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. |
I can't think of a better place to ask this, so I'll come here. Do we think that {{ pd-art}} applies to two dimensional works on non-flat surfaces, such as vase paintings? I'd like to upload a number of Greek vase paintings to illustrate articles, but I'd also like to make sure we're clear legally before I do that. Thanks, Robth Talk 06:19, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
There is a level of disagrement on the copyright status of images on Starfleet ranks and insignia.
The debate currently tries to determine weather or not redrawn rank insignias are releasable with a free licence.
I would like to invite all parties interested to join the debate.
-- Cool Cat Talk| @ 13:38, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Is the West Point military yearbook considered a work of the US Army for purposes of copyright? Would it be appropriate to tag an image from this yearbook with Template:PD-USGov-Military? ˉˉ anetode╞ ┬╡ 18:46, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
I recently ordered some copies of manuscripts dating back to 1820 from the British Library in London. The copies arrived with the following copyright statement..
Please note that the British Library owns and retains at all times the copyright on all reproductions reproduced. Customers may not reproduce any materical supplied for any reason, (including academic or personal, and whether for profit or not) without prior written permission from the British Library.
Is this copyright statement legitemate? It doesn't seem to comply with the statement relating to crown copyright on this project page. But then again the term 'crown copyright' isn't used anywhere in the letter.
Factoid Killer 17:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Here and at Commons we accept the NY Bridgeman v. Corel decision. Pure reproductions are not copyrightable. UK lawyers might not accept this but the NY court has taken into account also UK law -- Historiograf 03:30, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
I have encountered a fair deal of opposition from self-appointed "vigilantes" when I have tried to contribute images or texts based on materials that I've found elsewhere. They invariably insist that I should get permission from "the copyright holder" and go through the mess of 'image tags', 'text tags'. or any other type of 'content tags', in order to comply with a strict, almost paranoid set of intricate rules devised to avoid copyright infringement problems. Trouble is, there's a huge world out there, that has never heard of, and couldn't care less about, U.S. Copyright Law. And trouble also is, there's a universe of materials that have never been copyrighted. The webpage of the United Stated Patent and Trademark Office itself, defines Copyright as:
Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of “original works of authorship” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. The 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly, or to display the copyrighted work publicly.
The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter of the writing. For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description; it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine. Copyrights are registered by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.
[hopefully I've not stepped over anyone's toes by copying the two paragraphs above, you never know, as things are getting in this Enclyclopedia]
If a publishable item needs to be registered in order to have a valid Copyright atached to it, then by force whatever materials that have not undergone such registration process are not protected by any 'copyright law', right? Then why so many Wikipedians stubbornly insist in deleting, or in harassing contributors otherwise, arguing that everything must have some kind of 'copyright', whatever the country or region of origin, when such assumption is often utterly false?
If, for example, I want to write or expand an article on ophidians, and I find a color picture of a South American snake in a fourth-grade, government-printed Biology book in Spanish language having no author name, no indication of a Copyright whatsoever, no photographer names, etc., and then I scan it, enhance it, and upload it to the Wikipedia itself or to the Wikipedia Commons, I can bet a million to one that there will appear many a zealous creatures, seeking some kind of recognition from Wikipedia 'authorities' I presume, that will in due time (that is, less than a couple of days) post a threatening tag or sign or warning in my article or picture saying that I must get "the permission of the Copyright holder", when in reality such entity does not exist at all: the book, much less the pictures in it, were never copyrighted. The worst comes when that same person goes on and actually deletes my article or an image thereof, thus doing Wikipedia harm --instead of a valuable service-- (and irritating me in the process). To destroy is a lot easier than to contribute. Hence, in my humble opinion, no 'awards' should be granted to their kind, they should be reprimanded instead!
ISN'T IT TIME TO THINK THIS OVER, AND TO STOP THIS NONSENSE?
AVM 23:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
As far as I can tell for years all contributors to Wikipedia have been contributing their own material submitting from a page which links to this one. This page clearly says "If you contribute material to Wikipedia, you thereby license it to the public under the GFDL (with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts). In order to contribute, you therefore must be in a position to grant this license, which means that..."
Note this says material, not text. Material includes images. Yet a few people put up their own images and claim they are under a more restrictive licence (e.g. Creative Commons). This matters hugely because when putting together a CD version 1.0 like the [ Wikipedia CD Selection] whereas it is fairly clear you can name authors and creators by telling people where to find the author details (e.g. on which page on Wikipedia they are [ Copyright & Disclaimer]) under creative commons 2.5 some people argue that you should have the (Nick) name of the author burnt on the CD. Getting a list like this together is a serious botting task which is all for the handful of non GFDL licences. There is no way of distinguishing CC licenses from the rest of WP except by hand-sorting.
So is it fair to assume all WP images are GFDL unless the creators protest otherwise? It is easy excluding images on request but generating the list is a headache -- BozMo talk 11:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
First: I do not think that CC licenses are more restrictive. Second: It is a copyvio to assume CC pictures as GFDL unless the creator has explicitely consented (e.g. by duallicensing). Third: In my interpretation it is a clear copyvio (by not respecting the ESSENTIALS of the GNU FDL) NOT to name creators on a CD. It is NOT sufficient to give a link to the Wikipedia -- Historiograf 15:32, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
I plan on creating some articles for songs which my choir sings. They are notable and I have heard them other places, and I believe that they are notable enough to become articles. That is not my point however. I was wondering if it would be against the copyright to include their lyrics in the articles to illustrate the message of the songs more. Would it be fair use? Thanks for your advice, zappa 23:30, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I do not think so. -- Historiograf 15:42, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Where the project page says "Currently it seems dubious…", what seems dubious? The preceding sentence? If someone understands what this is about, and can write English well, please rewrite this very confusing passage. - Jmabel | Talk 05:39, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I've significantly paraphrased a work for an article, History of machine translation, see discussion on talk page. I have made some enquiries and no-one I have spoken to thinks it counts as a copyvio. But I would like to get some more opinions, and if it is judged to be a copyvio I would like to see it {{ copyvio}}'d. Thanks :) - FrancisTyers 18:54, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
...there is frequent quotation of words, and occasional quotation of sentences from the book; the topics treated are topics treated in the book, the attempt is made to reproduce in abridged and paraphrased form (so far as such reproduction is possible within the very narrow limits adopted) the author's treatment of the topics selected, and the author's order and arrangement of topics within the portions of the book dealt with is followed, except for a certain amount of transposition or repetition.
It is true that the whole book has not been thus dealt with; but the copyright protects every substantial component part of the book, as well as the whole. Though the reproduction of the author's ideas and language is incomplete and fragmentary, and frequently presents them in somewhat distorted form, important portions of them are left substantially recognizable.
I uploaded an image without knowing its copyright status. I recently learned that status. How do I assign that status to the image? EvaXephon 20:14, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much!
EvaXephon 03:45, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
I've created a tag for prospective use of morgueFile images on Wikipedia, {{ morgueFile}}. Their license is a little confusing, and I'd like advice on how I've represented it and generally whether or not their images can be used here. If someone could drop by Template talk:MorgueFile, that would be great. Melchoir 20:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
In the section "Using copyrighted work from others" it says, "If you use part of a copyrighted work under "fair use" ... you must make a note of that fact (along with names and dates)." What names and dates? The name of the wiki editor and the date of the edit? Where do you note it - in the article or in the Talk page? Or should this instead read something like "you must cite the source"? Nurg 05:44, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
I listed {{ Indiancopyright}} on TFD as it's a license tag that says "This media file is copyrighted to an Indian domain and all rights reserved by that domain" -- basically, that our use of the image is a copyright violation. It was closed as a 2-2 no-consensus "keep". -- Carnildo 01:10, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
I started work on a page, Wikipedia:Can I use this work?, that will hopefully be useful once it's done. I'm basing it mainly on this chart. Any thoughts? — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 03:56, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Anyway, I'm contemplating improvement of the current copyright upload form to give this little quiz instead of just letting people pick from a list (how many people would read the page I created anyway?), but that's a very long-term project. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 21:54, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Is the wikipedia logo, that image of a sphere made up of puzzle peices, copyrighted? What are the requirements for using it on derivative wikis? Nygdan
And by the way, Nygdan, it's conventional to place new sections at the bottom. You can use the plus sign to the right of "edit this page" to add a section more easily. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 01:35, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Trademark restricts nothing that wouldn't cause confusion for consumers. If trademark were the only issue, the logo could be used freely as long as no association with Wikimedia was implied. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 03:55, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
It has been suggested to me here, that uploading copyrighted fonts in converted outline form in a SVG file would still be a copy vio. Others seem to disagree with this here. I was wondering if anyone knew whether it is OK to upload the shapes of fonts in SVG format, or if we have to use a raster image such as PNG to avoid copy vio? Thanks.-- Andrew c 14:26, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
First thing, then, is to remove the proprietary font from Image:Wiki.png. :P — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 22:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:Copyrights "Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts."
