Wikipedia talk:Copyrights/Archive 5

Church denomination logo

I would like to use the Cross Triumphant logo of the United Church of Christ on the UCC article. The UCC website [1] says that it is trademarked. I know next to nothing about copyright and trademark legislation. Please advise: will I have to write to ask for permission, or will it fall under fair use?

Thanks very much aliceinlampyland 14:44, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

You could probably use it under the {{Non-free logo}} tag (fair use). --βjweþþ (talk) 14:12, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I would imagine you could, too. Besides, they are unlikely to grant permission in any sort of usable way, by our guidelines. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 02:09, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

State government works not necessarily PD!!

I noticed that the DYK template now has a drawing of some grunion made by the California Department of Fish and Game. The drawing has a template claiming that works of the California government enter the public domain. IANYAL, but I assure you that states do have the right to protect works of their government employees by copyright. Someone, preferably a California lawyer, needs to check whether the California state government claims copyright on works of its employees. Dale Arnett 17:09, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

As I pointed out to Dale Arnett: The images were clearly tagged with Template:PD-CAGov, and the image descriptions gave the URLs for where they came from. From there, it is not too hard to find their copyright status [2]. ALL text on the Cal. F&G website is in the public domain (just as almost every bit of written information from the State of California). The photos on their website may not be, but the drawings I used appear to be produced specifically for the Cal. F&G and therefore should also be PD. BlankVerse ∅ 03:12, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

how can I protect myself?

I have several poems on my user page, and I would like reassurance that they cannot be stolen and discredited. They are not published in any way other than privet viewings by my close friends and reletives. I wish to share them, but not lose credit for them.

Although this page is mostly about copyright issues on the Wikipedia, I'll answer this question anyway. IANAL Your work is now automatically copyrighted once you've put your poems down in some tangible form (like writing them in your journal) unless you explicitly give up some or all of your rights. Still, when you "publish" them (on your website or elsewhere) there are still reasons to add a copywrite notice (usually © name date). There is no way, however, to be absolutely assured that your work will not be stolen. On the other hand, if you can show prior publication and ownership of the copyright, there are remedies available to you.

Stealing poems is fairly rare, but it does happen. I write haiku, and every once in awhile there will be a poem published, or a contest won, with a misappropriated poem. Invariably the person will be caught, and a retraction published or a prize withdrawn. Right now there is a bit of a fuss because someone has posted a number of haiku on some of the free poetry websites on the net claiming they were his, but in fact they were really those of a very well-known haiku poet. The poetry thief's postings have all been removed, and he will probably end up persona non grata on every free poetry website on the internet, and in every print and internet haiku journal. BlankVerse ∅ 07:56, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The text from the Wikipedia:Copyrights page says this, but you'll have to read the GFDL to know, and reading it is, well, tough. Anyway:

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 either

* you own the copyright to the material, for instance because you produced it yourself, or

* you acquired the material from a source that allows the licensing under GFDL, for instance because the material is in the public domain or is itself published under GFDL.

In the first case, you retain copyright to your materials. You can later republish and relicense them in any way you like. However, you can never retract the GFDL license for the versions you placed here: that material will remain under GFDL forever. In the second case, if you incorporate external GFDL materials, as a requirement of the GFDL, you need to acknowledge the authorship and provide a link back to the network location of the original copy. If the original copy required invariant sections, you have to incorporate those into the Wikipedia article; it is however very desirable to replace GFDL texts with invariant sections by original content without invariant sections whenever possible.

Bobburito 03:08, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Status of a cartoon from a 1925 London Newspaper

Hi, I've written a number of tennis articles plus other stuff for Wikipedia. I want to write another one about an old-time American tennis player named Ray Casey who was a Wimbledon doubles finalist in 1925. I have in my possession a photograph (made by me around 1982) of a pen-and-ink cartoon about Casey that appeared in the (London) Daily Mail in June of 1925. I'd like to include this cartoon in the article if possible. I've read as much as I can try to understand about English copyright law, which isn't much. It seems very confusing. But it *does* seem to me as if the basic rights for something such as this expire after only *50* years. Therefore this cartoon *could* be used here. Can anyone give me a definitive, or at least a near-definitive, answer on this? I realize that this whole copyright business is an enormous can of worms, with answers in many cases that are far from definitive.... But thanks in any case for your help. Hayford Peirce 18:20, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The cartoonist must have died 70 years ago --134.130.68.65 16:21, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

No. There is no reason to presume that he died only a decade after draeing the cartoon.

Can someone clarify whether US or UK law would be the issue here? IANAL. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:30, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

From what I know, it's either 75 years from creation or 50 years from publication.

Also I think it will also depend on where the copyright is held at. Judging from what you said, I think the UK law will apply. If anything, ask The Daily Mail if you can have permission. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tidus4Yuna (talk • contribs) 8 Dec 2005

Please add link to Ukrainian Wiki

[[uk:Wikipedia:Авторське право]]

Rh 19:22, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Copyvios and page histories

<Jun-Dai 04:54, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)>

I'm sure this question has been asked before, but I can't find it hereabouts: if we remove a copyright violation, but the copyvio remains in the page's history, is the Wikipedia actually cleared of the violation, or not? Consider Fat Blue. It was deemed that the article was a copyvio, the appropriate tag was set, and then the copy rewritten. Yet the alleged copyvio is still accessible on Wikipedia via a direct link: [3]. Does that not constitute a copyright violation?

</Jun-Dai>

I'm going to take a stab at this and say NO. The page's history, while accessible, is not being used for publication purposes. Now, I'm certain that this can be argued the other way, however, any organization which would want to sue for copyright infringement because of a history page would wind up spending more money than they could ever hope to collect on the highly unlikely chance this website would be found libel. Spending good money for no money. Usually with Copyright law, there's an opportunity for the infringor to make repairs, i.e. removing the violation. I'm sure if Wikipedia were contacted by someone who has absolutly nothing better to do than search for violations in page history, one of our programmers would find a way to remove it altogether. Now, I'm not a lawyer...but I've tried a thing or two... ℬastique▼^talk 02:52, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

<Jun-Dai 23:20, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)> I guess this raises a question: how much of the Wikipedia's policy towards copyrights is based on theoretical considerations, and how much of it is based on practical considerations? </Jun-Dai>

The Wikipedia:Copyrights has this to say:

If you are the owner of content that is being used on Wikipedia without your permission, then you may request the page be immediately removed from Wikipedia; see Request for immediate removal of copyright violation. You can also contact our Designated agent to have it permanently removed, but it may take up to a week for the page to be deleted that way (you may also blank the page but the text will still be in the page history). Either way, we will, of course, need some evidence to support your claim of ownership.

It sounds to me like it's implying that if there is a copyright violation and the "violate-ees" (that is, the people who's work was copied) come storming to Wikipedia's door, there's a way to get it out of the history. So, if it was just a regular wikipedian saying it shouldn't be on wikipedia and they deleted it, yes it would remain in the history, but the "violate-ees" would first have to 'notice' it (hardest part), then decide they didn't like it (easiest part), and come to wikipedia. If they sued, wikipedia would have a good argument. Bobburito 03:13, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Template:Cv

Under the section "If you find a copyright infringement" on the project page, can we add a mention of Template:Cv? It's a template for user talk pages, similar to Template:Test1, Template:Test2, etc.. except for dealing with people that post copyrighted material. TheCoffee 12:08, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Government of the Republic of Ireland Copyrights

I found the subject law here: Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000. Can someone help me to figure out what it means and what sort of Irish government images are useable? ℬastique▼^talk 02:44, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You're looking for section 191:

Government copyright.

Chapter 19 - Government and Oireachtas Copyright

191.—(1) Where a work is made by an officer or employee of the Government or of the State, in the course of his or her duties, the work qualifies for copyright protection notwithstanding the provisions relating to the requirements as to qualification for copyright protection specified in section 182.

(2) The Government shall be the first owner of the copyright in a work to which subsection (1) applies.

(3) The copyright in a work to which subsection (1) applies shall be known and in this Act referred to as ‘‘Government copyright’’, notwithstanding that the copyright may be, or may have been, assigned to another person.

(4) Government copyright in a work shall expire 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was made.

This means Irish government commissioned works hold copyright for 50 years, if no one else has a recognised legal interest in it. --Diderot 17:12, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is GFDL incompatible

1. The Wikipedia:Copyright page states that Wikipedia is governed by a modified version of the GFDL license that makes an exception not requiring invariant sections nor front/back-cover texts.

This makes it only compatible one-way. People can combine Wikipedia works with GFDL'ed works, but GFDL'ed works can't be integrated into Wikipedia works unless said GFDL work it explicitly states the same exact exception.

2. Wikipedia has implicitly modified the attribution sections of the GFDL, because the method for attribution given by Wikipedia is to credit Wikipedia itself and not the authors as required by the GFDL. That would only be valid if Wikipedia is the copyright holder, but it's not. There's also the fact that you wouldn't even know who to credit to begin with given the number of contributors.

3. This is not a legal incopamptibility, but a pragmatic one. Because of the attribution and other requirements, it means inserting a whole bunch of extra text into a Wikipedia article for every piece of GFDL text added. Of course, the very specific requirements of the GFDL would make the so-called encyclopedic articles look very messy and unprofessional. You're supposed to list up to 5 authors, include various sections and whatnot, that results in an ugly mess in an article.

...

Honestly, they really should have thought this through better before doing all of this. The only possible way to salvage the content now is switch to a much more relaxed license that specifically addresses atribution issues on a Wiki. This means getting the consent of many people to put their works into the public domain or something close to it. I believe the author of rambot is making an effort to do that, with some success.

