Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems

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The request for copyright assistance page co-ordinates the various issues and requests related to copyright queries about content on Wikipedia.

Preinclusion Help

Can I use... | Could we get... | Can I donate...

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

For image or media copyright questions, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Strangerer (talk • contribs) 15:34, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

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[edit] here's another notice

I know that it's hard to get copyright violations dealt with here, but I'm willing to give it another shot. If someone want's to deal with this persistent person, that's great. Image:Polishlancers garde.jpg is a typical example of [1] this user's uploads. It was uploaded to WP, deleted from WP as a copyright violation, uploaded to the commons, deleted from the commons as a copyright violation, then uploaded back to wikipedia (all by the above user). Despite the fact that this user has repeatedly flaunted the policy, and repeatedly uploaded material that he knows is a copyright violation, no-one has had the balls to ban the user or delete the images.

[edit] Creating DVD version of wikipedia

I am writing a program that downloads the HTML for Wikipedia articles and the thumbnails of images that they contain to my hard drive. It modifies the code so that the articles can be viewed locally (in the web browser, but without an internet connection) and the links will work, but the content itself is not edited. Then I want to post the articles on my web site so that people can download them, burn them to a DVD, and use it as an offline version of Wikipedia stored on DVD. What do I need to do to prevent this from being a copyright violation? TIA

DJ Craig 19:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

On copyright for images: you need to confirm that the images are free, and not include any fair use images unless you are comfortable with creating new fair use rationales. For other images, and text, there are requirements for acknowledgement, hopefully someone else can fill that in. You might need to provide the full edit history. I think you need to change your approach: mass downloads of Wikipedia as HTML are seriously frowned upon because of server load. Indeed, methods exist to detect mass downloads and block them. What you need to do is download the database and set up your own Wiki. You can then use that to populate your own offline copy if required, but it's better to keep it as a Wiki I think. Notinasnaid 20:17, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I originally was going to use the API to download the articles, but I have no way of converting the wiki code into HTML. I looked for some software that I could use to do the conversion at my end, but I couldn't find anything. Does what you were saying about the images apply to thumbnails of the images? DJ Craig 14:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The best way to convert the wiki markup into HTML is to use your own copy of MediaWiki. Just setup an offline copy of MediaWiki, import a Wikipedia data dump into your wiki, scrape your offline wiki, massage the results, and upload to your site. With regards to the thumbnails, you can't use them most of them without the image description pages. In most cases the licenses (pretty much all the non-PD licenses) for images require attribution and the attribution only appears on the image description page. —RP88 14:33, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Retired user flagged many articles CopVios

I have been doing some minor cleanup on some articles on places in Mexico which I am familiar with. I checked a few of these articles tonight, and they had copyvio warnings on them, such as Ahuacatlán and San Blas. It appears that retired user User:Mixcoatl put these warnings on a whole bunch of articles, but at least on the ones I checked, no documentation as to where the text was supposedly copied from. I don't know if this might be vandalism, sour grapes or valid claims. What to do? Can I remove these warnings? - FaAfA (yap) 08:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks like he isn't retired yet... :-) Unfortunately for us, it's not vandalism. These are really copyvios, translated from Spanish. Ahuacatlán, Nayarit is from [2], and San Blas, Nayarit from [3]. See also Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2007 March 3/Articles and Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2007 March 6/Articles. I guess he didn't give the source URLs for these two because either he forgot or he didn't know how to get the URL of the appropriate frame at [4]. Lupo 09:19, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks like all contributions of Vogensen (talk • contribs) need a thorough check. :-( Lupo 09:33, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I know the San Blas article had pretty decent an editor-written version before Vogenson started work on it. Should I revert it to that? A lot of the 'copyvio' content is just stats. They can stay, correct? - FaAfA (yap) 08:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Update : I edited the San Blas temp page with the last pre-Vogenson version, which was original content. [5] I was going to revert the main article page, but the notice says that an Admin has to do so. Could an Admin do so? Thanks - FaAfA (yap) 02:27, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Am I being too strict here?

See User talk:Polypmaster#Blocked; it appears to me that the email is not sufficient to say that the image is released under a free license, but I'd like a third opinion. Thank you. --NE2 03:58, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

If this were Commons, that mail is not enough because there is no specific mention of license. Personally, neither should be enough for us. We can't "decide" a license for him. The mail should have three or four licenses (GFDL, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA and public domain, in example), with links to longer descriptions, and "force" the contributor to choose one. He must know that he is releasing the image under a license, must understand the license terms, and must also know that, in some cases like CC ones, once the permission is given, he can't withdraw it. If all these facts are present in the mail conversation, the image could very well be uploaded at Commons, forwarding the mails to the Foundation. -- ReyBrujo 04:44, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Is the new email he pasted good enough? If not, can you please explain to him what needs to be done? --NE2 05:31, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Please help before the image is deleted. --NE2 20:39, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Overprinted copyright notices on GFDL and CC-BY images

As an offshoot of this VPP dicussion, I am trying to get legal advice about a specific type of copyright situation.