Alternately, whenever someone adds content to Wikipedia, it says underneath "Content must not violate any copyright and must be verifiable. You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL."
The issue is that the people are agreeing to release their entries under the full GPL GFDL while the Copyrights page says that Wikipedia texts are available under a restricted version of the GFDL, .
To further muddy the waters, the release statement links to the Copyright page (which includes the information that a restricted version of the GFDL is used) but in a different context ie. in the "do not violate copyright" context rather than the "this is the licence you're releasing under" context, making it arguably not required/expected reading before release like the GFDL link. Irrevenant 02:45, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, GFDL is by no way the same as "full GPL". Is that perhaps the origin of your misunderstanding (in fact I don't understand what you misunderstand... the wording you use to explain your alleged problem are anyway self-contradictory - that doesn't help others to understand what you think is going wrong)? Note also that both GPL and GFDL currently use the copyright mechanism. Without copyright... no GPL, nor GFDL. And that's also a copyright you're not allowed to violate when adding content to wikipedia. Copyrights of GFDL'ed or GPL'ed content can be violated when adding them to wikipedia (typically, e.g., by not mentioning the source of such copylefted sources, or other abuses of the license conditions of the original source). Wikipedia's copyright conditions include not to allow invariant sections et.al. to be imported in wikipedia (which is Wikipedia's copyright conditions). You have a problem with that? In that case: don't contribute. The copyright terms are explained in wikipedia:copyrights, which is linked from every content page, including in edit mode (so never say of a wikipedia content page that it doesn't link to its copyright terms, or that different pages link to different copyright conditions). Also, if the following would have been your problem: "full GFDL" implies that the publisher of the source indicates if there are invariant sections et. al.: "full GFDL" assumes there to be none of such sections if not mentioned... adding invariant sections etc. is a restriction of the full GFDL conditions. -- Francis Schonken 12:39, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these sections as invariant.
Okay, let me take a shot at this. I'm not a GFDL expert, but from reading most everything (though skimming a lot), I think the source of the confusing lies in this passage: ""Permission is granted to copy... with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts." What I think might be the case from Mr. Schonken's position so far is that the "with no..." clause modifies what may be copied from Wikipedia, not what the copier may create themselves. So Irrevenant is concerned that the passage is forbidding the addition of invariant sections, front-cover texts, and back-cover texts, while what the passage is really saying is that no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts may be copied from Wikipedia.
Is this right? If so, the text for that notice that is recommended by the GFDL is really confusing, because Irreverant's reading is what I got from it too. — Saxifrage ✎ 20:36, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
There's more to it. The standard GFDL/copyright statement (which indeed might confuse if not reading the whole of the GFDL text, which is also legalese, but blame RMS/ FSF for that),
[...] Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. [...]
ALSO implies that at no point in time there could be found Invariant Sections or Cover Texts in Wikipedia's content. While, if there would be Invariant Sections or Cover Texts in Wikipedia, the formulation would need to be different, still according to Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License#How to use this License for your documents:
So you'd have to keep lists of these types of sections, which Wikipedia doesn't do currently. And certainly no copies of these lists are included in the copyright statement.
The problem is, that this also implies (as long as wikipedia keeps to the No Invariant Sections/No Cover Texts copyright statement) no (other) GFDL documents containing Invariant Sections or Cover Texts can be added to wikipedia, while Invariant Sections or Cover Texts remain Invariant Sections or Cover Texts when joined in another document. The only possibility (but then you'd need to be copyright owner of these documents or at least you'd need express permission by the copyright owner to do that) is to copy the text of such Invariant Sections or Cover Texts in Wikipedia agreeing that they lose their statute of being Invariant Sections or Cover Texts, while Wikipedia has no means to protect that statute ("invariant" means that that text should be "literally" kept in every copy of Wikipedia's content, and should be listed as such in the copyright statement; the same for Cover Texts – read the GFDL). Which doesn't happen. And that's why currently the copy of Wikipedia's content at the WikiMedia servers/databases can not accept "Invariant" or "Cover" content according to what these concepts mean in the GFDL.
Note that anybody can copy Wikipedia content, add Invariant or Cover matter according to the GFDL (section 4 et. al.) and distribute such modified versions. But that person can not impose on the Wikimedia Foundation to distribute such version that includes Invariant or Cover texts. Unless, when the GFDL/copyright statement of the WikiMedia projects would change so that the Invariant and Cover Texts are listed, and on top of that there would be a system with which to protect such content in designated places (won't happen in any foreseeable future afaik). -- Francis Schonken 15:28, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I just uploaded
Image:Pizza Pops.jpg for use in the above article. Could someone check and make sure I used the correct copyright tag. Thanks.
CambridgeBayWeather
(Talk) 20:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I just uploaded two copies of newspaper articles as reference for a new article I started. Would someone check and let me know what I need to do from a permissioning/citing/tagging perspective?
Thanks. -- Irishkevin2 06:31, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Hope that helps. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 18:22, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Is it fair to say that if that newspaper gave me specific permission to use the article here on wikipedia.org, I would be OK?
-- Irishkevin2 22:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
There's an interesting problem posed by The World of Kong, which is an encyclopedia for fictional creatures existing within the fictional world of the Peter Jackson King Kong film. Someone has added a complete list of every creature described, and most of them now have individual stub articles. Problem is, these are all creatures that are only described in that book, so "describing" the creatures does not mean describing their depiction in works of fiction, but simply copying The World of Kong. It's different when a character is actually used in one or more works of fiction, because the article then transforms the expression that it copies by providing real world context and objective description. But if the fictional subject only exists in that one fictional encyclopedia, then we're simply taking fiction, changing some words, and omitting the pictures, and then directly competing with the original. I don't think there's a fair use article here, nor do I think that what is copied are merely "facts," because the encyclopedia of fiction is hardly an informational source about fiction when it's introducing the subjects in the first place. Postdlf 22:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
The key case is one in which the Seinfeld Aptitute Test, a book of trivia questions about the show, was found to be a copyright infringement because by copying "facts" from the show (really just describing incidents and dialogue) it substantially copied creative expression and did not sufficiently transform it to constitute fair use.
Though our intention is to provide information rather than entertainment (as in the case), by making an encyclopedia article about a fictitious subject that only exists in another encyclopedia article, we haven't transformed the expression in the slightest. I think there can be no fair use here. Postdlf 15:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, if The World of Kong equally qualifies as “nothingness” [...] elevated into the realm of protectable creative expression., let's get rid of it...The SAT’s plain purpose, therefore, is not to expose Seinfeld’s “nothingness,” but to satiate Seinfeld fans’ passion for the “nothingness” that Seinfeld has elevated into the realm of protectable creative expression. (quoted in http://www.ivanhoffman.com/seinfeld.html)
If I take an article I wrote, using versions where I had been the sole editor, I don't need to bother with this, do I? - SoM 15:21, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I would like to write a couple articles about some members of my family, but of course I'd need references to back them up. I have a number of articles and obituaries for members of my family, but in some cases they are just very old clippings from newspapers that don't have any information as to the newspaper publisher and are post-1922. Given that they are articles about my own family, are they still subject to copyright laws? I'm going to assume "yes", but even the obituaries? After all, my own family would have been the author's source of information... it'd be a reference loop: I'd reference him; and he'd theoretically have referenced me. Thisisbossi
One diligent editor has uploaded a few scans of Eastern Orthodox icons, but I question his tag. Here's an example. He asserts that it must be public domain since they are "hundreds of years old" and/or, as here, "copies of copies" and thus not copyrightable. There may be other examples of this kind of thing which I have not located, but these were handy.