Nathan J. Yoder 22:58, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

GFDL doesn't require cover texts, so not including them is not a modification. I disagree that changing the license for the entire pedia is the "only possible way to salvage" it. Lunkwill 23:29, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The GFDL requires that front-cover, back-cover and invariant sections be reproduced with every version. It even has very specific, restrictive rules about how you're allowed to modify them. Read the addenum at the end of the GFDL where it says How to use this License for your documents. That section instructs the person to add a copyright statement requiring reproduction of those sections if they exist. Nathan J. Yoder 03:17, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The statement here on Wikipedia:Copyrights is not intended to be an amendment to the GFDL. It is merely a statement that Wikipedia does not have any front cover texts or back cover texts. The matter of attribution is unclear. Most republishers merely credit the Wikipedia. One or two credit the five most prolific authors for the encyclopedia as a whole. Perhaps a few credit everyone for each article. Also see my user page for an alternate view on this issue. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 28 June 2005 16:56 (UTC)

Yes, but if someone uses another GFDL'ed document with one of those viral sections in a Wikipedia article, it makes that statement of copyright invalid. So in other words, Wikipedia can only use another GFDL'ed source if it doesn't have any viral sections either OR if the Wikipedia copyright statement is changed.

The attribution thing only works for now since no one has cared to file a lawsuit (or DMCA notification at least) over it YET, but you shouldn't rely on things continuing the way they are now. For wiki type documents, the GFDL is just an accident waiting to happen and unfortunately those in charge of Wikipedia don't really see it as a big deal and would really rather not admit that they made a mistake in using the GFDL.

Your statements about copyright on your user page aren't accurate. While you do own the copyright to the individual parts that you alone authored, any parts that have been jointly-authored can only be licensed under a license specified by the person who wrote the first version since they are the ones who needed to authorize you to modify it in the first place. In this case, all jointly-authored works are released under the GFDL unless all the authors of said work have specified that have multi-licensed it under other licenses as well. Nathan J. Yoder 28 June 2005 19:48 (UTC)

Contributing to and from the Attribution-ShareAlike

I was wondering if one could copy wikipedia articles to a wiki that has the Attribution-ShareAlike license or vice versa. My guessing is that this is not possible in both cases, unless you are the author of the article, but I wanted to ask to be sure.

I'm asking because this wiki has quite good articles for some japanese musicians that are missing on Wikipedia. --xDCDx 3 July 2005 14:46 (UTC)

Heading typo

The "Algeria" heading is one level too high. "Edit" button isn't available, so hopefully with someone will higher privs will catch that. Cate8 July 9, 2005 04:49 (UTC)

Making life easier for new users

As this page is linked from the bottom of every article, I suggest that we lead with a short list of other reasons someone might have come here, rather than burying it at the bottom. For example:

This page describes the licence under which the contents of Wikipedia can be reused.

• For information on what material may legally be included in Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Copyright FAQ.
• For what to do about copyright violations found in Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Copyright problems.

See here for a new user's difficulty in finding Wikipedia:Copyright problems.

Bovlb 02:51:27, 2005-07-12 (UTC)

Printed copies of Wikimedia content

I'm trying to prepare a copy of a book at Wikibooks for print publication. I intend to actually publish this information in a dead tree format and give it to a couple of local schools and libraries. (It is only about 70 pages long right now).

As a result of doing this, I'd also like to apply for formal copyright registration of this Wikibook, which is going to give me a whole bunch of problems, including primarily author attribution (the information found on user pages is totally inadequate for filling this out), and determining exactly who "owns" the content covered in the book. The book I'm going to publish is the Wikijunior Solar System. I have a PDF file on there right now with the layout in the format I wish to actually publish and take down to a local printing company.

The wikibooks:Wikibooks:Copyrights page is woefully inadequate to cover this concept, and IMHO very out of date as well in a number of areas. If there is somebody who really knows copyright law, I would appreciate some help in this circumstance. It is also possible that a major change of policy with the Wikimedia Foundation may have to take place if we need to accurately determine the country of origin and residence for each contributor, to keep with registration laws under United States code. I would also like input from users in other countries as to what specific requirements are involved if you formally register copyright in your country and what information your government is asking that you provide with copyright.

The relevant information for copyright registration (under U.S. law, and what I intend to file) can be found here:

http://www.copyright.gov/register/literary.html

Some discussion on this can also be found at the Staff Lounge on Wikibooks. It is from that discussion that I am trying to get input here. --Robert Horning 02:19, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Memory Alpha

At Conspiracy (Star Trek), I put in some text from Memory Alpha.org, which uses Creative Commons. The author of the article specifically said that the text was derived from the Wikipedia article. Is that text not necessarily GFDL and is it not okay to reintegrate it into Wikipedia? James 02:58, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

Using individual Wikipedia articles on otherwise copyrighted site

In short, what do I need to do to use individual Wikipedia articles on my site without jeopardizing the legal status of my otherwise copyrighted site? The long version of this question follows:

I have read and re-read the GFDL and other articles here and still find myself wondering what I can and cannot do with individual Wikipedia articles. I have a site that already contains many articles which are copyrighted. I wish to fill in the "knowledge holes" in my site by using Wikipedia articles. I also wish to make it very clear to anyone who sees them that they come from Wikipedia. And lastly, I wish to be able to incorporate the WP articles without alterting the copyright status of the rest of my site. Sounds simple enough. But is it? It seems that About.com and others have managed, but I'm unsure of their standing in this community after reading the section on GFDL compliance [4].

I'd like some direction from those of you who are passionate about this. From what I have read, I can copy an article from Wikipedia and put it on my site, so long as I include a disclaimer like this:

"This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License."
"It uses material from this Wikipedia article, which is probably more up to date than ours."

(The "this Wikipedia article" part would be linked to the original article here and the latter is because I do not have the technical expertise to automatically update these articles.)

I am aware that by so doing, I am granting others the right to use this version of the article under the same terms it was "licensed" to me. I just want to make sure that this "viral" thing I've heard about in the media doesn't mean that I've just essentially licensed my whole site via the GFDL (which I don't actually have the right to do in any case as a good portion are from other contributors). I want to do this "the right way" and not upset folks here. I appreciate the nature of the work that has been done. Thanks for reading and for any advice!

I've been thinking the smae thing and I am not sure. I think that the rest of your site is not affected, but I don't know. What I am more interested by is if you could make a paper encyclopedia with certain articles copied from Wikipedia and under the GFDL but others completely copyright. --βjweþþ (talk) 16:32, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Section 7 of the GFDL says "When the Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to the other works in the aggregate which are not themselves derivative works of the Document." A website would be imo, an aggregate work. note IANAL. Matt 05:16, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for that info, User:MattKingston, I needed to confirm this, as my site [5] uses a couple of Wikipedia articles, modified to fit into the site. I use a template called "Template:Wikipedia" to mark the pages as Wikipedia-derived, and GFDL-only. The rest of the site is dual GFDL/CC-BY-SA-2.5. Your comments will help me to rest a bit easier in thinking that I'm not tainting my whole site as GFDL-only. -Harmil 14:33, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Transparent copies

This was just added: "any of a number of formats available from us, including the wiki text, the html web pages, xml feed, etc."

From the GFDL: "[...]standard-conforming simple HTML, PostScript or PDF designed for human modification.[...]Opaque formats include proprietary formats that can be read and edited only by proprietary word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/or processing tools are not generally available, and the machine-generated HTML, PostScript or PDF produced by some word processors for output purposes only."

The HTML web pages here are designed for output purposes only. If you read through the HTML pages, not only do they contain a ton of garbage, they're difficult for a human to sort through and modify, especially if they want to change the formatting. The WikiText undoubtedly makes changes much easier for a human, which was why it was created--human modification of the raw html would be too arduous. The XML export includes the WikiText itself, so it's redudant to mention. Nathan J. Yoder 11:58, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

I'll remove this addition in a month if no one bothers to contest it. It was originally added as a political move on the part of Wikipedia's owner to defend Wikipedia's auto-blocking policy anyway, not one motivated by anything else. Nathan J. Yoder 11:53, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Since I can't actually remove this, will someone else? It actually contradicts the latter part other part of the section that comes after it too, which suggests that providing a link back may be necessary for the transparent source requirement, which wouldn't be stated if the HTML provided by a third party constituted a transparent copy. Nathan J. Yoder 19:11, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Are xray images copyrightable?

Hello,

I have some medical xrays of my recent spinal fusion, which I'd like to use to illustrate the (currently nonexisting) spinal fusion article. One of these is at Image:spinal fusion fixation devices.jpg. Are these images acceptable for use, since they don't really involve any creative expression? Or was the process of finding a good angle for the xrays enough to make them copyrighted by the radiologist? I'd be happy to remove the images if they're not free. -- Creidieki 21:00, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I would say that it's going to depend on the country they were taken in. The xrays are copyrightable, but who owns the copyright? I would suggest that it's either a) you, as the subject and the one who paid for them (If you paid for them), b) your physician who commissioned for them to be done, or c) the institution (hospital or laboratory) where they were done. Matt 15:41, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I found the following document relevant to the UK [6] which says "If the image forms part of the patient's medical record it, along with the rest of the record, is owned by the patient's doctor or treating hospital. Attempts to argue that the patient owns the information contained in his or her record, though not the record itself, have failed." Matt 16:16, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Those of you in the United States may be surprised to learn that the photographer, and not you, owns the copyright to your school photographs. Just try to get one of them enlarged and Wal-Mart and see what happens. I am assuming that the same principle applies to X-Rays - at least here in the states.

It's no different than if someone had taken a picture of your back with a regular camera. The copyright is held by the photographer, even if the image is of you or of your insides. X-rays are just another form of media. (If you think having images of your insides copyrighted by others is creepy, check out Moore v. UC Regents -- they can take patents out on stuff they find in your fluids). --Fastfission 21:40, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

But doesn't copyright law state that if a work is made under contract, its creator is the hirer, not the one who actually created it? You did pay the doctor to take the X-ray, or at least to perform a series of procedures that involved taking the X-ray, so by default I'd think the copyright should be yours (in the U.S., anyway).