Both the GFDL and CC-BY licenses have specific provisions about preserving prior copyright notices when creating derivative works. If an image comes with an embedded copyright notice (e.g. [6]) then, in my opinion, the language of such restrictions may make it a violation to remove such an overprinted copyright notice.

For the GDFL, I would direct you to Section 4 on modification, which says in part that a modified version must:

"Preserve all the copyright notices" (emphasis mine) and "Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices"

Depending on how strict a legal meaning is attached to "preserve", I think this could very easily be read to mean that one is forbidden from removing or relocating copyright notices that are embedded in image files.

For the CC-BY licenses, the language is similar, but prehaps more flexible:

"If you distribute ... any Derivative Works or Collective Works, You must keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and give the Original Author credit reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing by conveying the name (or pseudonym if applicable) of the Original Author if supplied; ..."

Where this all becomes an issue is that some people have had a standing practice of cropping out or otherwise removing embedded copyright notices from images (commons even has a template for requesting such alterations), but after discussing it with one of the people principally involved in such work, it appears the potential legal issue raised above has never been discussed. I am hoping to locate one or more IP lawyers who might comment on the expected meaning of "preserve" and "keep intact" and whether such terms ought to read in the strict sense of "do not remove or alter in any way". Dragons flight 10:35, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The specific discussion that Dragons flight is referring to was with me and is located at Commons:User_talk:Dcoetzee#Watermark_copyright_removal. My concern is that, if this is true, it effectively creates a limitation on derivative works that might severely inhibit downstream users. For example, some visible watermarks are translucent and cover the entire image - it's almost impossible not to damage these while editing the image. Other global edits such as cropping, blurring, sharpening, and light adjustment might require recreating the watermark. What is someone wishes to include a piece of the image in a collage or texture on a 3D object? Any requirement to retain a visible watermark means that derivative works have gone out the window and the image is fundamentally unfree. We either have to rule that watermarks are allowed to be removed, or we have to prohibit - and delete - GFDL and CC-BY images containing visible watermarks. Deco 23:32, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to add that there's another problem to consider here: the language "[a]dd an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices", when applied to visible watermarks, leads to disaster. This essay describes why the original BSD license was once held in contempt, for its inadvertant and unwieldly requirement to add an ever-growing list of contributors to every work of advertising for the software. Likewise, if every editor sticks their name on the image, soon half the image is a list of watermarks and the image is unusable. Deco 23:59, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

GFDL limits this to 5.Geni 02:02, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Copyright notices are kept intact in the image history. Other options would be to add a copy of the watermarked image to the image page.Geni 02:02, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

This discussion looks to be dead at the moment without any clear consensus. Unless you can recruit an authority to review the situation I'm going to assume it's okay to continue removing watermarks. I'm prepared to respond to specific complaints and assume liability for any damage. Deco 20:12, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

(Intellectual Property Attorney hat on) From a purely IP perspective, nothing in the law of fair use requires a party who uses part of an image to avoid cropping out the copyright owner's embedded copyright notice, so long as the ownership of the image is attributed somewhere. However, this may lead us down the path of adding something like "© Associated Press" or the like in the captions of images used in articles. bd2412 T 21:27, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Ummm, BD, we aren't talking about fair use. We are talking about the constraints on licensed derivative use under the terms of the GFDL and CC-BY. So I guess I don't understand your response. Dragons flight 21:33, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, the reference to fair use in weird. It may be the case that we can still use an image under fair use after violating the terms of the original license, but such an image would have to tagged differently, satisfy much more stringent conditions, and would not be available for Commons. Deco 21:37, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Oops, didn't see that. Well, the GFDL is really a contract that editors enter into, and the Wikimedia Foundation can clarify the contract however they want. As I read it, it doesn't really address images or derivative works very much at all. bd2412 T 04:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

After some discussion on IRC, I'm going to suggest the following compromise for now:

Short-term: We continue to remove visible watermarks from images, because they fundamentally limit derivative works, and tag all these images with Commons:Template:metadata from image, specifying that this information was moved into the metadata and/or image description page. If anyone asserts that this violates their license, we delete their images. This also alerts people working with print versions of the potential issue.
Long-term: We work with FSF and CC to clarify the terms of their licenses regarding "obnoxious" author credits that impede derivative use.