Now, while it's true that icons are "copies of copies" and that their types are often centuries old, icons in this style are painted by hand right up to the present day, and these in particular look new. While the iconographer must stay within the canons of the subject, there is considerable room for individual expression. For example, compare the first example above with this icon of the same subject. In many cases, I can't help but think there may be copyright considerations.
Several factors complicate the issue. First, authorship and copyright are very often not asserted over icons, and it is a common practice that they are not even signed. Sometimes an icon's creator can be identified by style, but often not. Second, they are very often work made for hire, and absent a contract to the contrary I believe this means the copyright is held by the commissioning party. Third, once an icon has been sold, the artist generally has no expectation of further income connected with it whether specially commissioned or not -- but then, they are not usually commercially exploited. Fourth, occasionally icons are signed and the artist does have an expectation of further income if reproductions of the icon are produced and sold.
The second icon linked at the top appears to fall into that fourth category. Its source is here, which gives the artist's name and carries a copyright notice. Its use here is, I think, is fair use at best.
I take it there's no question that a simple photograph of a very old icon is not eligible for copyright per WP:IUP#Public domain, as a reproduction of a public domain 2D work of art. But I think some clarity for other situations would be helpful. TCC (talk) (contribs) 06:37, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
An editor seems to be claiming copyright of her submission, here: Biological patent. What's up with that? - Freekee 05:00, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Do we accept it or not? I though we didn't and commons don't, but I notice the various {{ cc-by-nd}} type license tags are still around. They have that little "This is an unfree license" message on them, but they don't seem to have been "retired" like {{ permission}} and {{ noncommercial}} where, and I notice the "must allow modifications" clause have been removed from the {{ CopyrightedFreeUseProvided}} template too. The reason I ask is that I ocationaly run across images with statements along the lines of "This image can be used freely as long as it is not modified" and then tagged with {{ CopyrightedFreeUse}} or whatever, and I'm abit unsure wether that's ok or not. And isn't there entire classes of crown copyright that also does not allow modifications and stuff? Just curious about wether we have a policy against it or not, I would think such a restiction would be incompatable with GFDL and therefore not allowed, but I can't seem to find anywhere where it's written down that images must allow modifications to be allowed, so maybe I'm just confused... -- Sherool (talk) 13:42, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Just came across a screenshot from Plan 9 from Outer Space tagged as PD-US so my gut reaction was to change it to movie-screenshot, but then I sniffed around a bit and the entire movie is available from Google video labeled as Public Domain... Is this some kind of special case, failure to renew copyright before some key point in time or whatever? Because I can't figure out why it would be PD, the director didn't die untill 1978 so by the "normal" life +70 rule this one should be copyrighted untill 2048. Is Google way of base here or have the movie been released into the public domain at some point deliberately? -- Sherool (talk) 17:02, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Query on usage: Assuming a user used Virtual earth to locate a point on the planet, zoomed in and rotated the image to a specific viewpoint, then made a screenshot image, using Ctrl, Alt, PrtSc, and overlaid the cropped image with marks and indicators to give information about a place on the image, then saved that combined image again as a new image. Would that final image be permitted for use on wikipedia? If so under what licence? Richard Harvey 06:29, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
What should I do when I come across images like this one? (be warned: that's a porn photo) It's certainly possible that the copyright owner has released rights; it's just far more likely that the copyright tag is a lie. Should I put it up for deletion? Delete the copyright tag? Or simply leave a message on the picture's talk page? Thanks for any help; I've been seeing a lot of such images lately. Also, whatever the answer is, it might be helpful to say it explicitly in some help page or other (sorry if it's there and I just missed it). -- Allen 23:23, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I have a photograph I took myself which I would like to use on an article I'm writing. I don't mind uploading it onto Wikipedia, but I don't want people to be able to use it for commercial purposes or on other websites.
I looked through the different copyrights, but can't seem to find what I'm looking for. Then again, I could have just missed it... Does a copyright like this exist, or can I make up my own?
Thanks in advance!
Editor at Large 19:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
The article on Tony Tether was copied directly from a US government website. I've seen things like this multiple times. Although the material appears to be in the public domain, it doesn't seem proper to copy-and-paste into Wikipedia what others have written. Are their any policies or guidelines about this? Thanks! - Medtopic 00:13, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
I see this template being used to tag certain images {{ CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat}}. Is this compatible with WP copyright policy? There is no statement about being able to use these images for commercial or non-commercial use. Can somebody clarify this? Thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm looking for some help determining whether a few images are in copyright or not. It's a bit long but I'll try to keep it as short as I can.
So in short my question is whether (1) it is OK to use the first, under the assumption it was published before the photography studio closed and/or the subject died; (2) either of the second lot i've listed (in particular, the British one) are OK; (3) it's best to make no assumptions and try to find a new photo/concrete info; or (4) this is completely the wrong place to ask this question... Thanks — AlbinoMonkey ( Talk) 13:18, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Site wikivx.info mirrors Wikipedia in several languages (English, German, French, probably more). URLs are <article-name>.<language-symbol>.wikivx.info, e.g. http://word.en.wikivx.info/ . There is no remark on GFDL on these pages. Looks like a violation of GFDL? -- Anastasius zwerg 20:39, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
I just want to double check to make sure that all pre-1923 publications from the United States are now in the public domain. Is that true even if the author died less than 70 years ago? I found some really nice line drawings of Cordyceps in a 1911 issue of Mycologia, published at that time by the New York Botanical Garden. The author of images is Fred J. Seaver, who died in 1970. I just want to be absolutely sure these would be considered public domain images before I go through the trouble of scanning them. Peter G Werner 02:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
One other question about public domain. I'm told that US government publications are public domain. I was thinking of doing some hi-resolution scans from Handbook to Additional Fungal Species of Special Concern in the Northwest Forest Plan vols. 1 & 2, published by the US Forest Service. Both volumes are without copyright notice and have no page clarifying the copyright status of the images within. Each image, however, is tagged "Photo courtesy of <author>". Here's a link to one of the publications in question. My question is, does this "Photo courtesy of...." mean that the photographer has retained copyright, or is the publication simply acknowledging the photographer? Peter G Werner 03:21, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
If a (copyrighted) book attributes an image to the government in the caption, is it appropriate (or even desirable) to use a scan of that book as a wiki image, since the image is Public Domain even if the book is not? These are rather old so I doubt digital versions exist. Secondly, how should the image be cropped? I presume that ideally it should be cropped to only show the image, but how would I justify the attribution if the caption is omitted? -- Mmx1 15:42, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Aparently, a Japanese court has made a ruling about public domain and pre-1953 films. [8] I doubt it has anything to do with anything that we do, but I thought it might be worth sharing. Cheers. youngamerican ( ahoy-hoy) 16:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Why is this page protected? -- Karldoh 17:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I've asked a question at Wikipedia talk:Fair use#Sculptures in public places that may be equally relevant to this page; rather than duplicate my question, I'm just linking here. - Jmabel | Talk 21:25, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
This isn't a question about copyrights, but rather a suggestion for changing the copyright policy page. I recently created an article by copying some text from a personal website (which I was using because it provided an accurate summary of various biographies of Dionýz Ilkovic) that didn't say anywhere it was copyrighted. After reading this policy page, it seemed fine to do that because the page only talks about not copying from work that states it's copyrighted. But that article was then deleted for copyright violation, and it was explained to me that "All work, whether they be paintings or text on websites, are protected by copyright unless the author explicitly releases those rights." While I'm not disputing this rule/policy, I do think it needs to be stated more clearly on the Copyright policy page, because as I said, I never would have guessed it had it not been explained to me on my talk page. -- Edward Tremel 00:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
The subsections of Wikipedia:Copyrights#Image guidelines and the entire Wikipedia:Copyrights#Comments on copyright laws by country seem much too specific for this page, and duplicate info at Wikipedia:Public domain (except for the "Celebrity photographs" bit, which would duplicate stuff from WP:FU if it weren't flat-out wrong). Shouldn't we either attempt to maintain a comprehensive list here of what country-specific copyright law is, as at Wikipedia:Public domain#Country-specific rules and Wikipedia:Copyright situations by country, or leave the comprehensive lists there and refer the reader there? This duplication of some info but not all is kind of pointless, as well as confusing. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 19:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Some recent contributions taken from Memory Alpha have been defined as copyright violations by various people, and some fairly robust messages left on the contributors talk pages. I'm pretty sure these aren't copyright violations per se, but a license compatibility issue. Wikipedia uses GFDL licensing, while MA uses Creative Commons licensing. Are MA lifts copyright violations or not? exolon 22:01, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