At any rate, did you ask your doctor for permission? That could work. —Simetrical (talk) 08:11, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

predicament of actual rights vs. ethical rights

I came across Ashton Calvert and was surprised by the copyright notice on the bottom. Apparently the Australian gov't had released his bio information for "for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation". I'm not sure if "use within your organisation" includes Wikipedia. i have an ethical issue with this as well. Please see associated Talk:Ashton_Calvert. The author has also started other articles in the same vein. -- Bubbachuck 05:30, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

perhaps you should elaborate on what ethical issues you have. I've listed it as a copyvio since the text is not licensed under the GFDL. I'll do the same with the others. Matt 03:24, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

I just read at Wikipedia:Public domain resources that no US government material is copyrightable and is thus public domain. I'm not sure how Australia's copyright laws work (i can't find any mention on wikipedia), but if its the same as US, then technically someone could legally copy and paste an article from a government site onto Wikipedia, right? if a work is public domain, it does not have to be under GFDL right? clarification would be most appreciated. the ethical issues i have would be whether copy and pasting a webpage by the government just because they allow it for "non-commercial use" on Wikipedia is "right" considering that there exists an exact copy of the work on a government site already and there was not proper credit given to the government (not for the Calvert article but for others). -- Bubbachuck 04:13, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Unless you know for sure that Australia works the same way, don't assume it. I believe Australia has Crown Copyright which is quite different than the U.S. policy against copyrighted works of the federal government. "Use within your organisation" most likely only means "for internal use only", which is not what anything posted on Wikipedia generally is (as it is "published" to the entire world). Even if they release it for non-commercial use, that is not compatible with the GFDL (GFDL allows for commercial use). --Fastfission 21:46, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Please fix (Portuguese wikipedia)

Where it is:

[[pt:Copyrights]]

it should be:

[[pt:Wikipedia:Direitos de autor]]

--Juliano (T) 20:12, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Lyrics

Is it generally forbidden to add lyrics (which may be copyrighted) to descriptions of new songs?NightBeAsT 00:20, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Small portions can be quoted under fair use. You can even put the entire text in if it's interspersed with analysis as far as US copyright law is concerned because fair use protects such scholarly examination. Some Simpsons script sites use this technique. Copies can also be made for educational and classroom use, IIRC, but as with so many aspects of the Internet, how this would apply to an encyclopedia is unclear. Lunkwill 06:58, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's 100% correct. Even with scholarly examination, quoting the entire body of a copyright work would seem to go pretty far towards violating the substantiality clause. Anyway -- the answer for Wikipedia's case is NO, don't post song lyrics from copyrighted songs. You may have some brief quotes from such lyrics as is relevant to the article, but that's it. --Fastfission 21:44, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

USAID images

United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an agency of the federal government, and as such images produced by a USAID employee during the course of their work are public domain. The copyright notics on the USAID website states this explicitly:

Unless a copyright is indicated, information on this Web site is in the public domain and may be reproduced, published or otherwise used without USAID's permission. We request that USAID be cited as the source of the information and that any photo credits or bylines be similarly credited to the photographer or author or USAID, as appropriate. If a copyright is indicated on a photo, graphic, or any other material, permission to copy these materials must be obtained from the original source. This copyright notice does not pertain to information at Web sites other than this Web site. [7]

The photolibrary on the USAID website enables users to download medium resolution images. All of the images I have seen in this library do not specify a copyright and are therefore (see above) public domain. It is possible to request high resolution copies of these images via a form. However, this form states:

By submitting this form you agree to comply with the following terms of use:

• • Photos are intended for non-commercial use only.
  • Photos may not be stored or redistributed for any purposes without prior permission.
  • Photos should be used in a context that properly reflects the nature of the subject(s), situation, and location depicted.
  • When requesting high resolution photos, users are asked to provide information on how and where photos will be used.[8]

How are the above conditions compatible with the public domain nature of the images? TreveX^talk 20:15, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

I seem to recall that the high-resolution versions are hosted by a an external company that sells them for commercial use. But then again, it's been a while since I checked. -Harmil 22:47, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Editable version

I've made an editable version, at Wikipedia:Copyrights/e. This can be used to propose changes by non-admins. Of course, for the Wikipedia policies, you should still refer to the original version. --Ixfd64 21:58, 2005 August 29 (UTC)

Iran

The text in the article does not mention this important fact:

According to the Iranian "Law for Supporting Authors, Composers, and Artists" (قانون حمایت حقوق مؤلفان و مصنفان و هنرمندان), passed on 11 Dey 1348 (January 1, 1970) and published in the official newspaper number 7288 on 21 Bahman 1348 (February 1, 1970), for many images, including paintings, the work is in the public domain if all of its authors have died for at least 30 Iranian years (may be different from 30 gregorian days in a few days).

As special exceptions, if the work is cinematic or photographic or if the (economic) rights of a work have been transferred to a legal person, the work will become public domain after 30 Iranian years from its publication or offering.--Zereshk 20:26, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Fair use link

Is there some reason there's no link to Wikipedia:Fair use? --Howcheng 22:20, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Copyrighted lists

I recently got [9]. I will remove it but I believe that such a list is uncopyrightable under US law. of Wikipedia:Fellows of the Royal Society, basically a list like the following:

• Abbot, Charles, 1st Baron Colchester Charles Abbot, 1st Baron Colchester 14 October 1757 - 08 May 1829 Fellow 14/02/1793

and so on for about 8000 fellows.

That I'd changed into wikilinks to see where they led. What about British law (under which they were origially copyrighted), and international copyright law? Dunc|☺ 00:18, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

• This might be helpful wrt US law, at least: [10]. My understanding has also been that lists and databases are not copyrightable. Lunkwill 02:17, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

NGA data and images

The terms (yes, terms... sigh) of the National Geospacial Agency's data is the following:

In accordance with 10 U.S.C. 425[2], the use of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) (or predecessor organizations, National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) or Defense Mapping Agency (DMA)) name, seal or initials to imply or suggest approval or any commercial endorsement by NGA without written permission from the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence is prohibited. All non-Agency published products, information or data which include the NGA, NIMA or DMA name, seal or initials or otherwise express or imply any association with NGA, NIMA or DMA shall contain the following disclaimer:

"Disclaimer

This reproduction, partial or complete, of any National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) or Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) product, information or data is not approved, authorized or endorsed by the Secretary of Defense, the Director of Central Intelligence, the Director, NGA or any other element of the US Government. The US Government and NGA accept no liability for the accuracy or quality of this reproduction or the use of any NGA, NIMA or DMA products, information or data."

This disclaimer shall be displayed prominently on the cover and first page of any hardcopy publication, on any map or chart, on any media, video cassette, on the shrink wrap of any CD or DVD, on any DVD or CD-ROM, on the jewel case label and any insert in the jewel case. This disclaimer shall be displayed prominently in the start up or initial screen of any software product or program as well as in the "About" dialog window (usually accessible by the "Help" drop-down menu). In addition, any installation diskettes, CD-ROMS, or DVDs will contain the disclaimer in a separate text file located in the root directory and named "disclaimer.txt."

NGA will not be liable for the accuracy or quality of any user products, regardless of the amount or complexity of NGA information or data used in their production.

[11]

This would seem to require, at the very least, that we replicate the above disclaimer in Wikipedia:Copyrights, because we do use the seal and name at National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and we also use data from the agency in many places.

Have I missed something important that mitigates this concern? I mean, I know we're an encyclopedia, and so logically it makes sense for us to use the name and logo, but U.S. law seems to be contradicting logic, here. Perhaps just a disclaimer on National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (and perhaps on a PD template box for their images) saying that they don't endorse Wikipedia would be sufficient to get past the first conditional in the requirement? -Harmil 22:59, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Artwork from 1890s, artist died 1936 (corrected: 1932)

I'm trying to work out what images I might be able to add to Ramon Casas i Carbó if I flesh it out to more of an article. His active career was well under way in the 1890s; he died in 1936. Among his work were postcards, posters, and paintings. Much of this is reproduced on line elsewhere, but without clear statements about rights. There is a fair chance that something was published in the US before 1923, but it would be difficult to ascertain. Some of the postcards were clearly published in Spain as early as 1897. I'd particularly like to use this self-portrait (he is in front on the tandem bike, Pere Romeu is his stoker): it is an iconic image, painted for the main dining hall of Els Quatre Gats, a Barcelona bar/restaurant that was a center for the Catalan art movement known as modernisme, and which in a revived form is still a bit of an arts space today. Any suggestions on what we can and cannot reproduce? -- Jmabel | Talk 05:50, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Hello? -- Jmabel | Talk 07:25, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Assuming it was first published in Spain, I would assume that the pre-1923 date won't do you much good. I've just started to try to figure out non-US publication. The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (of which Spain is a signatory) states

Countries under the older revisions of the treaty may choose to provide, and certain types of works (such as phonorecords and motion pictures) may be provided shorter terms, otherwise the current length of copyright in general is life of the author of the work (or last surviving author if there is more than one), plus 70 years, or, in the case of a work for hire or otherwise created by an entity other than an individual, 95 years from first publication.

Not exactly as clear as it might be, but it suggests that his work might have just come into the public domain this year (though our article on him gives his date of death as 1932). Seems to me that we need an article that really covers copyright in a significant range of countries. Anyone know of a source? -- Mwanner | Talk 17:07, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, better answer. [12] has Spanish law as life+70. Though the discussion there falls a little short of the degree of clarity I'd like to find, it looks sound enough to go on for now. -- Mwanner | Talk 17:19, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

But is Spanish law what pertains? After all, we are publishing this in the US. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:41, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, I was reading "The applicable law under the Berne Convention is by default the law of the signatory country where a copyright claim is made" (from our Berne Convention article) to mean that if a Spanish artist claims a copyright in Spain, then US publishers have to abide by it. Now that you raise the question directly, I realise it's not a slam-dunk that that's what it means, but I still lean in that direction. Notice, too, though, that (according to rumor) we have servers in Europe (France?). Soooo...