I think this should work out. Deco 23:05, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't object to this, though personally I would discourage people from removing such notices without a clearer resolution to the issue. If there is a problem, the person doing the removal could be held personally responsible (but if you are willing to live with that possibility, then I won't try to stop you). Since Cavic has already complained about the loss of his notices, I would suggest deleting things from commons:Special:Contributions/Cavic. Also, someone ought to go back through and make sure as many previously modified images as one can locate are also tagged with the template. As a footnote, I've already sent an email to the FSF about this issue (prior to starting this thread), but I'm not holding my breath for a response. Dragons flight 01:07, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, great. I've nominated just one of Cavic's images for deletion at Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Jordan by Lipofsky 16577.jpg as a test case to make sure that others will agree at Deletion Requests. I'll take care of the taxing work of tagging all images with removed watermarks with the new template, in time, but there are many hundreds. Deco 22:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Zealand Crown Copyright

User:Rebelguys2 has nominated for deletion a number of images sourced from New Zealand Government websites (mainly NZ military sites) which specify that the images are published under NZ Crown Copyright and can be "reproduced free of charge in any format or media without requiring specific permission" as long as the material is "reproduced accurately and not being used in a derogatory manner or in a misleading context". An admin ruling on whether this condition is compliant with Wikipedia's requirements is needed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion/2007 March 7. For what it's worth, my view is that this NZ Crown Copyright statement is OK as Wikipedia doesn't allow material to be posted in derogatory or misleading contexts either. --Nick Dowling 06:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind that crown copyright also doesn't expire (unlike more traditional copyright). While it may technically violate the "no additional restriction" clause on the GFDL, I fail to see where the real problem is here. Even if images of this nature weren't under such a copyright, I would still insist that as a project policy (or strong guideline) we should not reproduce such images unless they were accurate and "not being used in a derogatory manner or in a misleading context". I believe this admin to have steped over the line and this decision can and should be challenged. I also disagree that this is a fair-use issue either.

BTW, I am confused about one thing. Is there anything in NZ crown copyright law that prohibits modification of the image (cropping/rescaling/image enhancement)? The image license box seems to be misleading in this sense, as I can see legitimate modifications to these images as long as they aren't misleading (such as putting a picture of Tony Blair into the cockpit of Image:Ct4e.jpg). That would be misleading. --Robert Horning 16:55, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

crown copyright does expire. normaly after 50 years although other terms may apply.Geni 17:51, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

"You can republish this, as long as you don't do so in a way we dislike" is not a free license. The claim that New Zealand has infinite copyright surprises me. Is there somewhere I can read more about this? Jkelly 18:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

It is not different from Ubisoft permission terms per commons:User:Avatar/Ubisoft. -- ReyBrujo 18:52, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

My German is not up to the job of going through this carefully, but I think that there is some confusion on UbiSoft's part about what they were agreeing to, since their concern is that Wikipedia might use their work in a disparaging way, and they accepted someone saying "Well, we wouldn't do that, but some third party might and we cannot prevent that." This probably needs a closer look by a German speaker. Jkelly 19:00, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree (though IANAL). Even if you release your work under a free license you still hold some moral rights which prevent exactly the same abuse as sated by crown copyright. —Ruud 19:01, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

This varies by jurisdiction, and we have no influence over it, Building such a restriction into a license, however, makes the media less free regardless of jurisdiction. Jkelly 19:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Less free than what? Moral rights are part of the Berne Convention, so I hypothesize that NZCC images are not less free than CC-BY-SA images of which the author has not explicitly waived their moral rights to the integrity of the work. More importantly, we already allow licenses with differing levels of freeness (PD, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, GFDL) and this "restriction" does in no way interfere with our goal of producing a free-content encyclopedia. —Ruud 19:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

it does sence Crown copyright is non free. We know that UK crown copyright is not compatible with the GFDL. We have no reason to think that New Zealand law is that different.Geni 19:51, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The important phrase in the NZ CC tag is "reproduced accurately." Even if we don't infringe on moral rights, any modification won't accurately reproduce the original. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 19:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

In that case it would be a (disallowed) no-derivatives license. I'd prefer relying in the original document on NZ copyright than on the current text of the template, though. Is it available anywhere? —Ruud 20:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can see, see here. It's also printed on the image description page. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 20:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The Crown Copyright terminology explicitly allows reproduction "in any format or media without requiring specific permission". If so it is permitting some modification. I understand the issue with "no derivative" licenses, but in this case the only derivatives explicitly disallowed are "inaccurate" or "derogatory". While this is a restriction, it doesn't seem like it has much effect, since these would be disallowed on WP by WP:ATT and WP:NPOV in nearly all situations anyway. Is there any actual use of these images on WP that does not satisfy the copyright terminology? Gimmetrow 21:37, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I've never seen such a use of a NZCC image, and it would probably be swiftly edited out if it ever happened. --Nick Dowling 23:52, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd note that NZ Crown Copyright is very similar to UK Crown Copyright which uses the {{CrownCopyright}} tag and has long been considered to be a non-free license due to its identical restriction on modification. Currently the UK crown copyright license tag mandates that it be used with a fair use rationale. I'd treat NZ Crown Copyright similarly, permitting them to appear on WP as any other fair use material - i.e, if the image descriptions include a fair use rationale and the images are not reasonably replaceable then they are fine. —RP88 05:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A Very Lengthy Cut and Paste of discussion regarding one bad image of a CT/4, :-) but I think keeping Crown Copyright, NZ, UK, Australian, Canadian or where ever is worth it