My attention was drawn to Martin Dillion article earlier. I found most of it was a copyright which I removed. At the same time I found that there were 5 images uploaded by Dhruvsk. All of them had been tagged as as {{GFDL-self}}. Of these I was able to find that 2 came from here and one was a CD cover shot or from [9]. These three I have deleted. I have not yet been able to find Image:Martin DillonTails.jpg or Image:MartinDillonFidelio.jpg but they do not look like user created images. Because I am not sure where they come from I did not know if I should remove the GDFL-slef tag or not. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 08:35, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
We have been having a discussion at the WP:RS talk page regarding "convenience links" (ie citing to the original document or image, but providing a link to the website that contains a copy because, say, the original is not available on-line) and a question has come up that is probably better asked here... A private web-page includes a copy of a copyrighted document or image ... there is no disclosure or indication that the copying page has been given permission to copy the document or image. Now, I think most of us would agree that the web-page is probably in violation of copywrite laws. My question is this... To what extent are we limited using this page as a convenience link? I know we are not the "copywrite police", nor (I think) are we in direct violation of the law since we are not placing the document or image on Wikipedia, but simply providing a link to it. But do we have an obligation to the copywrite holder to link to an approved version? I suppose I am asking if we would be in "indirect" violation (and does such a concept exist?) Blueboar 13:01, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
If that header didn't frighten everyone off... Two photographs at German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin are of models of the actual aircraft carrier. Under longstanding U.S. copyright case law, a scale replica of a three-dimensional object can be copyrightable even if the original object is not, because there are necessarily creative choices involved in deciding how to reduce the object and simplify its features for the smaller scale. The model is at the Cuxhaven Aeronauticum, a naval aviation museum in Cuxhaven for which I cannot find an article on en.wikipedia.org or de.wikipedia.org. I do not know if this is a government-run museum, or if that makes a difference. When I posted a comment on the German-language uploader's userpage (thanks chiefly to Babelfish), someone else stated (I think) that a model is not an independently copyrightable work under German law. [10] Is this the case? If so, why, and does that determine whether U.S. courts would nevertheless extend copyright protection to it? Postdlf 21:59, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
The above is my understanding of U.S. copyright law as well: only U.S. copyright law applies in the U.S., none of these nasty foreign laws ;) Hence a work could still be under copyright in the U.S. even if it is out of copyright or ineligible for copyright in its source country (so long as it was under copyright on January 1, 1996 or published after March 1, 1996). Models are definitely copyrightable under both U.S. and German law, the photo is probably copyrightable in its own right as well. Physchim62 (talk) 14:12, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I would like to upload some black and white photographs from a book published in England in 1926. No photographer is credited, and the publisher G T De Frane and Co. Ltd no longer exist. The book, however is the anual journal of the Buckinghamshire Archaelogical Society who do still exist here [12], they do not seem to answer emails! Will these fotos still be in copyright? Any ideas Giano | talk 12:02, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
They are protected until 70 years post mortem auctoris -- Historiograf 12:52, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
If we want to reference contributory infringement then I'll suggest this: http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/usamay2001_5.htm , Section II. Challenges of Emerging Technology - B. Facilitation.
But, if we want to cite "being debated in the courts", then that is looking a little thin to me: http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/docs.html , which shows nothing but P2P and piracy cases. I'm not saying "being debated in the courts" is not a fact, but after considerable online searching I am having trouble giving veracity to it. And if someone wants to read every document at EFF, they might find an on-going court case. -- Charles Gaudette 20:48, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia considers some of it's projects like the CD to be commerical projects, and also requires that photographers release rights to their images for publishing. Being that the CD and the books would be considered commerical products wouldn't that mean that Wikipedia would need to obtain a model release from the photographers for all photos featuring people for both it's CD and book? PPGMD 15:48, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I suggest adding to the policy "Reusers' rights and obligations" as follows. An article that incorporates much text from another article must include a note similar to Wikipedia:Copyrights#Example_notice as follows:
Furthermore, a translation of another article must include a note as follows:
Better yet, five principle authors (or all authors, if there are less than five) of the original article should be named (pseudonymously) as well. I am not a lawyer. I'm not sure whether the ability to find the original article's edit history online is enough to comply with GFDL.
Previously I have used a different form of note as recommended by Wikipedia:Cite_sources/example_style#Other-language_wikipedias and Wikipedia:Translation_into_English#Instructions. However, all that gets me is a bunch of high-minded editors who want to yank out my note on grounds that Wikipedia can't cite itself. They overlook the GFDL requirement to acknowledge the original work.
I really think that we need to make it as easy as possible to reuse the best writing from other-language Wikipedias. It's a great source of free encyclopedic text, particularly for the purpose of countering systemic bias. -- Hoziron 12:40, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, that gives me another perspective. Perhaps it's not necessary to mention the original-language article in the text after all. However, I have a couple of remaining questions.
But first, regarding the "Reliable source" aspect: I never said that Wikipedia was a reliable source in itself. I said that it was a good place to get encyclopedic text. However, thank you for keeping the "reliable source" aspect separate. In my previous discussions about this matter people seem to get hung up on that and use it as a reason to ignore anything that I may say about the other aspect.
Now, regarding the Copyright/GFDL aspect: How does your recommendation take care of GFDL section 4 point B concerning the five principle authors?
What if the original article is deleted and the article that incorporates material remains? In that case I suppose that the incorporating article is not thereby released from the GFDL of the original article, and yet we can no longer claim that the original article's edit history (now deleted) constitutes the incorporating article's compliance with GFDL 4(I).
I think that the incorporating article needs to mention the original article's date (and sometimes time of day) due to a reason that you mentioned: because a later version of the original article may not contain the material that was used.
Also, I'd like it if Wikipedia policy would somewhere provide a clearer explanation of how GFDL should be applied to Wikipedia: Each article is a GFDL "document", right? What part of it is supposed to be its GFDL "title page"? Are Wikipedia mirrors (the ones that care about GFDL compliance) aware that they have to host a copy of each article's edit history?
-- Hoziron 04:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Just to make sure, images tagged with the copyright tag seen here are eligible for use on user pages, correct? -- tariqabjotu 17:50, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
A question has come up regarding a photo I've uploaded, and I'd appreciate some feedback, especially from a knowledgable administrator. I've checked the archives and didn't find specific info regarding my question. The question is, when an entity releases an image as a part of a news release, can it be used on Wikipedia under Fair Use? It seems to me in reading the US copyright code that it can. If a copyright holder releases an copyrighted work for general distribution where republication is implied, then they cannot discriminate then or later as to where it is published. The image in question is part of a Northrop Grumman news release regarding the flight of a new type of radar. The image was subsequently published in a number of industry publications, and is still available in the News Release section of the Northrop Grumman website. Thanks! Akradecki 18:58, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
There is a personal website with a copy of a news article and at the bottom the news agencies' copyright notice clearly says that unauthorized publication is forbidden. The personal website makes no indication of permission to copy. Do we assume that it is not a copyright violation? -- HResearcher 09:39, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Is there an essay anywhere on Wikipedia that contains a standard rebuttal to the common objections of "I don't think the copyright holder is going to sue Wikipedia, so we shouldn't worry about the fact that this image is copyrighted" and "We should keep this image until the copyright holder complains, because it's a good illustration for such and such an article"? — Bkell ( talk) 23:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Is it a simple work of innovations?
A good deal of content was taken from here. It was marked as "copyright www.purplesage.org.uk/profiles/elecampane.htm". I didn't see any indication that this was done with permission, but was hesitant to just remove it, in case I'm mistaken. Waitak 09:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi, someone recently objected to my removal of links, saying that torrent sites and search engines do not distribute illegal links themselves. Would you say this is a valid line of logic? I'd say it makes Wikipedia look bad, and should be discouraged anyway.