The more you look into this stuff, the more you wish you hadn't. -- Mwanner | Talk 18:54, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

You'll have to wait until 1 January 2007, which isn't too far away (m:eventualism) Dunc|☺ 19:10, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

If our article is right on his date of death (1932), his stuff is OK now. -- Mwanner | Talk 20:59, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you all. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:47, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Correction: copyright is not forever

In section 4, the phrase "that material will remain under GFDL forever" should be "that material will remain under GFDL until its copyright expires". There may be other phrases like this that I haven't noticed. – gpvos (talk) 10:40, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

.gov and .mil images

Upon advice from Gmaxwell I changed the text about images from .gov and .mil sites being in the public domain "as a general rule". There's a lot of commercial stock photography on US gov't sites that is definitely not PD (from Getty Images, for exmaple, for several mistakenly uploaded in the past). Notice replaced with a caution to be careful and first email the webmaster to be sure. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 13:56, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Old Book Covers

Following up on Wikipedia talk:Image use policy/copyright#Pre-1923 Images from original sources: I noticed that the image of the cover of Ulysses was tagged fair use (Template:Book cover). However, I believe that since the book was published before 1923 (here, 1922), it falls into Public Domain in the US and since James Joyce died over 70 years ago, it falls into Public Domain in many other countries. This holds true for as well for Makers of American Silver and probably for many other books. Also, since the scan of a book cover can hardly be construed as "original" or "creative" (I think Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. applies here), these book cover should be tagged as Template:PD-old-70. I want to know if anyone agrees before I do this and also if anyone knows what to do for books that are published 1923 or later or authors who died less than 70 years ago. However, as the similar question I noted above has not yet been answered, after over a year(!), I'll just go and do it soon unless told otherwise. Telso 23:10, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm a bit late, and my answer is certainly not authoritative, but I have been taking a similar approach with images published pre-1923, though I generally use PD-US. Note that your example with a James Joyce book cover may or may not work under PD-old-70, since it would be the date of death of the artist, not the author, that would apply. Under PD-US, all you need be sure of is the publication date. For images where the artist died before 1905, you can use PD-art. -- Mwanner | Talk 16:45, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Linking to copyrighted works

It is always bad to link to copyrighted works? What if the article is about such a work, and a version exists online? Even if the host is violating copyright, we're not, and it seems like fair use. — Omegatron 21:59, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Copyright expiration

I own a book that I think has passed into public domain, and might be a good source for the (currently somewhat light) engineering section of Wikipedia. It's Mechanics of Materials by Laurson and Cox, 2nd edition (the Wiley & Sons edition, not the Chapman & Hall Amazon is selling). I went here and looked through the renewals for 74, 75, 76 and 63, 64, 65 (since the copyright dates listed are 1938 and 1947), and couldn't find it under the title or either of the authors' names. Is this enough effort to consider it expired, or should I do more? Thanks in advance, Joel 03:50, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

The good folks at Wikipedia:Reference Desk sugggested I direct this question here, due to your specialized interest. So, uh...what do you guys think?--Joel 03:20, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Add it to wikisource.org, have fun. Travb 23:09, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Interwiki

please add

sk:Wikipédia:Autorské práva

~~helix84 17:56, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

copies of pre-1923 postcards

There are several photographs which would be extremely useful at http://pre-grouping.fotopic.net/

They are mostly scans of postcards published pre-1923 in England and Wales and Scotland, some of them are Victorian.

The owner of the website thinks that they're all public domain. I'm not so sure, though if he owns the copyright he has admitted that he thinks they're public domain anyway.

But I think the creator of the work owns the copyright, or his estate, and the company that employed him to take the photographs, but it is nigh impossible to identify them.

It may be that they are ultimately owned by the NRM, having gone through the 1923 grouping, 1948 nationalisation to the British Railways Board to the NRM.

I think there is a recognised problem with identifying who owns ancient copyrights within the railway book business.

But should I use them?????? Dunc|☺ 21:01, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

anything published before 1923 is in the public domain, still dont beleive me? Go to http://www.gutenberg.org/ and see tens of thousands of examples. Travb 23:11, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Lawsuits

So who files a lawsuit in the case of infringement? Since it's a civil suit, it can't be filed on behalf of other people, the contributors themselves need to file suit, which is a bit strange. What exactly would happen, would they need to contact all the contributors and files a massive class action? Nathan J. Yoder 19:17, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

A decent source for copyright law in many countries

A decent source for copyright law in many countries is at [13]. It seems to me that we could really use a page like this on WP, or at least a link to such a page. We don't have anything like enough on non-English language countries' copyright provisions.

Also, as suggested above, a link to Wikipedia:Fair use would seem to be called for. -- Mwanner | Talk 17:29, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

While looking for info on copyright law in other countries, I came across this page [14] that contains the following ominous paragraph:

Even if you conclude that a work is in the public domain in the United States, this does not necessarily mean that you are free to use it in other countries. Every nation has its own laws governing the length and scope of copyright protection, and these are applicable to uses of the work within that nation’s borders. Thus, the expiration or loss of copyright protection in the United States may still leave the work fully protected against unauthorized use in other countries.

What, exactly, does "use it in other countries" mean? Anyone have a clue what law pertains when a person in Nigeria reads a Wikipedia article off of a server in France that contains a photo first published in Spain in 1938 (just to pick an arbitrary example). Should we be worrying about this stuff? -- Mwanner | Talk 17:55, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Don't worry until the first lawsuit ... --134.130.68.65 16:17, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Just as a basic principle of non-paranoia: the chance of being sued over something like this is very slim. We might get a letter asking us to remove the picture because someone claims copyright, and if the claim was anything like reasonable, we'd probably abide by it promptly. Past that, pretty much the only basis to get damages in a copyright suit is if someone could show that our use of the image cost them money: typically, that means that someone would have paid for a copy of the image, or of a work of which the image is part, if we hadn't given it away. There are not a lot of single images for which that would be the case, so the stakes are pretty low. On the other hand, if someone had a book of 235 photos and we used 60 of them, they might have a great basis for a suit.

We'd all do well to remember: the lines we (Wikipedia) draw on image use etc. are an effort to stay well within the law. In general, we are not skirting the edges and tempting fate. As far as I know, the only place we've taken a "so sue me" attitude is the claim that some museums make that they own the rights to reproductions of pictures of which they own the original. To the best of my knowledge, no court has ever upheld such a claim, and we've decided to bet on what looks like good legal precedent, if not universally agreed legal principle. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:41, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Time to fix copyvio

I noted a copyvio in an article, which has been added to quite a bit but is still very obviously derived from the original source. After I reverted to a non-violating version, the user who originally introduced the copyrighted material and is also one of the major contributors to the article reverted it back, saying he would edit out the non-original material "in a month or so." I would think that the correct thing to do is revert the article until the rewrite is available, but I wanted to ask. How long can the article remain as a copyvio while awaiting or in the process of having the "bad" material removed? --Bgruber 16:09, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

0 seconds? This is simply not allowed. Known copyvio material should not be in Wikipedia, even temporarily. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:35, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Two questions

I wish to clarify two things:

1. If I take a photograph of a newspaper, is it "copyrighted" (by the newspaper's publisher) (and if so, is this "fair use"?), or is it a work created by me (so that I can e.g. put it under the GFDL)?
2. How about public art? (I suppose if posters are ok these must be ok, but just to be safe…)

Thanks—Gniw (Wing) 03:58, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

IANAL, but I believe, for question 1, you can copyright a photograph of a copyrighted work only if your photo essentially transforms the original work into a work of art (you paint on the paper, make a collage of it, it appears as one element in a larger composition, etc.).

As for question 2, I believe that you would obtain copyright on your photograph of a sculpture, as there is something inherently creative about the choice of angle, lighting composition, etc., but publishing a photograph of a copyrighted painting would violate the author's copyright-- you do not create a new, copyrightable work by making a "slavish copy". See Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., which is kinda the obverse of this question, in that it deals with public domain art. -- Mwanner | Talk 18:12, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

See Derivative work. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:37, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

I am completely confused. Does it mean that if I want to upload some photos of public art (or a place where art is everywhere and cannot be avoided) to Wikipedia,

1. it is not allowed (which explains why there aren’t many photos of subway stations in Wikipedia)
2. it is a blanket “fair use”
3. it is “fair use”, but only if the purpose of the photo is to let the reader identify the piece of art
4. it is “fair use”, but only if the article is a piece of art criticism
5. none of the above (and if so, what)

and if I have already uploaded photos and it is “not allowed”, or “fair use” only when the article must critique the art (instead of describing, say, a subway station), how do I delete the photo? (Should I mark my own upload as copyvio and let the admins delete them? That sounds nasty…) :-(

Thanks—Gniw (Wing) 04:07, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

It just isn't that clearcut. You can't copyright a subway station; not even the lovely ones in Moscow. It matters (a lot) whether your picture is basically of the place, and a public work of art just happens to form part of the place, or your picture fundamentally amounts to a reproduction of the work of art. Other factors also enter, including the context in which the image is used.

One thing I can dispense with, though. There is no such thing as "blanket fair use" for an image. If the image is copyrighted, them some uses are not fair. If "blanket use" is OK, that can only mean that the image is either not copyrighted, or is licensed for "blanket use".

It would be a lot easier to talk about concrete examples (specific picture, specific use). IANAL, of course, and Wikipedia probably sets itself stricter standards for fair use than the law requires, and case law is spotty in this area, anyway, but I have a pretty good sense of this and probably can give you a decent answer to a more specific question. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:20, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

The specific cases for me would be Finch (TTC), North York Centre (TTC) (the top photo), Sheppard-Yonge (TTC), Bessarion (TTC), Leslie (TTC), and Don Mills (TTC).

North York Centre (TTC) (the bottom photos) and Bayview (TTC) are similar but someone else uploaded the photos.