Winstonwolfe 07:36, 12 March 2007 (UTC) ______________

Rebelguys2 wrote: Wikipedia's issues are (1) reproduction and redistribution, (2) derivative works, and (3) reproduction and redistribution of those derivative works. Adherence to these guidelines is good and important, as it means that everything we have on Wikipedia, save for limited instances of legimitate fair use, is free. Third parties can modify our content, use it commercially, rip it apart, put it back together, what have you — we want to permit any manner of reproduction, redistribution, and modification. See WP:5P and WP:C. I'm headed off to bed soon, so I won't be responding for a while. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 07:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC) _______

That's okay...no rush, I'm working this weekend so won't have much to say for a while either...

Not just Kiwis

I have had a chance to check UK crown copyright - there are at least 288 UK crown copyright images uploaded, all subject to a no misleading context clause identical to the New Zealand one you object to - and a bunch of other restrictions. Before we start this snowball rolling, I think we need UK users should be brought into this debate, and a search made for other similar jurisdictions images, (the other commonwealth nations spring to mind for starters).

Reproduction and Redistribution

I guess from my end, I see the main aim is being an encylopedia, rather than as a store of free images for commercial use. So I think it is better to have images with reasonable minor limitations - like fair use and crown copyright - than not have those images. I think commercial users can reasonably be expected to to read the template beneath the image they are down loading. But whether they do or not, it does not matter to Wikipedia, for Wikipedia is not liable, because it acknowledged crown copyright. Because there is no liability on Wikipedia, and the template provides fair warning to others, I don't see how reproduction and redistribution are a problem. This is not a napster situation. Users who reproduce the image with notice of copyright do nothing wrong, users who do not acknowledge the copyright bring no blame on Wikipedia - by having acknowledgement of the crown copyright with the stored image - which the template does - Wikipedia absolves itsef from liability.

Policy already compromised for US, why not for other nations?

I think the limitations already round fair use have set the precedent - allowing US law fair use exception (which is no protection in some other jurisdictions) but not NZ crown copyright - or UK - seems just picking up one cultures exception and ignoring other nations (see Wikipedia:Copyrights). If an exception can be made for fair use, it can be made for other, reasonable and similar reasons. incidentally I am worried about the danger of thinking that "free use" justifies publication in any jurisdiction - it is not the law everywhere. See also Jimbo Wales comments; [7]. Winstonwolfe 07:38, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

__________

We're not ignoring anything. Fair use hadn't been claimed for this image, a fair use rationale was never used, and this image itself doesn't have much of a reason to be kept under fair use cause there are obvious free alternatives. I don't really see a debate here. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 15:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

And Template:CrownCopyright, for the UK, isn't a free license either. We're using all of those images under a fair use rationale, but we haven't claimed fair use here, nor do we have any reason to. I don't see what you're trying to say, as this isn't a "reasonable and similar reason." Your interpretation of Jimbo Wales' comments isn't very accurate either. He's saying that we should try to respect restrictions, like the restrictions found in NZ CC. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 15:10, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

___________

Corwn copyright does not really allow derivatives and we know the uk version isn't isn't compatible with the GFDL. Thus it is a non free lisence and such material should not be used without a legit fair use claim.Geni 18:05, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

___________

I don't think I'm communicating this very well, because continued references to fair use show you don't understand what I am saying.

CT/4e - who cares

As far as CT4e goes, the fair use tag on the image was only added cause you asked me to fill in the template, and it makes it clear there is no fair use defence of it and does not dispute this image does not fit within US fair use law/Wikipedia policy, (and as far as I can tell, due to American bias or laziness, the two are practically identical). As the notes on the image make clear, the image itself is not even very important. (Though I would consider removing the image petty bureaucratic vandalism I'm not about to die in a ditch about it.

Crown Copyright - the important issue.

I am worried that this image appears to be part of a larger campaign to remove the crown copyright images, by illogically applying an inappropriate "fair use" policy to them.

Free use and Fair use

As I understand it, and feel free to correct me, the basic rule in English language Wikipedia is that all images should be able to be reporduced and redistributed - if you like, free use.

Unfortunately, free use doesn't work, as many important images are the intellectual property of others.

For this reason it has been recognised an exception to free use is needed, while at the same time protecting Wikipedians from liability from infringing upon others intellectual property.