IMHO something needs to be added to the Copyrights Policy to prevent such disagreements. -- Kjoon lee 02:01, 6 September 2006 (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. |
I can't think of a better place to ask this, so I'll come here. Do we think that {{ pd-art}} applies to two dimensional works on non-flat surfaces, such as vase paintings? I'd like to upload a number of Greek vase paintings to illustrate articles, but I'd also like to make sure we're clear legally before I do that. Thanks, Robth Talk 06:19, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
There is a level of disagrement on the copyright status of images on Starfleet ranks and insignia.
The debate currently tries to determine weather or not redrawn rank insignias are releasable with a free licence.
I would like to invite all parties interested to join the debate.
-- Cool Cat Talk| @ 13:38, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Is the West Point military yearbook considered a work of the US Army for purposes of copyright? Would it be appropriate to tag an image from this yearbook with Template:PD-USGov-Military? ˉˉ anetode╞ ┬╡ 18:46, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
I recently ordered some copies of manuscripts dating back to 1820 from the British Library in London. The copies arrived with the following copyright statement..
Please note that the British Library owns and retains at all times the copyright on all reproductions reproduced. Customers may not reproduce any materical supplied for any reason, (including academic or personal, and whether for profit or not) without prior written permission from the British Library.
Is this copyright statement legitemate? It doesn't seem to comply with the statement relating to crown copyright on this project page. But then again the term 'crown copyright' isn't used anywhere in the letter.
Factoid Killer 17:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Here and at Commons we accept the NY Bridgeman v. Corel decision. Pure reproductions are not copyrightable. UK lawyers might not accept this but the NY court has taken into account also UK law -- Historiograf 03:30, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
I have encountered a fair deal of opposition from self-appointed "vigilantes" when I have tried to contribute images or texts based on materials that I've found elsewhere. They invariably insist that I should get permission from "the copyright holder" and go through the mess of 'image tags', 'text tags'. or any other type of 'content tags', in order to comply with a strict, almost paranoid set of intricate rules devised to avoid copyright infringement problems. Trouble is, there's a huge world out there, that has never heard of, and couldn't care less about, U.S. Copyright Law. And trouble also is, there's a universe of materials that have never been copyrighted. The webpage of the United Stated Patent and Trademark Office itself, defines Copyright as:
Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of “original works of authorship” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. The 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly, or to display the copyrighted work publicly.
The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter of the writing. For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description; it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine. Copyrights are registered by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.
[hopefully I've not stepped over anyone's toes by copying the two paragraphs above, you never know, as things are getting in this Enclyclopedia]
If a publishable item needs to be registered in order to have a valid Copyright atached to it, then by force whatever materials that have not undergone such registration process are not protected by any 'copyright law', right? Then why so many Wikipedians stubbornly insist in deleting, or in harassing contributors otherwise, arguing that everything must have some kind of 'copyright', whatever the country or region of origin, when such assumption is often utterly false?
If, for example, I want to write or expand an article on ophidians, and I find a color picture of a South American snake in a fourth-grade, government-printed Biology book in Spanish language having no author name, no indication of a Copyright whatsoever, no photographer names, etc., and then I scan it, enhance it, and upload it to the Wikipedia itself or to the Wikipedia Commons, I can bet a million to one that there will appear many a zealous creatures, seeking some kind of recognition from Wikipedia 'authorities' I presume, that will in due time (that is, less than a couple of days) post a threatening tag or sign or warning in my article or picture saying that I must get "the permission of the Copyright holder", when in reality such entity does not exist at all: the book, much less the pictures in it, were never copyrighted. The worst comes when that same person goes on and actually deletes my article or an image thereof, thus doing Wikipedia harm --instead of a valuable service-- (and irritating me in the process). To destroy is a lot easier than to contribute. Hence, in my humble opinion, no 'awards' should be granted to their kind, they should be reprimanded instead!
ISN'T IT TIME TO THINK THIS OVER, AND TO STOP THIS NONSENSE?
AVM 23:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
As far as I can tell for years all contributors to Wikipedia have been contributing their own material submitting from a page which links to this one. This page clearly says "If you contribute material to Wikipedia, you thereby license it to the public under the GFDL (with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts). In order to contribute, you therefore must be in a position to grant this license, which means that..."
Note this says material, not text. Material includes images. Yet a few people put up their own images and claim they are under a more restrictive licence (e.g. Creative Commons). This matters hugely because when putting together a CD version 1.0 like the [ Wikipedia CD Selection] whereas it is fairly clear you can name authors and creators by telling people where to find the author details (e.g. on which page on Wikipedia they are [ Copyright & Disclaimer]) under creative commons 2.5 some people argue that you should have the (Nick) name of the author burnt on the CD. Getting a list like this together is a serious botting task which is all for the handful of non GFDL licences. There is no way of distinguishing CC licenses from the rest of WP except by hand-sorting.
So is it fair to assume all WP images are GFDL unless the creators protest otherwise? It is easy excluding images on request but generating the list is a headache -- BozMo talk 11:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
First: I do not think that CC licenses are more restrictive. Second: It is a copyvio to assume CC pictures as GFDL unless the creator has explicitely consented (e.g. by duallicensing). Third: In my interpretation it is a clear copyvio (by not respecting the ESSENTIALS of the GNU FDL) NOT to name creators on a CD. It is NOT sufficient to give a link to the Wikipedia -- Historiograf 15:32, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
I plan on creating some articles for songs which my choir sings. They are notable and I have heard them other places, and I believe that they are notable enough to become articles. That is not my point however. I was wondering if it would be against the copyright to include their lyrics in the articles to illustrate the message of the songs more. Would it be fair use? Thanks for your advice, zappa 23:30, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I do not think so. -- Historiograf 15:42, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Where the project page says "Currently it seems dubious…", what seems dubious? The preceding sentence? If someone understands what this is about, and can write English well, please rewrite this very confusing passage. - Jmabel | Talk 05:39, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I've significantly paraphrased a work for an article, History of machine translation, see discussion on talk page. I have made some enquiries and no-one I have spoken to thinks it counts as a copyvio. But I would like to get some more opinions, and if it is judged to be a copyvio I would like to see it {{ copyvio}}'d. Thanks :) - FrancisTyers 18:54, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
...there is frequent quotation of words, and occasional quotation of sentences from the book; the topics treated are topics treated in the book, the attempt is made to reproduce in abridged and paraphrased form (so far as such reproduction is possible within the very narrow limits adopted) the author's treatment of the topics selected, and the author's order and arrangement of topics within the portions of the book dealt with is followed, except for a certain amount of transposition or repetition.
It is true that the whole book has not been thus dealt with; but the copyright protects every substantial component part of the book, as well as the whole. Though the reproduction of the author's ideas and language is incomplete and fragmentary, and frequently presents them in somewhat distorted form, important portions of them are left substantially recognizable.
I uploaded an image without knowing its copyright status. I recently learned that status. How do I assign that status to the image? EvaXephon 20:14, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much!
EvaXephon 03:45, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
I've created a tag for prospective use of morgueFile images on Wikipedia, {{ morgueFile}}. Their license is a little confusing, and I'd like advice on how I've represented it and generally whether or not their images can be used here. If someone could drop by Template talk:MorgueFile, that would be great. Melchoir 20:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
In the section "Using copyrighted work from others" it says, "If you use part of a copyrighted work under "fair use" ... you must make a note of that fact (along with names and dates)." What names and dates? The name of the wiki editor and the date of the edit? Where do you note it - in the article or in the Talk page? Or should this instead read something like "you must cite the source"? Nurg 05:44, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
I listed {{ Indiancopyright}} on TFD as it's a license tag that says "This media file is copyrighted to an Indian domain and all rights reserved by that domain" -- basically, that our use of the image is a copyright violation. It was closed as a 2-2 no-consensus "keep". -- Carnildo 01:10, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
I started work on a page, Wikipedia:Can I use this work?, that will hopefully be useful once it's done. I'm basing it mainly on this chart. Any thoughts? — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 03:56, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Anyway, I'm contemplating improvement of the current copyright upload form to give this little quiz instead of just letting people pick from a list (how many people would read the page I created anyway?), but that's a very long-term project. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 21:54, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Is the wikipedia logo, that image of a sphere made up of puzzle peices, copyrighted? What are the requirements for using it on derivative wikis? Nygdan
And by the way, Nygdan, it's conventional to place new sections at the bottom. You can use the plus sign to the right of "edit this page" to add a section more easily. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 01:35, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Trademark restricts nothing that wouldn't cause confusion for consumers. If trademark were the only issue, the logo could be used freely as long as no association with Wikimedia was implied. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 03:55, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
It has been suggested to me here, that uploading copyrighted fonts in converted outline form in a SVG file would still be a copy vio. Others seem to disagree with this here. I was wondering if anyone knew whether it is OK to upload the shapes of fonts in SVG format, or if we have to use a raster image such as PNG to avoid copy vio? Thanks.-- Andrew c 14:26, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
First thing, then, is to remove the proprietary font from Image:Wiki.png. :P — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 22:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:Copyrights "Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts."
