealing with limited copyright concerns--single articles or files, even a small grouping of these--but no workable process for dealing with massive multiple point infringement. While WP:COPYCLEAN has attempted to fill this gap with Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Contributor surveys, this solution is not ideal. It is difficult to publicize and to regulate, and in addition it may seem to suggest exclusivity. I hope that generalizing clean-up will encourage other contributors as well as making it easier to publicize the investigation option at relevant policies and guidelines. (To substantiate the need for this, I need only point out the listings currently at Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Contributor surveys and those few which have already archived. Additionally, these come up routinely at ANI, where response is hit-and-miss, depending on who is reviewing ANI in a given day.) The processes proposed are based on existing policies and practices for handling copyright problems (I've worked with many of these); the board is inspired in large part by WP:SPI. More information is available at the process page and in the purpose statement at the process talk.
I think this is critically needed. Wikipedia has chosen to address copyright concerns proactively, demonstrating due diligence, and when we know a contributor has widely violated copyright, we must have a streamlined process for handling it. The primary point for text copyright issues, WP:CP, cannot handle this specific situation: a listing such as Wikipedia:CCI/Singingdaisies would bring it to a halt.
Please help address this need. Your comments are much welcome at WT:CCI. :) -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:38, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Hi. A question has been raised about the PD status of public records in the State of Illinois. Evidently, "Information presented on the Secretary of State’s web site is considered public information and may be distributed or copied. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credit is requested." It doesn't mention modification, and I'm not sure if this is specific enough to be considered a release into public domain. With respect to text, it seems that we could defensibly incorporate extensive quotations, but can we work it directly into text to be modified as we do with US government text? -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:04, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
An interesting case not explicitly covered in
WP:ELNEVER: According to the article about the British film
Things to Come the film "lapsed into the public domain in the United States in 1964 [but] copyright remained in force in the UK, the European Union, and elsewhere". The Internet Archive, with headquarters in San Francisco, is thus distributing the film legally in the US. This case is not unique as there are several more films in PD in the US only but that may be copyrighted somewhere else in the world. It would be really sad if WP could not link to theese films. I suggest we change the sentence in WP:ELNEVER
from:
"Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work."
to either:
"Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work or is otherwise distributing the work legally."
or:
"Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work or is otherwise distributing the work legally in its country of origin."
(or some other clarification) and leave the legality of downloading to the websites' visitors. If we instead decide that this linking is not allowed the sentence should be clarified accordingly. --
Bensin (
talk) 00:21, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
←I'm not entirely sure what's wanted here with respect to this policy. :) At this point, I don't think I would support amending it to include this specific situation. Policies typically need to remain general to avoid bloat. While the Internet Archive itself may merit the mention it has, it is prone to being cited in any article. This would seem to affect a small subsection. The sentence amendments proposed at the head seem rather specific to WP:ELNEVER. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:29, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
18-Nov-2009: I have found a legal source for song lyrics, LyricsTime.com, which (for 2 years) has had no slow, pop-up adverts, but might not have some particular songs. See:
That webpage, for the musical Show Boat, has a bottom DISCLAIMER:
I think that disclaimer sufficiently covers the copyright concerns, and plus having no sluggish pop-up ads (for over 2 years), I think it should be considered an acceptable, linkable source for text that describes or analyzes song lyrics. - Wikid77 ( talk) 17:42, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
The UK government has just released thousands of aerial reconnaissance photographs from the Second World War. Of course, they have tried to do so under a personal/educational use only licence… what's more, the licence is subject to Scots law which, while being a noble and ancient legal system, rarely has much to say about copyright matters! If anyone feels like complaining about this ludicrous situation, feel free: the home page for the collection is here. Physchim62 (talk) 14:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
There is the template {{PD-BritishGov}} to tag images which are claimed to be in the public domain under these rules." I don't think we want to import all '10 million' or so images, however.-- Elvey ( talk) 19:57, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Hi. There is a question about university rankings at Wikipedia talk:CP#Global University Ranking. More feedback would be very much appreciated. :) -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:12, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Martin Schneider looks like a translation of the german article de:Martin Schneider but the history is missing, the fact it is a translation isn't mentioned anywhere either. Is there any place to report this so the history can be imported (or at least a template added or whatever should be done in that case? -- Schuhpuppe ( talk) 22:50, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
{{
editrequested}}
Current text:
Let's provide more info here. How 'bout making "most" or "check copyright information" link to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_the_U.S._government#State_and_Local_Governments_in_Florida.2C_California.2C_and_Minnesota
Here's the replacement text I suggest:
-- Elvey ( talk) 18:27, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Good day,
In the context of the "any day now" trial on Flagged Revisions, the thought's been floating around (well, OK, I plead guilty on at least part of that) on running User:CorenSearchBot(CSB) on newly patrolled revisions in order to start tracking down on all of these copyvios added in existing articles.