At the moment, the only exception to free use is the concept of "fair use" which has been lifted from US law and applied to everything in Wikipedia as a policy.

Regardless of it being Wikipedia policy, I think indiscrimintae application of the US law fair use principle is flawed for two reasons:

Fair Use fails to achieve its purpose.

Wikipedia and the material on it is not only subject to US law - and other jurisdictions do not have the same fair use rules. Wikipedias fair use policy is unlikley to offer any protection to users outside the US. For this reason it is irrelevant whether crown copyright images are fair use, for fair use is no protection against liability for wikipedia or users, (unless they are one of the minority of English speakers who live in the United States). Putting Crown Copyright images through fair use tests is not only irrelevant, it is potentially creating a false sense of security. If you choose to say the only exception to free use is fair use, and if you follow Jimbo Wales policy of respecting other jurisdictions intellectual property rights, then all Crown Copyright images - UK, NZ or where ever, should be deleted.

A Fair Use only policy unfairly unecessarily and disadvantages non US images.

Fair use is, as I mentioned, a US legal concept which is alien to other juridictions. The result of my reasoning in 1 - and the practical actions of Rebelguys2 - is to allow US government images, but either delete UK and NZ images or retain them only if American users - and no others - are protected from using them outside the laws of the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the other Commonwealth nations. This is the sort of accidental xenophobia which can really get peoples backs up. Wikipedia already has a disproportionate American contribution bias which is natural, but if the encycopledia is to represent all peoples then their customs and laws must be respected and incorporated into Wikipedia. That was my other interpretation of Jimbo Wales quote, [8], which Rebelguys2 thinks I misinterpreted. Allowing only US law exceptions to the free use principle will increase this bias, by excluding other nations equivalent exceptions to intellectual property restrictions. What the crown copyright templates could offer is the introduction of a reasonable, simple and easily understood exception to the free use rule, to give access to Commonwealth government material for use on Wikipedia.

What now?

Now at this point, I think there are two options.

We could blindly enforce a flawed Wikipedia policy, measuring all non-US images against a US law test. If we do this, we will always have the defence that we were only following the rules, and we can claim all the people who uploaded crown copyright images should have read all the small print and then lobbied for a change instead of just posting and unrealistically suggest people delete all their images, have a debate about policy and then reload all the images.

Or we can recognise the reality that few users formulate or follow those sorts of policy minutae. We can recognise the objections to Crown copyright are ideological rather than real, that the reality is crown copyright images extend Wikipedias coverage without presenting any significant inconvenience to users wishing to copy them, that there is less legal laibility in leaving them alone than in applying a false fair use test to keep them some. Of course, I want us to take the take the second course, to start a reasoned debate about whether the policy should be revisited and to suspend the deletionism against Crown copyright images until policy revision has been adopted or rejected.

Winstonwolfe 07:14, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm in two minds about this. One the one hand, I'm normally quite strongly in favour of free content (on wikipedia, I don't actually care so much in other areas) and dislike fair use. On the other hand, one of the key reasons why I dislike fair use is because it means our content isn't free and our reproduction rights are limited as we fair use isn't applicable to many jurisdictions or at least is different enough that each image may have to be reconsidered. And I agree, if we disallow crown copyright for the above reason, we risk the situation where we are priorisiting fair use in the US over content that is singinificantly more free as Wiston says, and ignoring other jurisdictions. Of course, we are doing that by disallowing non-commercial use an no deritivative but there are IMHO very good reasons for these whereas IMHO there is only very limited reason to disallow crown copyright simply because of the no misleading use thing Nil Einne 13:57, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

As it exists right now, image licenses fall into two categories on Wikipedia:

Licenses that meet all three of the Wikimedia Foundation's fundamental free-license criteria - {{GFDL}}, {{cc-by-2.5}}, {{cc-by-sa-2.5}}, {{Attribution}}, etc. Per policy, images in this category are strongly preferred.
Licenses that don't meet all three criteria - ranging from fairly-free Crown copyright, to semi-free CC-NC/-ND, less-free {{WithPermission}}, and non-free "all rights reserved." Images in this category can be used, but only if a fair use rationale is included, and only if a replacement image from the first category isn't reasonably available.

With regards to the second category, while the three free-license criteria are determined by both philosophical and practical considerations, it is my understanding that the fair use rationale requirement is not designed to protect users, it is there to protect the Foundation, whose servers are in the US. Under US law, even with no license, fair use is always permitted and thus the Foundation is safe - they don't have to individually review all possible licenses, they've just reviewed some and said if you use these we won't get sued, otherwise they ask for a fair use rationale so that they don't get sued.