Alternately, whenever someone adds content to Wikipedia, it says underneath "Content must not violate any copyright and must be verifiable. You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL."
The issue is that the people are agreeing to release their entries under the full GPL GFDL while the Copyrights page says that Wikipedia texts are available under a restricted version of the GFDL, .
To further muddy the waters, the release statement links to the Copyright page (which includes the information that a restricted version of the GFDL is used) but in a different context ie. in the "do not violate copyright" context rather than the "this is the licence you're releasing under" context, making it arguably not required/expected reading before release like the GFDL link. Irrevenant 02:45, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, GFDL is by no way the same as "full GPL". Is that perhaps the origin of your misunderstanding (in fact I don't understand what you misunderstand... the wording you use to explain your alleged problem are anyway self-contradictory - that doesn't help others to understand what you think is going wrong)? Note also that both GPL and GFDL currently use the copyright mechanism. Without copyright... no GPL, nor GFDL. And that's also a copyright you're not allowed to violate when adding content to wikipedia. Copyrights of GFDL'ed or GPL'ed content can be violated when adding them to wikipedia (typically, e.g., by not mentioning the source of such copylefted sources, or other abuses of the license conditions of the original source). Wikipedia's copyright conditions include not to allow invariant sections et.al. to be imported in wikipedia (which is Wikipedia's copyright conditions). You have a problem with that? In that case: don't contribute. The copyright terms are explained in wikipedia:copyrights, which is linked from every content page, including in edit mode (so never say of a wikipedia content page that it doesn't link to its copyright terms, or that different pages link to different copyright conditions). Also, if the following would have been your problem: "full GFDL" implies that the publisher of the source indicates if there are invariant sections et. al.: "full GFDL" assumes there to be none of such sections if not mentioned... adding invariant sections etc. is a restriction of the full GFDL conditions. -- Francis Schonken 12:39, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these sections as invariant.
Okay, let me take a shot at this. I'm not a GFDL expert, but from reading most everything (though skimming a lot), I think the source of the confusing lies in this passage: ""Permission is granted to copy... with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts." What I think might be the case from Mr. Schonken's position so far is that the "with no..." clause modifies what may be copied from Wikipedia, not what the copier may create themselves. So Irrevenant is concerned that the passage is forbidding the addition of invariant sections, front-cover texts, and back-cover texts, while what the passage is really saying is that no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts may be copied from Wikipedia.
Is this right? If so, the text for that notice that is recommended by the GFDL is really confusing, because Irreverant's reading is what I got from it too. — Saxifrage ✎ 20:36, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
There's more to it. The standard GFDL/copyright statement (which indeed might confuse if not reading the whole of the GFDL text, which is also legalese, but blame RMS/ FSF for that),
[...] Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. [...]
ALSO implies that at no point in time there could be found Invariant Sections or Cover Texts in Wikipedia's content. While, if there would be Invariant Sections or Cover Texts in Wikipedia, the formulation would need to be different, still according to Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License#How to use this License for your documents:
So you'd have to keep lists of these types of sections, which Wikipedia doesn't do currently. And certainly no copies of these lists are included in the copyright statement.
The problem is, that this also implies (as long as wikipedia keeps to the No Invariant Sections/No Cover Texts copyright statement) no (other) GFDL documents containing Invariant Sections or Cover Texts can be added to wikipedia, while Invariant Sections or Cover Texts remain Invariant Sections or Cover Texts when joined in another document. The only possibility (but then you'd need to be copyright owner of these documents or at least you'd need express permission by the copyright owner to do that) is to copy the text of such Invariant Sections or Cover Texts in Wikipedia agreeing that they lose their statute of being Invariant Sections or Cover Texts, while Wikipedia has no means to protect that statute ("invariant" means that that text should be "literally" kept in every copy of Wikipedia's content, and should be listed as such in the copyright statement; the same for Cover Texts – read the GFDL). Which doesn't happen. And that's why currently the copy of Wikipedia's content at the WikiMedia servers/databases can not accept "Invariant" or "Cover" content according to what these concepts mean in the GFDL.
Note that anybody can copy Wikipedia content, add Invariant or Cover matter according to the GFDL (section 4 et. al.) and distribute such modified versions. But that person can not impose on the Wikimedia Foundation to distribute such version that includes Invariant or Cover texts. Unless, when the GFDL/copyright statement of the WikiMedia projects would change so that the Invariant and Cover Texts are listed, and on top of that there would be a system with which to protect such content in designated places (won't happen in any foreseeable future afaik). -- Francis Schonken 15:28, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I just uploaded
Image:Pizza Pops.jpg for use in the above article. Could someone check and make sure I used the correct copyright tag. Thanks.
CambridgeBayWeather
(Talk) 20:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I just uploaded two copies of newspaper articles as reference for a new article I started. Would someone check and let me know what I need to do from a permissioning/citing/tagging perspective?
Thanks. -- Irishkevin2 06:31, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Hope that helps. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 18:22, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Is it fair to say that if that newspaper gave me specific permission to use the article here on wikipedia.org, I would be OK?
-- Irishkevin2 22:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
There's an interesting problem posed by The World of Kong, which is an encyclopedia for fictional creatures existing within the fictional world of the Peter Jackson King Kong film. Someone has added a complete list of every creature described, and most of them now have individual stub articles. Problem is, these are all creatures that are only described in that book, so "describing" the creatures does not mean describing their depiction in works of fiction, but simply copying The World of Kong. It's different when a character is actually used in one or more works of fiction, because the article then transforms the expression that it copies by providing real world context and objective description. But if the fictional subject only exists in that one fictional encyclopedia, then we're simply taking fiction, changing some words, and omitting the pictures, and then directly competing with the original. I don't think there's a fair use article here, nor do I think that what is copied are merely "facts," because the encyclopedia of fiction is hardly an informational source about fiction when it's introducing the subjects in the first place. Postdlf 22:42, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
The key case is one in which the Seinfeld Aptitute Test, a book of trivia questions about the show, was found to be a copyright infringement because by copying "facts" from the show (really just describing incidents and dialogue) it substantially copied creative expression and did not sufficiently transform it to constitute fair use.
Though our intention is to provide information rather than entertainment (as in the case), by making an encyclopedia article about a fictitious subject that only exists in another encyclopedia article, we haven't transformed the expression in the slightest. I think there can be no fair use here. Postdlf 15:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, if The World of Kong equally qualifies as “nothingness” [...] elevated into the realm of protectable creative expression., let's get rid of it...The SAT’s plain purpose, therefore, is not to expose Seinfeld’s “nothingness,” but to satiate Seinfeld fans’ passion for the “nothingness” that Seinfeld has elevated into the realm of protectable creative expression. (quoted in http://www.ivanhoffman.com/seinfeld.html)
If I take an article I wrote, using versions where I had been the sole editor, I don't need to bother with this, do I? - SoM 15:21, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I would like to write a couple articles about some members of my family, but of course I'd need references to back them up. I have a number of articles and obituaries for members of my family, but in some cases they are just very old clippings from newspapers that don't have any information as to the newspaper publisher and are post-1922. Given that they are articles about my own family, are they still subject to copyright laws? I'm going to assume "yes", but even the obituaries? After all, my own family would have been the author's source of information... it'd be a reference loop: I'd reference him; and he'd theoretically have referenced me. Thisisbossi
One diligent editor has uploaded a few scans of Eastern Orthodox icons, but I question his tag. Here's an example. He asserts that it must be public domain since they are "hundreds of years old" and/or, as here, "copies of copies" and thus not copyrightable. There may be other examples of this kind of thing which I have not located, but these were handy.
