Wikipedia:Copyright violations

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This page is an official policy on the English Wikipedia. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

The request for copyright assistance page co-ordinates the various issues and requests related to copyright queries on Wikipedia. Preinclusion Help Can I use...  |  Could we get... Postinclusion Problem Solving Missing copyright information  |  Violation check  |  Suspected copyright violations General Copyright Advice and Discussion General help/discussion  |  Policy discussion  |  Copyright holder assistance  |  Asking permission  |  History pages

Shortcut: WP:COPYVIO

This page is part of a series about Copyright on Wikipedia.  v • d • e

Policy and information Wikipedia copyright information Reusing Wikipedia content Public domain · Fair use GFDL license text Copyright information index Processes Copyright assistance overview Copyright violations Copyright problems General help Copyright examinations Requesting permission from 3rd parties Example request letters Items with copy-issues Images missing information Suspected copyright violations

Wikipedia has no tolerance for copyright violations in our encyclopedia, and we actively strive to find and remove any that we find.

Copyright owners: If you believe Wikipedia is infringing your copyright, you may request immediate removal of the copyright violation. Alternatively, you may contact Wikipedia's designated agent under the terms of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act.

If you suspect a copyright violation, you should at least bring up the issue on that page's talk page. Others can then examine the situation and take action if needed. The most helpful piece of information you can provide is a URL or other reference to what you believe may be the source of the text.

Some cases will be false alarms. For example, if the contributor was in fact the author of the text that is published elsewhere under different terms, that does not affect their right to post it here under the GFDL. Also, sometimes you will find text elsewhere on the Web that was copied from Wikipedia. In both of these cases, it is a good idea to make a note in the talk page to discourage such false alarms in the future.

If some of the content of a page really is an infringement, then the infringing content should be removed, and a note to that effect should be made on the talk page, along with the original source. If the author's permission is obtained later, the text can be restored.

If all of the content of a page is a suspected copyright infringement, then the page should be listed on Wikipedia:Copyright problems and the content of the page replaced by the standard notice which you can find there. If, after a week, the page still appears to be a copyright infringement, then it may be deleted following the procedures on the votes page.

In extreme cases of contributors continuing to post copyrighted material after appropriate warnings, such users may be blocked from editing to protect the project.