If I understand the proposal correctly, it isn't proposed that the Wikimedia Foundation relax its "fundamental three" criteria, instead it is proposed that a new category be created - Licenses that aren't free, but won't be subjected to either the fair use rationale test or the replaceability test. I'm not in favor of relaxing the replaceability test - it serves a good purpose - the Foundation has good reasons for encouraging the production of images that fall into the free-license category. With regards to requirement for a fair use rationale, I don't personally object to eliminating this for Crown copyright images. However, I suspect that this is a legal liability issue. In order for the fair use rationale requirement to be relaxed for images licensed under Crown copyright, some lawyer has to review U.S. law with regards to such licenses and craft a policy that still protects the Foundation as well as a full fair use rationale, but is less onerous. —RP88 15:24, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

"[I]t is proposed that a new category be created - Licenses that aren't free, but won't be subjected to either the fair use rationale test or the replaceability test"

That is preposterous. Either images are free on Wikipedia, which we'll allow, or they aren't, with which we'll need a fair use rationale to use. Sorry guys, this isn't something that's about to change. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 19:13, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

That proposal is not acceptable. IF you want a non use system try fair dealing. Pretty much anything allowed under fair dealing would be allowed on wikipedia.Geni 19:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

This needs to be discussed on a policy page, not here. However, I cannot see why an image should not be regarded as free, simply because the licence says it cannot be modified. The right to modify makes sense with text, but with images, it can realistically be used in limited circumstances: cropping or improvement of contrast, for example. I don't think anyone is arguing that it's desirable to allow someone to take a photo of a politician and add horns to it, or add a campaign button promoting some cause the politician might be opposed to. (Such uses might conceivably be governed by laws on parody, but that's not our concern). Our image policies need a shakeup.-gadfium 20:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Related note, don't mistake Fair use with Wikipedia:Fair use, except the name, they are not that much alike. Wikipedia fair use is basically everything not free (enough) to modify distribute etc etc. Garion96 (talk) 20:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

while certian elements of our image policy may need refome (I belive the foundation is working on it) adding more non free material is not the answer.Geni 21:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all for polite, constructive input.

I would be interested to hear more from Garion96 about why Wikipedia fair use policy is not based on US fair use law - my superficial impression was they were very similar but I am quite prepared to be wrong, (to quote [9] "Fair use is a legal doctrine which may permit the use of copyrighted material on Wikipedia under a restricted set of criteria. [...] Content used under this doctrine on Wikipedia must meet the United States legal tests for fair use.").

Obviously there is a balancing act between allowing free use of images, and having more images on the encyclopedia. Some will want more emphasis on free use than a wide range of images - that is a balance for the Wiki community to decide. I can certainly see why those who want fewer fair use images would dislike any crown copyright, even though the restrictions are minimal, they are restrictions.

The comment about concern as to the Foundations liability is helpful. As noted by several users, I do not think there would be liability for the foundation using crown copyright images in the way they have to date, but I am not an IP lawyer, and as RP88 says, a legal opinion would be advisable, though I think more than US legal opinion would be advisable. Just because the servers are in the US does not protect the foundation from legal action in other jurisdictions - for example, if child pornography was posted, if the US took no action, members of the foundation could easily be extradited to nations where it was down loaded.

Another issue is how safe users are in relying on fair use. Wikipedia does provide are caveat non emptor sort of warning, but I wonder whether this should be made more explicit on fair use images.

Subject to legal advice, I suggest adding a paragraph to[10] pointing out that it may be unsafe to apply the fair use justification to non-US copyright images or non-US users. What do others think?

The fair use policy itself very reasonably says it is not cast in stone, and there may be exceptions. So I guess the next question is whether Crown Copyright should be such an exception, at least while we discuss whether change should be made .

Winstonwolfe 04:35, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to be terse, but you should read our articles on the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (specifically Title II) and the Wikimedia Foundation's mission statement, which might clear up a couple of points. Jkelly 04:41, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Given the length of my comments, being terse is a virtue. However you may have been too terse for me to understand you. Could you explain what you took from the USA's Digital Millenium Copyright Act and Wikimedia Foundation's mission statement? (I note, as desired by the mission statement, reproduction of Crown copyright is free of charge). For others benefit,

"DMCA Title II, the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act ("OCILLA") creates a safe harbor for online service providers (OSPs, including ISPs) against copyright liability if they adhere to and qualify for certain prescribed safe harbor guidelines and promptly block access to allegedly infringing material (or remove such material from their systems) if they receive a notification claiming infringement from a copyright holder or the copyright holder's agent. OCILLA also includes a counter-notification provision that offers OSPs a safe harbor from liability to their users, if they restore the material upon notice from such users claiming that the material in question is not, in fact, infringing. OCILLA also provides for subpoenas to OSPs to provide their users' identity."

Obviously this applies in the US only and to copyright only. Wikipedia users and contributors are global, (and even Americans travel sometimes :-). Also, while we keep using the word copyright, potential liabilty issues are not only copyright - indeed given the wide license for Crown Copyright, the scenarios discussed where users could breaching it seem to create other choses in action, (e.g. defamation).