Now, while it's true that icons are "copies of copies" and that their types are often centuries old, icons in this style are painted by hand right up to the present day, and these in particular look new. While the iconographer must stay within the canons of the subject, there is considerable room for individual expression. For example, compare the first example above with this icon of the same subject. In many cases, I can't help but think there may be copyright considerations.
Several factors complicate the issue. First, authorship and copyright are very often not asserted over icons, and it is a common practice that they are not even signed. Sometimes an icon's creator can be identified by style, but often not. Second, they are very often work made for hire, and absent a contract to the contrary I believe this means the copyright is held by the commissioning party. Third, once an icon has been sold, the artist generally has no expectation of further income connected with it whether specially commissioned or not -- but then, they are not usually commercially exploited. Fourth, occasionally icons are signed and the artist does have an expectation of further income if reproductions of the icon are produced and sold.
The second icon linked at the top appears to fall into that fourth category. Its source is here, which gives the artist's name and carries a copyright notice. Its use here is, I think, is fair use at best.
I take it there's no question that a simple photograph of a very old icon is not eligible for copyright per WP:IUP#Public domain, as a reproduction of a public domain 2D work of art. But I think some clarity for other situations would be helpful. TCC (talk) (contribs) 06:37, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
An editor seems to be claiming copyright of her submission, here: Biological patent. What's up with that? - Freekee 05:00, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Do we accept it or not? I though we didn't and commons don't, but I notice the various {{ cc-by-nd}} type license tags are still around. They have that little "This is an unfree license" message on them, but they don't seem to have been "retired" like {{ permission}} and {{ noncommercial}} where, and I notice the "must allow modifications" clause have been removed from the {{ CopyrightedFreeUseProvided}} template too. The reason I ask is that I ocationaly run across images with statements along the lines of "This image can be used freely as long as it is not modified" and then tagged with {{ CopyrightedFreeUse}} or whatever, and I'm abit unsure wether that's ok or not. And isn't there entire classes of crown copyright that also does not allow modifications and stuff? Just curious about wether we have a policy against it or not, I would think such a restiction would be incompatable with GFDL and therefore not allowed, but I can't seem to find anywhere where it's written down that images must allow modifications to be allowed, so maybe I'm just confused... -- Sherool (talk) 13:42, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Just came across a screenshot from Plan 9 from Outer Space tagged as PD-US so my gut reaction was to change it to movie-screenshot, but then I sniffed around a bit and the entire movie is available from Google video labeled as Public Domain... Is this some kind of special case, failure to renew copyright before some key point in time or whatever? Because I can't figure out why it would be PD, the director didn't die untill 1978 so by the "normal" life +70 rule this one should be copyrighted untill 2048. Is Google way of base here or have the movie been released into the public domain at some point deliberately? -- Sherool (talk) 17:02, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Query on usage: Assuming a user used Virtual earth to locate a point on the planet, zoomed in and rotated the image to a specific viewpoint, then made a screenshot image, using Ctrl, Alt, PrtSc, and overlaid the cropped image with marks and indicators to give information about a place on the image, then saved that combined image again as a new image. Would that final image be permitted for use on wikipedia? If so under what licence? Richard Harvey 06:29, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
What should I do when I come across images like this one? (be warned: that's a porn photo) It's certainly possible that the copyright owner has released rights; it's just far more likely that the copyright tag is a lie. Should I put it up for deletion? Delete the copyright tag? Or simply leave a message on the picture's talk page? Thanks for any help; I've been seeing a lot of such images lately. Also, whatever the answer is, it might be helpful to say it explicitly in some help page or other (sorry if it's there and I just missed it). -- Allen 23:23, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I have a photograph I took myself which I would like to use on an article I'm writing. I don't mind uploading it onto Wikipedia, but I don't want people to be able to use it for commercial purposes or on other websites.
I looked through the different copyrights, but can't seem to find what I'm looking for. Then again, I could have just missed it... Does a copyright like this exist, or can I make up my own?
Thanks in advance!
Editor at Large 19:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
The article on Tony Tether was copied directly from a US government website. I've seen things like this multiple times. Although the material appears to be in the public domain, it doesn't seem proper to copy-and-paste into Wikipedia what others have written. Are their any policies or guidelines about this? Thanks! - Medtopic 00:13, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
I see this template being used to tag certain images {{ CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat}}. Is this compatible with WP copyright policy? There is no statement about being able to use these images for commercial or non-commercial use. Can somebody clarify this? Thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm looking for some help determining whether a few images are in copyright or not. It's a bit long but I'll try to keep it as short as I can.
So in short my question is whether (1) it is OK to use the first, under the assumption it was published before the photography studio closed and/or the subject died; (2) either of the second lot i've listed (in particular, the British one) are OK; (3) it's best to make no assumptions and try to find a new photo/concrete info; or (4) this is completely the wrong place to ask this question... Thanks — AlbinoMonkey ( Talk) 13:18, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Site wikivx.info mirrors Wikipedia in several languages (English, German, French, probably more). URLs are <article-name>.<language-symbol>.wikivx.info, e.g. http://word.en.wikivx.info/ . There is no remark on GFDL on these pages. Looks like a violation of GFDL? -- Anastasius zwerg 20:39, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
I just want to double check to make sure that all pre-1923 publications from the United States are now in the public domain. Is that true even if the author died less than 70 years ago? I found some really nice line drawings of Cordyceps in a 1911 issue of Mycologia, published at that time by the New York Botanical Garden. The author of images is Fred J. Seaver, who died in 1970. I just want to be absolutely sure these would be considered public domain images before I go through the trouble of scanning them. Peter G Werner 02:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
One other question about public domain. I'm told that US government publications are public domain. I was thinking of doing some hi-resolution scans from Handbook to Additional Fungal Species of Special Concern in the Northwest Forest Plan vols. 1 & 2, published by the US Forest Service. Both volumes are without copyright notice and have no page clarifying the copyright status of the images within. Each image, however, is tagged "Photo courtesy of <author>". Here's a link to one of the publications in question. My question is, does this "Photo courtesy of...." mean that the photographer has retained copyright, or is the publication simply acknowledging the photographer? Peter G Werner 03:21, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
If a (copyrighted) book attributes an image to the government in the caption, is it appropriate (or even desirable) to use a scan of that book as a wiki image, since the image is Public Domain even if the book is not? These are rather old so I doubt digital versions exist. Secondly, how should the image be cropped? I presume that ideally it should be cropped to only show the image, but how would I justify the attribution if the caption is omitted? -- Mmx1 15:42, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Aparently, a Japanese court has made a ruling about public domain and pre-1953 films. [8] I doubt it has anything to do with anything that we do, but I thought it might be worth sharing. Cheers. youngamerican ( ahoy-hoy) 16:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Why is this page protected? -- Karldoh 17:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I've asked a question at Wikipedia talk:Fair use#Sculptures in public places that may be equally relevant to this page; rather than duplicate my question, I'm just linking here. - Jmabel | Talk 21:25, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
This isn't a question about copyrights, but rather a suggestion for changing the copyright policy page. I recently created an article by copying some text from a personal website (which I was using because it provided an accurate summary of various biographies of Dionýz Ilkovic) that didn't say anywhere it was copyrighted. After reading this policy page, it seemed fine to do that because the page only talks about not copying from work that states it's copyrighted. But that article was then deleted for copyright violation, and it was explained to me that "All work, whether they be paintings or text on websites, are protected by copyright unless the author explicitly releases those rights." While I'm not disputing this rule/policy, I do think it needs to be stated more clearly on the Copyright policy page, because as I said, I never would have guessed it had it not been explained to me on my talk page. -- Edward Tremel 00:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
The subsections of Wikipedia:Copyrights#Image guidelines and the entire Wikipedia:Copyrights#Comments on copyright laws by country seem much too specific for this page, and duplicate info at Wikipedia:Public domain (except for the "Celebrity photographs" bit, which would duplicate stuff from WP:FU if it weren't flat-out wrong). Shouldn't we either attempt to maintain a comprehensive list here of what country-specific copyright law is, as at Wikipedia:Public domain#Country-specific rules and Wikipedia:Copyright situations by country, or leave the comprehensive lists there and refer the reader there? This duplication of some info but not all is kind of pointless, as well as confusing. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 19:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Some recent contributions taken from Memory Alpha have been defined as copyright violations by various people, and some fairly robust messages left on the contributors talk pages. I'm pretty sure these aren't copyright violations per se, but a license compatibility issue. Wikipedia uses GFDL licensing, while MA uses Creative Commons licensing. Are MA lifts copyright violations or not? exolon 22:01, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