For the first question the specific case would be for me [15], though if someone could explain the reason for Toronto Sun being considered not ok but broadsheet apparently ok (a straight reading of the guidelines would have me “almost” believe the Toronto Sun use is ok for Wikipedia, and conversely if Toronto Sun is not ok then it’d be very difficult to understand why broadsheet is fine) would be much appreciated.

(I personally don’t believe photos of public art would be problematic, otherwise TTC would have stated that fact instead of “no professional photographers allowed” in the public notice.)—Gniw (Wing) 14:16, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

On the subway photos, I can't imagine a problem, assuming that the photos were uploaded by the person who took them. These are basically photos of public spaces; the fact that there may be a work of art visible in the public space should not be an issue: clearly these are not basically reproductions of that work of art. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:58, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't see anything problematic about the Toronto Sun example. Clearly they could not reasonably claim that you are diminishing the value of their asset by the use of these pictures, which is the biggest issue. The use of their copyrighted materials seems to fall withing fair use where you use it in a context of legitimate comment on the confusion between the newspaper and the flyer. Does anyone else see a problem with this that I'm missing? -- Jmabel | Talk 00:04, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh that’s good. I’m going to take pictures of every subway station that’s missing photos :D

If the Today Daily News photo is ok (the one with the paper and flyer side by side) I'm considering re-using it in the article. Good :D

For the Toronto Sun exampe, I saw a comment about the work being copyrighted and unlicensed (in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Droegedead.jpg). Rereading the page, it seem to have been generated by a tag and not an editor's comment. I guess the uploader just used the wrong tag.

Thanks for answering my questions.—Gniw (Wing) 00:11, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Fair use (again)

There is a section on Fair use, but it provides no link to Wikipedia:Fair use. Could we get this added (or changed)? TIA -- Mwanner | Talk 00:26, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Is Google even legal?

Google does not mention anywhere, anything about the GFDL when they return definition results in their search engine. i.e. define:someword. There is no mention of the GFDL and no link to a local or external copy of the GFDL. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.151.20.123 (talk • contribs) 21 Nov 2005

They have at least our implicit permission to index our content. We find it beneficial that they do so. They comply with requests not to do so. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:07, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I can't believe people are asking such kind of questions, and in Wikipedia of all places. Copyright law is destroying the Internet culture.—Gniw (Wing) 18:46, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I hear that. I thought the fundamental purpose of a copyright was to prevent other individuals from making a profit on content that I create. If I want to copy something from a website to Wikipedia, like information about the CEO's and Board of Directors of publically owned corporations, I'm not making any money on it, Wikipedia is not making any money on it, and the company I'm getting the information from is not losing any money from it. If people don't want any information about you on the web, don't become a member of the board of directors of a public company, or a politician, or an artist, or whatever. And to relate this to Google, if their indexer can find information and not get in trouble for copying it into their search results, why would Wikipedia get in trouble for grabbing the information and creating links to it and from it to other articles on the site? We're putting up walls and protections to protect things that have no financial value, but have tremendous civil and social value if they are shared information. What's the point?! Chadlupkes 20:44, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

You honestly believe that google is not profiting off the content from wikipedia? Have you heard of something called Adwords and Adsense?

It's not the copyright law that I was questioning. I was questioning why google can take content from the wikipedia and not make any reference to the GFDL. So now that I have a partial answer, I'm still quite confused. Why can a small website or medium website who is not google, not have the same rights as google? It's not the copyright in question, it is the copyleft in question. I have no problem with google using the content of the wikipedia without referencing the GFDL, if I and every other small website owner that indexes website content have the same right. That includes all other corporations in addition to the small website owner. --Lars Olson

Again, they have at least our implicit permission to index our content. If we didn't want it indexed, we would follow the Robots Exclusion Standard. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:47, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Devil's advocate: this has nothing to do with robots.txt, this has to do with someone using the content without referencing the GFDL. No where in the GFDL does it say that "as long as the server contains a robot.txt file and as long as you are not in their robots.txt file exclusion list, you can avoid any mention of the GFDL.". Please point us to the line or paragraph in the GFDL that permits a website owner to use content from a GFDL source based on Robots.txt exclusions.

copyvio on User Talk-pages

What about pasting copyright protected material on lots of users talk-pages? Like all the things User:Armour copied from Encyclopædia Britannica. Doesn't it has to be Copyright violation in some way? How should it be dealt with? --Boivie 22:08, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Interesting issue, not least because I keep encountering cases in which a certain user copies material from websites to talk pages, in order to use them as arguments in a discussion. If you edit a talk page, no matter if it is a user one or not, you'll see "DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION" at the bottom of the page, and "Only public domain resources can be copied exactly—this does not include most web pages." I've adjusted my User preferences to de:Deutsch, which has another sentence. It tranlates as "Please DO NOT COPY WEBSITES which are not yours, do NOT use COPYRIGHTED WORK without permission of the copyright-holder." It seems to me to be an obvious case and anyway, I do not think the people from Britannica would like to have their work published. Don't forget that talk pages can be found via Google too. I cannot tell you whether their translation is a copyvio too but I think it is. NightBeAsT 15:06, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Policy Template

This page needs a {{policy}} tag, because it is listed in Category:Wikipedia official policy. (Or remove the Cat). --Michael ^(talk) 13:05, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Request for ceb interwiki

Please provide a link to the Cebuano WP equivalent of this page: ceb:Wikipedya:Katungod sa pagpatik. Thanks! --58.69.21.243 07:58, 28 November 2005 (UTC) (Bentong Isles from the Cebuano Wikipedia)

User page copyright notices

Do we have any policy -- or even, suggested course of action -- about copyright notices on user pages, purporting to withhold permissions that the GFDL grants? (Such as redistribution.) It strikes me this could cause a certain amount of confusion, though I assume it doesn't cause any legal problems as such, given how explicit and up-front we are about the GFDL being a given. In other words, ignore 'em, ask the user to remove them, remove on sight? Alai 02:54, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

There was a big flap about this some months ago. I forget the name of the user involved. The outcome was that such notices aren't permitted, for exactly the reasons you cite. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 03:23, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm much obliged; the pages one doesn't have on one's watchlist, until some time after one realizes one needed 'em. Alai 03:26, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Photos used on other site w/out attribution

It was pointed out to me that http://www.caninecrib.com/dog/pictures/ is using many many pohtos from Wikipedia w/out attribution. I've sent them email, but does anyone know whether there's a procedure to follow or a committee that handles this kind of thing or whatever if they DON'T comply?

I'd monitor it myself except that wikipedia has ruined my life (well--not really--just takes too much time) and except for today I've been avoiding it and will have to go back to avoiding it. 71.131.35.122 00:02, 3 December 2005 (UTC) (Ooops, that was me Elf | [[User talk:Elf|Talk]] 00:03, 3 December 2005 (UTC))

Graphics for Mathematics Articles

I would like to create graphics for some of the more incomplete mathematics articles, using Mathematica and possibly Matlab. I don't know what kind of licenses I can use, is there anyone that knows, or can suggest someone to ask? -Monguin61 01:32, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Question about Gary Barnett and rewriting copyright violations

I tagged Gary Barnett as a copyright violation. Another user, acting in good faith, restored a slightly cleaned-up version of the copyrighted text, which was a biography of Barnett posted on a website of Barnett's former employer, the University of Colorado at Boulder. Is [16] still a copyright violation? NatusRoma 02:43, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Question about reprinting Wiki articles

A friend asked me what does she needs to do in order to reprint part or entire Wiki article in the small non-profit magazine she publishes. Would it be enough to add information that 'this article is based on article on Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia and as such is licenced under the GNU Free Documentation License'? Do we have any standard boilerplate or such? Would she need to reprint the entire text of GNUFDL? Does the fact that I am the sole writer of the article in question and I agreed to colicense my contributions under Creative Commons changes anything?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 00:26, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

IANAL, but I'm pretty comfortable in stating that if you are the sole writer, that makes matters much simpler: when you contributed the article to Wikipedia, you gave Wikipedia GFDL license to your writing, but you retain copyright on that material yourself. So you can relicense it any additional way you want. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:20, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Tnx. In order to promote Wiki and copyleft, I asked her to add the following text: This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html). It uses material from the author's own memory supported by Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page). You are free to copy, modify and distribute this article according to the terms of the GNU license. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:09, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Copyright issues

Wikipedia:Copyright issues is sitting around waiting to be dealt with. Is there anything there that needs to be incorporated into this page? There seem to be some unanswered questions there. Or should it just be archived? -- Beland 00:19, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Getting rid of my rights

I want to get rid of every singe right I have over all of my Wikipedia contributions so that anybody can use it for any purpose whatsoever. I thought Public Domain covered this but after reading these copyright pages, I'm not sure if that's true. Could someone help out? Currently, on my userpage it says:

Released into public domain I agree to release my text and image contributions, unless otherwise stated, into the public domain, hereby releasing all rights. I actively encourage the use of it for any purpose. Please be aware that other contributors might not do the same, so if you want to use my contributions under public domain terms, please check the multi-licensing guide.

--Celestianpower ^hablamé 19:27, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know, PD is what you are looking for.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 04:26, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. --Celestianpower ^hablamé 19:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Stephen Hawking

The copyright tag at Image:Stephen hawking1.jpg states that it can be used for "identification and critical commentary on the film and its contents". It's currently used in Stephen Hawking only. Is that a problem? —Simetrical (talk) 05:59, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Probably just needs the addition of {{Non-free fair use in}}. I'd say there was a pretty strong fair use case for using it in the article on Hawking. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:24, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Limited license for Images

Wikipedia:Restricted image licenses is a proposal to accept a slightly more limited license for images, one which might be acceptable to many content creators/copyright owners who are not willing to release images under the GFDL. Your comments and views are welcome. DES ^(talk) 04:53, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Suggest template

Should probably have a {{Policy}} template at the top. Stevage 22:41, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

• Agreed, and done. Radiant_>|< 22:55, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Katrina Copyright Question

Hello.