This discussion here is meant to determine how the new bot should be implemented and how we will interact with it.
For context, Patrolled Revisions are generated whenever a user with the Reviewer flag (yet to be determined who gets this flag and how) validates changes on an article, these changes will then, and only then, appear to the viewer.
Reviewers need to conform to the following criteria in order to "sign off" a new revision (or series of revisions) for public viewing:
The item about copyvio is the one that will present the biggest headache for human reviewers. There's therefore been some considerations given to unleash CorenSearchBot on newly patrolled revisions to help out cracking down on these.
I see two main challenges to overcome:
Here are some of my own thoughts around these.
Thoughts? MLauba ( talk) 16:34, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
I have stumbled across Codon adaptation index and the article is a direct copy of the site listed, but the site does not have a copyright on it. What is WP policy in this case? -- MWOAP ( talk) 03:00, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm conforming WP:LOP to the recent changes, and I see that page has a "legal and copyright" section. That suggests this page and maybe WP:COPYVIO should be in the legal cat, but that's up to anyone who wants to argue the point on this page. It looks like we're done with the general categorization effort. - Dank ( push to talk) 19:31, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
In an effort to try to come up with some solutions for massive and/or chronic backlogs on copyright issues (such as at WP:PUF, WP:SCV and WP:CCI), I've opened a discussion at Areas for Reform. Please contribute, if you have any ideas. I think there's a critical need. At this moment, WP:PUF has images that have been listed for over three months, while there are literally hundreds of articles and images still waiting review at WP:CCI. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:40, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Forgot to add the legal policy template; I've done that now. We haven't really had the discussion about what it should look like ... we only got consensus that we might want it to be different from the usual policy template. There haven't been any complaints so far about the spartan look of the current one, so maybe people are okay with it as is, but if you'd like to change it, feel free to suggest a change at Template:legal policy. - Dank ( push to talk) 18:41, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
Looking for a quick decision that will reduce the list of legal policy pages from 11 to 7; link is WT:POLICY#Tweak to list of legal policies. That would make a legal policy sidebar more appealing. - Dank ( push to talk) 02:49, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
I have a recently-published book which covers the early years of aviation. All of the images used are said to come from Getty Images. It claims "Photographs (c) 1997 Getty Images". Since some of the early images, e.g. in the first decades of the 20th century, were taken in the USA and Europe by unknown photographers over 70 years ago, these would presumably be considered as being in the public domain. Is the retrospective copyright claim by Getty Images legally valid and enforceable? There is no image attribution appendix in the book. Thanks. -- TraceyR ( talk) 09:25, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
{{ Editprotected}} Please add WP:COPYEDITORS, Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors to the 2nd DAB hatnote. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 18:37, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Does anyone know the answer to this? (a) If I ask someone to take a photograph of me, and they do so on their cell phone, do they own the copyright, or do I? (b) If they take the photograph of me on my cell phone, does that change the copyright?
The image in question has become famous. The subject of the image has released it under cc-by. The question is whether he has the right to do that, or does the photographer need to be the one who releases it? SlimVirgin TALK contribs 20:14, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Hi. A question has been raised at WT:CP about yet another list article. Determining whether these violate copyright requires determining whether human creativity is involved in the information. More input would be very much appreciated there. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Hello. I don't know if this has been asked before, but I have a question. If an image is currently unavailable as free-use but is still on here, having (at the time of its upload) been cleared as free-use, is it possible to crop that image and still claim free-use? The image in question is this, which I would like to use to crop out images of Victor Cook and Greg Weisman. Thank you, The Flash I am Jack's complete lack of surprise 00:44, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
When indisputably copyrighted material is not available online, or only available behind a paywall, and the material appears on a open web site with a correct citation, does the Wikipedia editor have to prove that the appearance of the material on this open web site is authorized by the copyright holder to the publisher of the open web site before citing it in an Wikipedia article with a link to that web site? If the answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no, please elaborate. patsw ( talk) 03:04, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
If WP:COPYLINK is explicit about the burden of proof issue I raise here, please point that out. My read of WP:COPYLINK is that only if the editor is aware of the copyright violation does a prohibition apply:
“ | ...if you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright... | ” |
patsw ( talk) 04:32, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
I believe Drrll does not have a burden of proof to show that Discoverthenetworks.org obtained permission from Harper's. If DTN were notorious as lyrics web sites or if Harper's went public with a complaint against DTN, then that would be a trigger for "if you know..." and the link would not be allowed. patsw ( talk) 02:36, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
This page has this text: Someone holds the copyright unless they have been explicitly placed in the public domain. Images, video and sound files on the internet need to be licensed directly from the copyright holder or someone able to license on their behalf.
I suggest that this wording is more accurate: We presume that all works are subject to someone's copyright unless they can be shown to be in the public domain. Copyrighted images, video and sound files on the internet need to be licensed directly from the copyright holder or someone able to license on their behalf.