My attention was drawn to Martin Dillion article earlier. I found most of it was a copyright which I removed. At the same time I found that there were 5 images uploaded by Dhruvsk. All of them had been tagged as as {{GFDL-self}}. Of these I was able to find that 2 came from here and one was a CD cover shot or from [9]. These three I have deleted. I have not yet been able to find Image:Martin DillonTails.jpg or Image:MartinDillonFidelio.jpg but they do not look like user created images. Because I am not sure where they come from I did not know if I should remove the GDFL-slef tag or not. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 08:35, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
We have been having a discussion at the WP:RS talk page regarding "convenience links" (ie citing to the original document or image, but providing a link to the website that contains a copy because, say, the original is not available on-line) and a question has come up that is probably better asked here... A private web-page includes a copy of a copyrighted document or image ... there is no disclosure or indication that the copying page has been given permission to copy the document or image. Now, I think most of us would agree that the web-page is probably in violation of copywrite laws. My question is this... To what extent are we limited using this page as a convenience link? I know we are not the "copywrite police", nor (I think) are we in direct violation of the law since we are not placing the document or image on Wikipedia, but simply providing a link to it. But do we have an obligation to the copywrite holder to link to an approved version? I suppose I am asking if we would be in "indirect" violation (and does such a concept exist?) Blueboar 13:01, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
If that header didn't frighten everyone off... Two photographs at German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin are of models of the actual aircraft carrier. Under longstanding U.S. copyright case law, a scale replica of a three-dimensional object can be copyrightable even if the original object is not, because there are necessarily creative choices involved in deciding how to reduce the object and simplify its features for the smaller scale. The model is at the Cuxhaven Aeronauticum, a naval aviation museum in Cuxhaven for which I cannot find an article on en.wikipedia.org or de.wikipedia.org. I do not know if this is a government-run museum, or if that makes a difference. When I posted a comment on the German-language uploader's userpage (thanks chiefly to Babelfish), someone else stated (I think) that a model is not an independently copyrightable work under German law. [10] Is this the case? If so, why, and does that determine whether U.S. courts would nevertheless extend copyright protection to it? Postdlf 21:59, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
The above is my understanding of U.S. copyright law as well: only U.S. copyright law applies in the U.S., none of these nasty foreign laws ;) Hence a work could still be under copyright in the U.S. even if it is out of copyright or ineligible for copyright in its source country (so long as it was under copyright on January 1, 1996 or published after March 1, 1996). Models are definitely copyrightable under both U.S. and German law, the photo is probably copyrightable in its own right as well. Physchim62 (talk) 14:12, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I would like to upload some black and white photographs from a book published in England in 1926. No photographer is credited, and the publisher G T De Frane and Co. Ltd no longer exist. The book, however is the anual journal of the Buckinghamshire Archaelogical Society who do still exist here [12], they do not seem to answer emails! Will these fotos still be in copyright? Any ideas Giano | talk 12:02, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
They are protected until 70 years post mortem auctoris -- Historiograf 12:52, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
If we want to reference contributory infringement then I'll suggest this: http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/usamay2001_5.htm , Section II. Challenges of Emerging Technology - B. Facilitation.
But, if we want to cite "being debated in the courts", then that is looking a little thin to me: http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/docs.html , which shows nothing but P2P and piracy cases. I'm not saying "being debated in the courts" is not a fact, but after considerable online searching I am having trouble giving veracity to it. And if someone wants to read every document at EFF, they might find an on-going court case. -- Charles Gaudette 20:48, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia considers some of it's projects like the CD to be commerical projects, and also requires that photographers release rights to their images for publishing. Being that the CD and the books would be considered commerical products wouldn't that mean that Wikipedia would need to obtain a model release from the photographers for all photos featuring people for both it's CD and book? PPGMD 15:48, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
I suggest adding to the policy "Reusers' rights and obligations" as follows. An article that incorporates much text from another article must include a note similar to Wikipedia:Copyrights#Example_notice as follows:
Furthermore, a translation of another article must include a note as follows:
Better yet, five principle authors (or all authors, if there are less than five) of the original article should be named (pseudonymously) as well. I am not a lawyer. I'm not sure whether the ability to find the original article's edit history online is enough to comply with GFDL.
Previously I have used a different form of note as recommended by Wikipedia:Cite_sources/example_style#Other-language_wikipedias and Wikipedia:Translation_into_English#Instructions. However, all that gets me is a bunch of high-minded editors who want to yank out my note on grounds that Wikipedia can't cite itself. They overlook the GFDL requirement to acknowledge the original work.
I really think that we need to make it as easy as possible to reuse the best writing from other-language Wikipedias. It's a great source of free encyclopedic text, particularly for the purpose of countering systemic bias. -- Hoziron 12:40, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, that gives me another perspective. Perhaps it's not necessary to mention the original-language article in the text after all. However, I have a couple of remaining questions.
But first, regarding the "Reliable source" aspect: I never said that Wikipedia was a reliable source in itself. I said that it was a good place to get encyclopedic text. However, thank you for keeping the "reliable source" aspect separate. In my previous discussions about this matter people seem to get hung up on that and use it as a reason to ignore anything that I may say about the other aspect.
Now, regarding the Copyright/GFDL aspect: How does your recommendation take care of GFDL section 4 point B concerning the five principle authors?
What if the original article is deleted and the article that incorporates material remains? In that case I suppose that the incorporating article is not thereby released from the GFDL of the original article, and yet we can no longer claim that the original article's edit history (now deleted) constitutes the incorporating article's compliance with GFDL 4(I).
I think that the incorporating article needs to mention the original article's date (and sometimes time of day) due to a reason that you mentioned: because a later version of the original article may not contain the material that was used.
Also, I'd like it if Wikipedia policy would somewhere provide a clearer explanation of how GFDL should be applied to Wikipedia: Each article is a GFDL "document", right? What part of it is supposed to be its GFDL "title page"? Are Wikipedia mirrors (the ones that care about GFDL compliance) aware that they have to host a copy of each article's edit history?
-- Hoziron 04:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Just to make sure, images tagged with the copyright tag seen here are eligible for use on user pages, correct? -- tariqabjotu 17:50, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
A question has come up regarding a photo I've uploaded, and I'd appreciate some feedback, especially from a knowledgable administrator. I've checked the archives and didn't find specific info regarding my question. The question is, when an entity releases an image as a part of a news release, can it be used on Wikipedia under Fair Use? It seems to me in reading the US copyright code that it can. If a copyright holder releases an copyrighted work for general distribution where republication is implied, then they cannot discriminate then or later as to where it is published. The image in question is part of a Northrop Grumman news release regarding the flight of a new type of radar. The image was subsequently published in a number of industry publications, and is still available in the News Release section of the Northrop Grumman website. Thanks! Akradecki 18:58, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
There is a personal website with a copy of a news article and at the bottom the news agencies' copyright notice clearly says that unauthorized publication is forbidden. The personal website makes no indication of permission to copy. Do we assume that it is not a copyright violation? -- HResearcher 09:39, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Is there an essay anywhere on Wikipedia that contains a standard rebuttal to the common objections of "I don't think the copyright holder is going to sue Wikipedia, so we shouldn't worry about the fact that this image is copyrighted" and "We should keep this image until the copyright holder complains, because it's a good illustration for such and such an article"? — Bkell ( talk) 23:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Is it a simple work of innovations?
A good deal of content was taken from here. It was marked as "copyright www.purplesage.org.uk/profiles/elecampane.htm". I didn't see any indication that this was done with permission, but was hesitant to just remove it, in case I'm mistaken. Waitak 09:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi, someone recently objected to my removal of links, saying that torrent sites and search engines do not distribute illegal links themselves. Would you say this is a valid line of logic? I'd say it makes Wikipedia look bad, and should be discouraged anyway.
IMHO something needs to be added to the Copyrights Policy to prevent such disagreements. -- Kjoon lee 02:01, 6 September 2006 (UTC)