I'm gathering source material for an article on the Murphy Oil Spill caused by Hurrican Katrina in Chalmette, La.

A now defunct parish website hosts a graphic that was printed from yahoo maps; drawn on my Murphy Oil officials; given to parish government leaders; and then posted on their temporary website.

Subsequent maps have been published; however this map differs greatly from the area published by the EPA.

Can this be used on wikipedia? I believe it maybe fairuse; but I'm just not sure.

http://stbernardparishgovernment.com//img/Photos/extentofspill090605.jpg

--Kunzite 17:05, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

The fair use justification seems pretty straightforward: the map itself presumably figures in the story, especially if it differs from other maps. The trickiest thing will be to accurately describe the copyright status. Presumably the copyright on the underlying image belongs to Yahoo! and that of the drawing to Murphy Oil. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:27, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

The Turner Diaries: public domain?

See The Turner Diaries, which contains links to online copies of the book in its entirety. I've tried to remove those, but another user readded them. Assuming there was no official release of the books into the public domain, who would own the copyright now (the author died in 2002)? The author's next of kin? Either way, don't you think the links need to be removed for the time being? —Simetrical (talk) 05:25, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Soviet Union copyright

Section "Soviet Union (pre-1973)" - completely erroneous.

1) May 27, 1973 - date of adoption the Geneva convention by USSR. 2) Before this - was some another cross-states agreements. 3) copyright status published in pre-1973 S.U. works is defined by local nowaday copyright laws (i.e. different in the different countries).

--Ru_magister 26 December 2005

I agree - pre-1973 = PD is a myth. --Historiograf 01:26, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Airphotos

Screenshots of a 1996 airphoto of northern British Columbia from a GIS layer of an online GIS application, from the provincial Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources are used in two articles: Chetwynd, British Columbia and Dawson Creek, British Columbia. The photos in question are: Image:Chetwynd airphoto.png and Image:Dawson Creek 1996.jpg. I posted these as {{CopyrightedFreeUse}}. My place of employment (Peace River Regional District) has a license to use the layer which consists of ~200 airphotos georeferenced to the BCGS 1:20,000 map grid. We do as we please with them, give print outs away, publish them (government Board meeting agendas, reports), etc. Our restriction is that we never touch the data. We can give away print-outs of the airphotos, but not the data attached to the photos, or the layer in general. The layer in question is available to the public online here: http://webmap.em.gov.bc.ca/mapplace/minpot/min_titl.cfm. Anyways, at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Chetwynd, British Columbia, User:Kmf164 opposes the article based on belief that this is the incorrect tag for the photo but is requesting a second opinion. So the question: is {{CopyrightedFreeUse}} the correct tag for this image? If not, what tag is? --User:maclean25

Whatever permission you or your employer has is unfortuantely irrelevant. Only licenses or permissions applying to all third parties are valid here (except for fair use...). As best I can tell, there are none. The associated copyright page says "This material is owned by the Government of British Columbia and protected by copyright law. It may not be reproduced or redistributed without the prior written permission of the Province of British Columbia." I suggest you fill out their copyright request form. However, be sure you are getting permission for anyone to redistribute the images. The best way to do this is to get GFDL permission. You may want to use a template letter. Superm401 - Talk 02:20, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Question

I am korean user. I use kowiki more. In korea, fair-use idea is not exist. so, I think...why don't use we non-commercial image in kowiki?

question! kowiki user can't use non-commercial image? it is worldwide wiki project rule? korean can make a policy for allowing non-commercial image? in kowiki only?? -- WonYong 11:47, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

The server is located in the US, so I think that US rules are to be followed. --Wasabe3543 02:26, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

HELP NEEDED

I have put a notice on the Village Pump (Assistance branch) but no one has reacted. Can any one explain User:Battlefield that he is bad informed concerning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:GermanGov ? --Historiograf 01:28, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I'm unfamiliar with German law. Otherwise, I'd try to help. Superm401 - Talk 02:22, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Please recommend the best tag

See Wikipedia_talk:Image_use_policy/copyright#Please_recommend_the_best_tag - this subtalk page seems rather abandoned, maybe it's time to close it? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 11:25, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Users' rights and obligations is wrong

It seems to me that the section on Users' rights and obligations is totally wrong, it currently states that if you want to copy a document from Wikipedia that you can include a notice (listed under Wikipedia:Copyrights#Example notice) saying that you got the article from Wikipedia as well as linking to an offsite copy of the GFDL and that one may alternatively distribute it with a principal author list including the GFDL.

However the GFDL states:

You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies.

"reproduced" is a key word here, it's not just enough to provide a link to the license, it has to be reproduced along with the document. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 19:14, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, someone following using are articles should follow the letter of the GFDL, which means that when you make a copy you should include the license and notices in your copies. However, when you are taking a copy in a web page, it's not an obvious requirement that the license and history information etc need to be on the same web page, or even on the same site, as the original document. So you could have a document hosted on your site, with a link to another site for the history information, which is certainly within the spirit of the GFDL and probably within the letter of it as well (although the GFDL was written with paper rather than web based distribution in mind, so it's not 100% clear). Wikipedias policy, as I understand it, is to say, "if you want to host an article on your site, we are happy to host the history bit, so you can link back to our article with the history rather than include it all on your site".

As you point out, the word "reproduced" stacks against this interpretation, but in any case reproduction is a murky issue where the internet is concerned. For example when you view an article in a browser, you could argue that you are "reproducing" it in your computer's memory, and are therefore in violation of the GFDL if you don't also download the history as well! So I would suggest that Wikipedia is correct in not hanging too much on the precise meaning of "reproduced", and allowing linking rather than reproduction of the history.

As far as I'm aware, the FSF doesn't have a problem with linking to their copy of the GFDL rather than including it directly in a web page.

I agree that the example wording does not give ideal GFDL compliance, but in the real world, getting people to follow this is probably the most we can realistically hope for, plus we don't want to be burdening people reusing our content with interpretations of the GFDL that are stricter than absolutely necessary.

Enchanter 00:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

So what you're basically saying is that we should encaurage mass copyright infringement based on the assumption that the license is just too hard to follow? It *is* accepted that reproduce means that you have to distribute the license on the same page/medium as the document (see GFDL#Burdens when printing), the page should be changed to reflect that. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 07:30, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

You're right. The page should tell people to host a copy on the same site. That's not exactly a difficult proposition, and is legally correct. Superm401 - Talk 02:24, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Question on the use of Wikipedia material

Hello. I belong to a site called FordEurope.net[17] and we've started up a section on historical Fords sold in Europe. For most of the vehicles listed, I've found Wikipedia articles that could prove useful alongside official Ford material. In addition, if we at FordEurope.net (more specifically FordEurope.net's admin) post the articles, we'd most likely use the article in its entirety - text, photos, et. al - as well as a citation showing where it's from. Is it possible, or do we need authorized permission to use the whole article? -Daniel Blanchette 03:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

All Wikipedia content is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. In essence, you can feel free to copy the entire article, provided you link back to the original and note that it's licensed under the GFDL (with a link to that). (Linking back to the original is required so that the list of contributors can be viewable.) Of course, you're allowed to then modify the page however much you want, with your modifications themselves licensed under the GFDL, subject to certain conditions. You can even use the page for commercial purposes. I suggest you look at the text of the GFDL for the full story. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 09:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I know this is an older posting, but you do not need to link back to the original article. I would recommend reading the full text of the GFDL for futher insight. There is a requirement to maintain a source on the internet (for just one year) as one of the options instead of providing a CD-ROM on printed materials, but that is optional as well. Listing contributors is a good idea, but all the GFDL requires is listing 4 or 5 authors, from whatever criteria you care to use (the GFDL is rather vague on this point). I would suggest major contributors, but you can in theory list just about anybody who did add even a single word to the text, even anonymous users with just an IP address. Linking back would be strongly suggested, but not legally required. The whole debate over opaque vs. transpararent content is another matter, but HTML is generally considered a transparent data format, so as long as you maintain the content in HTML format, you are generally safe. A PDF file is opaque for the terms of the GFDL, as a note, and invokes other sections for consideration. --Robert Horning 02:48, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Norwegian defense or government images

Please see User talk:Inge#Image copyright problem RE: Image:Leif Welding-Olsen.jpg and User talk:Inge#Norwegian Defense Web Page information. Does anyone know for certain what rules apply here? Can anyone contribute towards creating a template for images from the Norwegian defense forces and/or Norwegian government?Inge 16:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

A sugested template Template:PD-NOGov has now been created by User:Kallemax. Comments? Inge 18:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

In an e-mail The Defence Media Centre sort of gives permission to use images from mil.no as long as sources are quoted. please see http://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategoridiskusjon:Det_norske_forsvaret (if you understand Norwegian). Inge 19:06, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Sort of permission to use images if credit is given is a far cry from beeing public domain though. This seems to be the relevant section of Norwegian copyright law (Full English translation of the law here):

§ 9. Legal statutes, administrative regulations, court decisions and other decisions by public authorities are not protected by this Act. This is also the case with proposals, reports and other statements which concern the public exercise of authority, and which are made by a public authority, a publicly appointed council or committee, or published by the public authorities. Similarly, official translations of such texts are not protected by this Act.

Literary, scientific or artistic works which have not been produced specially for use in documents specified in the first paragraph, and from which parts are quoted or which are reproduced in a separate appendix, are not covered by this provision. Nor shall the first paragraph apply to poetry, musical compositions or works of art.