Winstonwolfe 04:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I was under the impression from the above that there was some confusion over who might be liable for what was uploaded to Wikipedia, hence the first link, and provided the second as a pointer to the fact that free licensing, not free as in beer, but free as in speech, is a core part of what we're doing here. If there's nothing that could be legally done with these images in the jurisdictions we care about that cannot be done with the way they are licensed, there is no need to bundle that into a contractual obligation for all possible jurisdictions, and if there is, they're not free as we define them. Jkelly 05:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

On the first point, liability, US law on copyright is a part of the story, and a large part for the foundation or US residents, so that is useful. On second point, where the mission statement referes to free and free of cost, fair enough if you mean free speech rather than cost. Reuse of Crown Copyright is limited by some restrictions, just as fair use is. Winstonwolfe 07:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

To respond to your question. Wikipedia fair use is based on us law. But it is way more restrictive than the actual legal term because our goal is a free content encyclopedia. See also Carnildo's comment here. Garion96 (talk) 22:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Garion96, very useful breif summary, recomend reading that link. Winstonwolfe 04:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plus One

The bulk of the article (starting with the "Formation" section) on the music band Plus One is word-for-word plagiarism from the copyrighted AllMusic.com article by Charlotte Dillon. I'm new to having a Wikipedia account, and not sure exactly how to proceed. Would prefer someone else handled the removal and revert. Thanks! Softlavender 20:54, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Leaked content from Highlander: The Source

Highlander: The Source is due for release in September 2007, but contents have leaked on the Internet and people are adding in-universe-style spoilers on various Highlander articles, including Immortal (Highlander), Methos and Highlander: The Source, the latter already tagged for copyvio. I think this is copyright violation but am not clear what to do. (I'm new here.) Should I delete everything or leave short summaries ? Movie Producer Bill Panzer has made clear the leaked content is not the final version, for example here. Just tell me what to do and I'll take over the cleanup. Thank you, have a nice day.Rosenknospe 09:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Unless people are copying stuff verbatim, it's unlikely to be a copyright issue per se. There's no real copyright difference between sumarising something based on the movie on leaks. However there's likely to be a sourcing issue (Wikipedia:Verifiability since it's rather unlikely leaks would be Wikipedia:Reliable sources unless they're sumarised by newspapers or whatever. Also, linking to a leak would probably not be okay as we're not supposed to link to copyright violations Nil Einne 13:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Allright, so I suppose I can tag this material with {{fact}} or remove it to the talk page until the movie is released. Thank you for your advice ! Rosenknospe 14:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Assistance requested

Update : see here I edited the San Blas temp page with the last pre-Vogenson version, which was original content. San_Blas,_Nayarit I was going to revert the main article page, but the notice says that an Admin has to do so. Could an Admin do so? Thanks - FREE FaAfA ! (yap) 04:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:CP and images

I'm concerned that there is a process fragmentation going on, because WP:CP seems redundant for images when we already have Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images and WP:IFD. My feeling right now is that WP:CP should not be used for images anymore. If there's a good reason to keep handling images here when the same requests can be handled elsewhere, I'd like to understand what it is, because when to use WP:CP vs. WP:PUI (vs. WP:IFD) is quite confusing. Mango juice^talk 16:57, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Before the speedy copyvio WP:CSD#G12, I thought, regarding images, WP:CP was for a blatant copyright violation and WP:PUI for possibly copyright violations. Now that blatant copyrights violations get speedy deleted anyway, it makes sense to put all image copyright problems on WP:PUI. Garion96 (talk) 17:09, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, since the structure of the WP:CP page is a tad more organized, if all image problems should be handled at WP:PUI perhaps some thought should be given to a similar organization at PUI (or perhaps just create two CP pages - one for articles and one for images and move PUI to the new CP image page). If all image copyright problems are to be handled at WP:PUI, some thought would also have to be given to what it would take to move DumbBOT. —RP88 18:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] the article: List of the hardest colleges to get into

List of the hardest colleges to get into is just a list from a Princeton Review survey, (and is cited as such). Is this a copyright violation? Akriasas 02:25, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

This sounds very similar to the issues raised by Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of billionaires (2005). -SpuriousQ (talk) 03:14, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't look at all similar to the list of billionaires AfD debate. This isn't a list of facts — its a creative and subjective list of claims based on the Princeton Review's own creative and subjective survey method. It looks like a potential copyright violation to me. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 03:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

It is similar. The AfD debate raised the point that determining worth was Forbes's own methodology and research. I'm not sure that List of Billionaires was resolved wrt copyright issues. -SpuriousQ (talk) 03:35, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

