Wikipedia:Don't include copies of primary sources

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✔ This page documents an English Wikipedia content guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should follow, though it should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.
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Do not include copies of primary sources (specifically: text, maps, artworks and other useful images) in Wikipedia. If it is a large source, consider placing it in Wikisource. Wikibooks Annotated works and Project Gutenberg are other alternatives for pursuing primary source documentation.

Avoid including entire texts of treaties, press releases, speeches or lengthy quotations, etc. In an article of a treaty, for example, summarize the treaty and then provide an external link (or, if the treaty is on Wikisource, an interwiki link) to the actual treaty. Smaller sources and samples are acceptable in articles. Some short texts such as short poems and national anthems are usually included in their article, e.g. Ozymandias.

Examples of combining Wikipedia and Wikisource:

Wikisource has specific repositories for certain types of primary source texts, such as, for example, constitutions (Wikisource:Wikisource:Constitutional documents) and national anthems (Wikisource:Wikisource:National anthems), which can contain translations of the source text into multiple languages (including translations of the source text from its original language into English).

Contents

[edit] Copying other reference works

Copying public domain encyclopedias (such as 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica) and using those articles as a basis for a Wikipedia article on the subject is perfectly OK. Copying specialised encyclopedias may be appropriate in some circumstances, but should be done with caution. Copying other reference works is generally not appropriate.

In all these cases, you should not just dump the text unedited, but rather should work to fix them appropriately—adding links (in both directions), formatting, and editing for a neutral point of view and encyclopedic style.

See also the discussion over this policy.

[edit] Fair use of copyrighted primary sources

While fair use of copyrighted primary sources may be acceptable at Wikipedia under limited circumstance, posting the same sources at Wikisource may not be fair since Wikisource is to archive works published elsewhere like a library, making the possibility of fair use extremely limited. Most, if not all, copyrighted works posted there without any free license have been tagged and deleted as copyright violations.

Therefore, when writing an article at Wikipedia about a copyrighted primary source, please follow Wikipedia:Fair_use#Fair_use_policy carefully before including the copyright source. However, please do not copy the same copyrighted source to Wikisource without proper permission while fair use is extremely limited there. In case an article posted here is proposed to be moved to Wikisource, please check its copyright status as well.

For example, older lyrics of the Internationale have entered the public domain, but the modern version by Billy Bragg (Briton) is still copyrighted, so please do not copy his modern version to Wikisource until its copyright has expired (after his lifetime plus 70 years pursuant to British law) or permission been granted.

For images as parts of copyrighted primary sources, fair use may be acceptable here under very limited circumstances, but never claim fair use of copyright images at Wikimedia Commons since that site is to host free use images, making fair use inapplicable there.

[edit] Use of copyrighted primary sources with non-commercial licenses

Because Wikipedia, Wikisource, and Wikimedia Commons all use GFDL allowing commercial reuses and derivative works, Wikimedia Commons refuses copyrighted images with non-commercial licenses and the Wikimedia Foundation has considered that copyrighted primary sources with non-commercial licenses are to be excluded from Wikisource ([1], [2]). If you want to pursue copyrighted primary source documentation with non-commercial licenses, please consider other web sites with compatible licenses. For example, Project Gutenberg accepts others' copyrighted works if properly licensed, but it does not use GFDL and downstream users are responsible for themselves to ensure that their reuses are copyright-okay.

[edit] See also