So my understanding (and IANAL) is that only (public) official government documents fall into the public domain in Norway, and anything else (like pictures on a webpage) are covered by copyright (unless they where explicitly made as part of an official document or statement). --Sherool (talk) 19:47, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

In an answer to a new e-mail from me asking for a clarification the Defence Media Centre states [...].Bilder fra www.mil.no kan brukes vederlagsfritt mot kreditering. De kan ikke lagres i en annen database. This translates: Pictures from mil.no may be used without compensation if credited. They may not be stored in a different database. Please see the relevant [discussion on no:] (if you understand Norwegian). Inge 11:47, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe images from mil.no are usable here, but they have to be tagged with a speshial tag like Template:NOMILpic.Inge 21:48, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Karsh photos

Yes, I know that these photos are PD in Canada but I think it is more relevant if these pictures are PD also in the US. Could a law expert please look at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Yousuf_Karsh. Thanks --Historiograf 19:55, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Interwikis

Please update Spanish interwiki to [[es:Wikipedia:Derechos de autor]]. Thanks.

• Done. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

templates

Can I use templates from here on another wiki? --pevarnj ^(t/c) 13:17, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

That's an unclear question. Are you asking whether it is technically possible to reference them from another Wiki, or whether you can copy their content or what? Wikipedia templates are under GFDL, just like the rest of Wikipedia. If your other Wiki is under a license compatible with GFDL, you can copy them. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:18, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I've copied dozens of WP templates to various Wikias, usually with the edit summary saying something like "From Wikipedia; to be acknowledged on the Talk page" (so as to avoid any problems of acknowledgment messing up the template); then on the Talk page I add wording such as "The following applies to the template: ..." (with our standard "This is copied from WP..." template).
Example at http://fisherymanagement.wikia.com/wiki/Template_talk:Taxobox_begin
Robin Patterson 08:16, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Question

Here--> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:T-90#Picture

School Pictures

I often see on school pictures that the picture is copyrighted,am I supposed to belive that they spent 30 Dollars(US) on a copyright on each student's picutre. Dudtz 1/13/06 10:09 PM EST

Copyright is automatic once something is created. You don't have to register it with the Copyright Office for it to be covered by the legislation. Sarah Ewart 03:58, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Question on audio copyrights

I've got several files I want to upload from The Nutcracker ballet, for use in that article.

Now, Tchaikovsky, a Russian, finished composing the ballet in 1892[18], making the music itself public domain by this time. However, the music I want to use comes from a 1995 performance by the National Philharmonic Orchestra, recorded to CD.

The ideal situation here would be me uploading all the files, each of them full-length, at high quality, for use in the article. However, it seems as if I cannot do that because the performing orchestra/composer holds rights to this particular performance.

Can someone experienced with this sort of situation offer clarification?

–ArmadniGeneral (talk • contribs) 20:03, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Uploading the original score of the music would be alright. If you performed the music yourself, or the performer released their performance under a suitable license, this would be alright also. However the sound recording of the NPO is their interpretation of the music and is therefore their creative work (even though it is a derivitive of a public domain work), and so they can put whatever license on it they want (and it's almost certainly sold for personal use only and not for redistribution). Perhaps you can find someone to perform it for you under a suitable license. There's lots of musicians in the world. Matt 20:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd pretty much need a full professional orchestra for a decent performance...I guess I'll try to crop the files and reduce the quality, to comply with fair-use requirements. Thanks for your help, though. –ArmadniGeneral (talk • contribs) 22:16, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

As someone decidedly unmusical but interested in copyright, I'm surprised that a performance is creative enough to justify separate copyright protection. Out of interest, do you happen to know any case names offhand? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:20, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I don't have any cites, see my comment below. Matt 05:21, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

My information came generally from Wikipedia:Fair_use#Audio_clips and Template:Music_sample. I don't remember the exact location where I read of the performers having rights to the pieces, but it was also on Wikipedia. –ArmadniGeneral (talk • contribs) 01:35, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Title 17, Section 1101 of the US Code specifically grants a copyright in a sound recording, regardless of the copyright in the underlying music being performed, to the performer(s). Section 1001 grants further rights in digital audio recordings. The laws of other countries are similar. Similar provisions have been in copyright law for a long time. DES ^(talk) 02:02, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Note also that reduced quility is neither always nessecary, nor always sufficient, to qualify a recording (or an image) for fair use. All the elements of Fair use should be addressed. DES ^(talk) 02:04, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I wonder how that would apply to someone writing a MIDI file based on notes? It's pretty much the same thing, after all. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:06, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure thst it is. a human performance contains subtle differences between any two performes, even whrn the exact same notes are hit. a Midi file that mechanically uses a standard interpretation of the notation of a piece of PD music might not fit the same logic -- but it probably does fit the same code section at the moment. Laws are often behind technology. But if there is a copyright in the recording of suvch a midifile, it quite probably would not prevent anyoen else from constructign a different recording by the same means. DES ^(talk) 02:17, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems that some people here think that an orchestra simply creates a mechanical reproduction of a piece of music. There is more than subtle differences between any two performances, creative decisions of what instruments and how many of each for each part of the music, variations in volume and tempo of the various parts, all these things and more will make the difference between a performance that is brilliant and one that is "uninspired". To the same degree that each of the 3000+ recordings of Yesterday (song) are different, so to would each performance of any classical work. So I think that the best solution is to find or create free versions of the music. I see from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky we do have some of his works available, perhaps finding out who contributed them might be useful. I did some googling, looking for some nutcracker midis that were clearly free license and found these sites [19] [20] [21] The last link doesn't have license info but provides the emails of the people who sequenced them, they might be willing to make their files free. I think that midi is not considered an acceptable format for wikipedia (though I'm not certain on this, something to do with patents). The midis should be converted to oggs. I expect you could find someone who could do this. Matt 05:21, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Separate human performances of the same piece are different, and so too are separate MIDI compilations of the same piece. Both involve exactly the same decisions, just the one requires them to be made in real-time and the other is more precise.

There are no legal problems with Wikipedia distributing even MP3 (which is patented), never mind MIDI (which is a free industry standard). It's mainly, as far as I can tell, that the Wikimedia Foundation wants to promote open alternatives to MP3 such as OGG, since theoretically you could be required to pay for an MP3 decoder and Wikimedia wants all content to be as free as possible. MIDI is fine, I would assume, since it's an open format. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:32, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I hope my above statements didn't imply that midis weren't copyrightable. Anyway, there is an interesting proposal at m:Music markup for including a method of marking up music score on wp. It seems to have died (or gone dormant), despite the fact that everyone agrees that it's a good idea, no one knows how to make it happen. Part of that page is discussing whether midi is an open format (i.e. patent free) and no one seems to know for sure. Note that wikipedia:media doesn't mention MIDI files either way, I guess it's an oversight, I'll also look at the commons and see what comments are there. Matt 03:42, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

yes, I see that they have midis there e.g. commons:Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart Matt 04:06, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

On the copyright on sound recordings, you may want to take a look at Wikipedia:Public domain#Sound recordings. It's a mess. Lupo 09:04, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

No Link

According to the page, instead of including a link, "Alternatively you can distribute your copy of "Metasyntactic variable" along with a copy of the GFDL (as explained in the text) and list at least five (or all if fewer than five) principal authors on the title page (or top of the document). The external Page History Stats tool can help you identify the principal authors." Is it really legal for them not to include only 5 authors and no link. Point I says they must perserve the history section which includes all authors (the 5 authors are only for the "Title page"). Point J of the GFDL for Modified Versions says "Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to a Transparent copy of the Document." That seems pretty clearly to be our edit page. I wish we hadn't used the GFDL. It's a respectable licnese, but totally wrong for an online encyclopedia. Superm401 | Talk 16:09, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Airphotos

Can the image Image:Chetwynd airphoto.png be used as "fair use" in the Chetwynd, British Columbia article? --maclean25 19:04, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

imo, no. In this case, I think, is that I don't think the image adds that much to the article. The article seems very well done, it might benefit from a better map, but I don't think that this black and white low resolution image improves the article all that much. Also, and probably more importantly, the article doesn't talk about the image. In an article on the British Columbia Ministry of Energy, in a section that describes their GIS database or their involvement in generating GIS data, this image might serve as an example of the material that they generate and publish. But this article is about the town and you're using the MoE image as an arial shot of the town. Finally, although it would be difficult/expensive, one could produce their own arial photo of the town to release under a free license. So it's at best an iffy fair use image that doesn't add a lot to the article, I'd suggest you drop it. Also I see you've tagged it as free use which isn't the correct tag for this image (unless the MoE did release the image for any purpose in which case fair use arguments are irrelivant). I've changed it to fair use, but if you plan to keep it, then it would be good to use the Non-free fair use in template and provide rationale.Matt 03:44, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

WP:C

Also a shortcut, pls. add it to the page.--TheDoctor10 (talk|email) 07:48, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Added. Never would have found out about it without administrator's noticeboard. ;-) — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 04:25, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Images not GFDL

This page says: Contributors' rights and obligations

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).

Wikipedia:Copyright_FAQ#Other_considerations_for_photographers says:

On Wikipedia, images licensed under incompatible but similar copyleft licenses (like {{cc-by-sa}}) are allowed, as they can be incorporated into articles at will (as the actual GFDLed text just has a pointer to the image) and the only thing that can't be done is using parts of both images to create a new image (as derivatives must be under the same license).

I think the latter is more accurate, as if you contribute an image it doesn't have to be GFDL, just appropriately copyleft. So I think the word material should be amended to text.

--pfctdayelise 02:57, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Physchim62 (talk) 16:38, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Recommend on-site link to GFDL

The page should be changed to recommend that the site host its own copy of the GFDL. I think this better reflects the GFDL's request that "that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies." I don't feel it's a reproduction if one merely links to the GNU copy, and I don't think doing it correctly should be an unreasonable hardship. Superm401 - Talk 22:26, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Copyrighted in Iran

The article currently says the following:

Althought there has been no treaty between Iran and the United States regarding copyright protection, according to Jimbo Wales, Wikipedia contributors should respect Iranian copyright law as best they can, the same as they do for other countries around the world. [22]

The trouble is, we don't respect other countries' copyrights, if the images are considered PD in the U.S. Mexico, for instance, respects the copyright on images created before 1923, so long as the author was still alive 100 years ago. So if a Mexican man took a photo in 1850, and was still alive in 1906, Mexico would consider the image copyrighted, but of course the U.S. would not. Because of this, there are scads of images used in Wikipedia and tagged {{PD-US}} (or even {{PD-old}}) that are considered copyrighted in Mexico. The same is true of other countries; nearly every country except Canada has longer copyright terms than the U.S. Shouldn't be be consistent here? Either pre-1923 images (considered PD in the U.S.) should not be used on Wikipedia if another country considers them copyrighted -- which would lead to many, many image deletions -- or we should stick to what is considered copyrighted in the U.S -- in which case Iranian works are not copyrighted.