So yes, I agree that it's a potential copyvio, but IANAL. -SpuriousQ (talk) 03:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I meant that the list of billionaires was kept because the work wasn't really creative enough — you're just ordering people by how much money they have. Is there a grey area there? I don't know. But, in this case, it's undoubtedly a subjective and creative work, and the arguments to keep the list of billionaires don't apply here at all. 03:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you elaborate on "survey"? Many kinds of survey results are uncopyrightable because the results are determined mechanistically rather than creatively. Dragons flight 03:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

All of the Oricon yearly charts were deleted due copyright violation. I am guessing Oricon did it mechanistically, not creatively, yet it was deleted, creating a precedent for this list. -- ReyBrujo 04:20, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

A bit related, I just saw List of football (soccer) players with 100 or more caps is pending a decision on WP:CP. Garion96 (talk) 08:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, only looked at the CP page, not the actual article. It's seems already solved. Garion96 (talk) 08:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Zealand

An anonymous user has tagged New Zealand with a copyvio, but hasn't specified where the supposedly copyvio has been copied from. This is a page which has been edited over a long period of time by many people and so is unlikely to contain significant copying. I'm assuming people aren't supposed to just delete copyvio tags, so could someone verify that the tag is vandalism and remove it? --Helenalex 05:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Two images

I have questions about the copyright status of two images. One is Image:Ushr4 400.jpg. This is licensed as fair use symbol which can be used to illustrate the "symbol in question." Unfortunately, it is being used in an article about the United States Heraldic Registry, not an article about the Registry's coat of arms. The other question has to do with an image at the Bodyline article. It's an image of a DVD cover shown here. I've raised the question on the talk page, but no one has replied. It's the same kind of issue. The image is not being used to illustrate the DVD, but rather the history of the Bodyline incident. Please advise.--Eva ^bd 13:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mersenne

Can someone check the edits of User:Mersenne (Special:Contributions/Mersenne). The user has added copyrighted material to at least two articles. I suspect the user has done to other articles, but I don't have time to inspect the user's edits. I'd appreciate some help here. Mahanga^{Talk to me} 00:17, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright of Statistics

User:Cosmopolitancats asked a question regarding Government Statistics here. Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_UK_geography#Copyright_and_the_use_of_national.2Flocal_government_statistics. Can you reply at the linked location if you can help. GameKeeper 15:07, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ACM infringing on GFDL

This issue is about the post I made to ANI about a week ago [11]. Basically, the Association for Computing Machinery website contains what are clearly derivative works of Wikipedia biographies for Turing Award laureates, as a cursory review will show. For convenience here are just a few examples:

Besides the fact that Wikipedia is not credited, this is potentially very troublesome because 1) people may start removing material from the Wikipedia biographies for fear of copyvios, and 2) people may start citing the ACM biographies for the Wikipedia biographies. ACM is very credible because they are the organization that actually gives the Turing award! Some of their biographies contain even misleading or questionable assertions from Wikipedia like: "John McCarthy often comments on world affairs on Internet forums with a right-wing perspective."

I sent the ACM an e-mail a week ago (to the web editor I found on this contact page), but have received no response. I would appreciate any help or suggestions on this issue. Thanks! -SpuriousQ (talk) 03:03, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Iririo1.JPG

I don't believe that the image is correctly tagged. It's a scan of a book (from the 1950s) but tagged as GFDL-self. Could someone check. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 07:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I doubt it's good. I've sent it to IFD. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 01:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright v. Copyleft question

This may be a silly question, but I was under the impression that something could be either copyright or copyleft. That said, I think Image:Whoopi Goldberg - Comic Relief 2006 - Daniel Langer.jpg might be tagged incorrectly. It says it is CC-by-sa, but it also says the copyright is owned by the author. What's correct here? Thanks. tiZom_(2¢) 04:11, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Copyleft is just a sort of catchphrase for a certain kind of free licensing. In the world today, the author holds the copyright to anything he creates; the copyright originates when he creates it. The author can then choose to allow others to use it under whatever arrangement they choose. One such arrangement is to use a free license that propagates that freedom to all derivative works (i.e. anyone who makes a change must release the change under the same free license). This practice is called copyleft, but the work remains copyrighted and the copyright remains with the author (or is mixed if others make changes to it). The only things that are not copyrighted are works that have passed into the public domain because the copyright expired, or were put into the public domain by the author's choice. —Centrx→talk • 06:12, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] TG Cool Wall

It has been suggested that the inclusion of the Cool Wall and other sections in full from the show violate copyright. Is this the case?--Lucy-marie 18:11, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright violation, then modified

What should be done about an article that started as a straight-up copy-and-paste from another site, but was then edited on Wikipedia so that it no longer is a word-for-word match to the original. Sancho 01:16, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

It's still a copyvio. List it on the main copyright problems page so it can get taken care of. Thanks. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 01:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll do it. Thanks. Sancho 01:37, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

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