I suggest this change because there are some works which are not subject to copyright, and never have been. Thus "placed in the public domain" is not accurate because they were never copyrighted. Similarly, these works don't need to be licensed from anyone.
Anybody object to this change? -- RussNelson ( talk) 00:16, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I suggest the following editing of the section If you are the owner of Wikipedia-hosted content being used without your permission.
Suggested edit... --
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 23:01, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
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; see
Request for immediate removal of copyright violation. 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 and replace it with the words {{copyvio|URL or place you published the text}} but the text will still beremain in the page history until a volunteer administrator reviews your action and
deletes the infringing material. Either way, we will, of course, need some evidence to support your claim of ownership.
Inversely, iIf you are the editor of a Wikipedia article and have found a copy hosted without following the licensing requirements for attribution, please see
Wikipedia:Standard license violation letter.
I put the following hatnote on the page Copying. I know it's weird, but this is how I search for Wikipedia guideline or policy pages. Over time, I suppose I'll remember "WP:" if I know that's the sort of thing I'm searching for. In the case of the hatnote below, though, I needed some guidance on copying and pasting where two articles, one a stub, had similar content and I felt I needed to redirect the stub.
I brought this up on The Village Pump, but got no answer there. I shouldn't have asked a two-part question, I guess. I thought there was a template problem involving the hatnote I was using to format. Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:06, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
In "Copyright laws by country"
according to Jimbo Wales, the founder of Wikipedia,
Please change to;
according to Jimbo Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia,
...according to the precedents in e.g. Jimmy Wales etc. Thanks, Chzz ► 05:56, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
Done
So linking to an actual infringing site is a clearly stated no-no, but what about torrent sites? This and the drama immediately following it prompted my curiousity. Maybe I'm just not up on the intricacies of copyright law, but is contributing (linking to the torrent site) to contributory infringement (the torrent site's torrent allowing infringement) still contributory infringement? VernoWhitney ( talk) 22:48, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
I have restored full protection to this page. The admin who protected it in 2008 did so under the following rationale: "legal, high-visibility, vandalism". The first two of these continue to apply. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:17, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
In long-overdue follow-up to Wikipedia talk:Copyrights/Archive 13#Copyright laws by country, I've relocated the several country specific information bits to Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights. It is obviously woefully incomplete here. I believe based on the response that I got then that this should be non-controversial, but of course am prepared to bow to consensus if I'm wrong. If I am wrong about controversy here, we'll have to update the material on countries without copyright relations with the United States, as the text did not reflect the most recent circular.
Do the changes seem appropriate? ( [17], [18]) -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:05, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
In wikipedia, there are alot of different franchises such as Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Crash Bandicoot, Star Wars, Mickey Mouse, etc, which are copyrighted by a company such as Nintendo, Disney, etc. We have articles on their characters, movies, games, etc. How is this not a copyright violation? SeanWheeler ( talk) 02:16, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
I am concerned that the current plot section constitutes a copyright problem in its level of detail. At the time I am writing this, it is 3,049 words - using an academic estimate of 400 words per page, it would fill almost 8 pages in a standard scholarly book. I believe this crosses the line of acceptable summary, creating a derivative work. See Twin Peaks v. Publications International. The Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)#Plot summaries notes that "The length of a plot summary should be carefully balanced with the length of the other sections." WP:PLOT notes that while "a concise plot summary is usually appropriate", the purpose of an article on a piece of fiction is not to retell its plot, but to discuss reception and significance. I believe the summary needs to be cut to a small percentage of its length and balanced with additional material that provides critical commentary; otherwise, there is little transformative about the content, and we are merely saving readers the trouble of buying the book. That we are non-profit is no defense; as WP:NFC points out, we are not only concerned with our own use, but that of our reusers.
I am seeking further opinions; having interacted with this article before (though as an admin), I would be grateful for additional eyes. I'm asking this here rather than at WT:CP because while dealing with a single article, it really has broader implication. -- Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:32, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
"Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors." Should we really be supporting the moral legitimacy of copyright in this way? I suggest excising that sentence from the page. The remaining content will make it clear that the reason we don't link to copyvios is that the government won't let us. It's not that there would be anything morally wrong with linking to it; it's just that the government holds a gun to our heads and says, "Don't do it or we'll fine/imprison you." Tisane talk/ stalk 02:38, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
There may be (US) case law which states that linking to a copyright violation may be contributory copyright violation, but the preliminary injunction in Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry was "dissolved and vacated", and the final settlement had no such finding. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:10, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
I've found that if you're going to commit civil disobedience, it's better to do it as part of a group than individually; the government can easily crush individuals. The peer-to-peer copyright violators get a slap on the wrist, if any punishment at all, because there are too many of them to throw them all in the clink for extended periods; plus, studies show most people don't view copyright as being a huge moral issue. Tisane talk/ stalk 16:11, 8 July 2010 (UTC)