Jimbo, in his link, brings up the fact that the German Wikipedia does not allow fair use images, while the English Wikipedia does; but I think this proves my point. The Persian Wikipedia should of course not allow works that Iran thinks are copyrighted, but I think the English Wiki should, so long as those images improve Wikipedia articles.

(This isn't just true of Iran, by the way. This is also true of Bhutan, Ethiopia, Nepal, San Marino, Yemen, Afghanistan (before 2002), Iraq (before 2004), and the Soviet Union while it existed. See Wikipedia:Copyright situations by country for more.)

I'd really welcome comments here -- this is an area I see as inconsistant, and I'd like to see it addressed if possible. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 23:26, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I strongly agree. The only meaningful thing is whether or not the content is legal for redistribution in the United States. Superm401 - Talk 01:56, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I had always assumed that Jimbo's comment was about images published post-1923. Of course U.S. law takes precedence, and I think there is a strong consensus on the English Wikipedia (less strong on the commons) that for pre-1923 images, we just go by the U.S. law and thus consider them PD. The copyright situation for post-1923 images is complicated (see WP:PD), and it gets even worse when international aspects are considered. I understood Jimbo's comment to mean "for Iranian post-1923 images, apply the rules as if Iran was a WIPO member, even though it isn't". I think this is sound advice, as it also helps minimize future problems. Of course, if you want to truly clarify this, ask Jimbo himself. Lupo 09:15, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

We could treat Iran as if she were WIPO member, even though she is not, but I'm not sure why we would want to. After all, we could treat the Soviet Union and Poland as if they had been WIPO members, but we don't: see {{PD-Poland}} and {{PD-USSR}}. In my mind, there is no difference between Image:1905 Advert in Le Rire for aberrant and deviant sex.jpg (published first in France in 1905, and considered copyrighted in France but PD in the US), and Image:Jalaseh Majles.jpg (published first in Iran in perhaps 1998, and considered copyrighted in Iran but PD in the US). In both cases, these images would restrict distribution of the English language Wikipedia in those other countries - but why would we distribute the English version in France and Iran? They would presumably rather read the French or Persian Wikipedias. So why the double-standard? I say we either respect every country's copyright -- which would be prohibitively difficult -- or we go by the U.S. copyright. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 13:32, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

For Iran, the whole thing is most likely a non-issue. According to {{PD-Iran}}, the copyright on photographs and movies expires 30 years after publication in Iran. Thus, this would only concern images published post-1976. (Well, post-1965 if we assume that anything PD in a foreign country by Jan 1, 1996 was PD in the US also because not eligible for copyright restauration under the URAA.) And the URAA means that we have to consider foreign copyright law anyway when dealing with material first published 1923 or later in countries other than the U.S. There is no double standard there, it's just that Jimbo extends reciprocal protection enjoyed by WIPO countries also to Iran (and by extension, to other non-members of WIPO). PD-Poland is about a case in Polish copyright law which makes images published prior to May 23, 1994 without copyright notice PD in Poland. Nothing to do with international treaties, so no double standard. About PD-USSR, I would have to check the talk page (no time right now). If indeed the wording is correct, one could ask Jimbo about the "double standard". Lupo 17:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo could mandate that Wikipedia treat non-WIPO countries as if they were WIPO countries, but (a) I'm not sure why this is beneficial, and (b) I don't think that's what he said. Looking at Jimbo's statement, he said "we should generally respect Iranian copyright law as best we can, the same as we do for other countries around the world". This is a tricky statement, for reasons I mentioned above. I think we can all agree on the following points:

1. It would not be illegal to show images copyrighted in Iran on the English Wikipedia, because that copyright is not enforced in any English-speaking country.
2. Wikipedia often has policies against things that are legal, so if it's Wikipedia's policy not to use images copyrighted in Iran, then we shouldn't, no matter what the law says.
3. On the English Wikipedia, we often display images that are copyrighted in their country of origin, but are considered public domain in the U.S.
4. Jimbo is right in saying "As always, we have to balance various factors in thoughtful ways. Simply saying 'Well, this is legal under US law, so let's do it' is not a very compelling argument."
5. But on the other hand, simply saying "Well, this is illegal under Iranian law, so let's not do it" is not a very compelling argument either. Pictures of women in shorts would also be questionable if that were the case.
6. There seems to be some confusion about what Jimbo meant by "we should generally respect Iranian copyright law as best we can, the same as we do for other countries around the world." See point 3. It would help if he clarified.

So I'm going to leave a message on Jimbo's talk page, and hopefully he'll comment. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 12:55, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I think Jimbo is trying to reconcile "Wikipedia does not encourage the violation of any laws" (from the general disclaimer) with the rather more complicated task of creating an online encyclopedia. We certainly use material in violation of copyright: I for one risk three years imprisonment every time I view a fair use image. My own view is that, in cases where we choose to use an image which is still under copyright in a non-US jurisdiction, we should mention the copyright on the image description page. Physchim62 (talk) 16:55, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I see that Jimbo hasn't answered yet. I wrote above that I considered it sound advice to treat Iran as if it were a WIPO member. Let me explain why. Take the image Quadell mentioned, Image:Jalaseh Majles.jpg, published ca. 1998. It is currently not copyrighted in the U.S. due to a lack of copyright treaties between Iran and the U.S. There are no bilateral treaties, and Iran is not a member of international copyright conventions. Photographs are copyrighted in Iran for 30 years after publication according to {{PD-Iran}}. Now assume that Iran joins the Berne Convention in 2010. What happens? Very simple: as the image is still copyrighted in Iran in 2010, it suddenly becomes copyrighted in the U.S., too! And Wikipedia has one more image incorretly tagged as PD... Lupo 07:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

You're right. I can't see Iran joining in a copyright treaty with the U.S. in four years, but I see your point. I'm not sure Jimbo will answer -- maybe I'll try e-mailing him. He's a busy guy. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 16:56, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

There was some related discussion here. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 17:42, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

{{PD-USSR}}

Note: This was moved to its own section by User:Quadell.

The more I read about this {{PD-USSR}}, the less I like it. It appears that it fails to mention that works published before July 28, 1954 are in the PD in Russia due to copyright expiry, see Wikipedia_talk:Image_copyright_tags/archive2#PD-USSR. (Though I'd like to see an authoritative English language reference for that.) The USSR became a member of the UCC on May 27, 1973, and Circular 38a of the U.S. Copyright Office lists no earlier bilateral copyright treaty between the U.S. and the USSR, and thus before that date Russian copyrights were not recognized in the U.S. I'm not sure the wording of the template is correct. What about works whose Russian copyright had not yet expired on May 27, 1973? It appears to me that the UCC make such works copyrighted also in other signatory states of the UCC (which includes the U.S., who adopted the UCC on September 16, 1955). Thus, only Russian works whose Russian copyright had expired before May 27, 1973 would be PD in the U.S. (not "published before that date"). Although the USSR (or Russia) was not a GATT member (and isn't a WTO member yet), the URAA still applies, as it also applies to signatory countries of the Berne Convention (see 17 USC 104a(h)(1)(A)), which Russia joined on March 13, 1995. Therefore, if a work was published in the USSR prior to May 27, 1973 and is still copyrighted there as of January 1, 1996, it its also copyrighted in the U.S. I think {{PD-USSR}} is worded incorrectly. What do others think? Lupo 09:10, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

This is way too complicated for the average Wikipedian to understand. I'll dig through it when I get a chance. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 12:41, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Lupo. The consequence of the US adherence to the Berne convention is that it must recognise the existing copyrights of other Convention states. Hence USSR copyrights are enforceable in the US (as Russia is the legal successor to the USSR), and {{PD-USSR}} is wrong. Physchim62 (talk) 17:03, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

:-) Essentially, I'm arguing that even pre-1973 Russian images can be copyrighted in the U.S. Basically, the same rules apply to the USSR and all its successor nations as for all other countries: if a foreign work was in the public domain in its coutry of origin by Jan 1, 1996, and there was no copyright in the U.S. on the work by that date, the work remains in the public domain in the U.S. That whole business about the USSR not having been a member of international copyright conventions until 1973 is largely a red herring and the tag should be abolished. Note that the U.S. (and also the UNESCO) consider the successor nations of the USSR as members of the UCC with effective date May 27, 1973 (see Circular 38a at the very end), so the demise of the USSR did and does not cause a lapse of copyright. Ukraine and Russia, the two most important successor nations, joined the Berne Convention in 1995. Lupo 17:10, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

But is Russia the legal successor to the USSR? What about Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, et cetera? – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 17:58, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Russia took on the international obligations of the USSR. Soviet law is still applicable in other former Soviet republics if it hasn't been changed since. Physchim62 (talk) 19:08, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the various successor nations of the USSR are also the legal successors in terms of copyright. See Circular 38a. Lupo 07:46, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

The following images are concerned (according to WLH):

1. Image:Lunokhod.jpg
2. Image:Leninbody.jpg
3. Image:Pudovkin1.jpg
4. Image:Ac.meretskov.jpg
5. Image:Leninbody.jpg
6. Image:Pudovkin1.jpg
7. Image:Snegurochka2.jpg
8. Image:Brezhnev OP.jpg
9. Image:Snegurochka2.jpg

Anyone care to find the applicable Soviet copyright law? Physchim62 (talk) 17:35, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Yuck. None of these have a source! Why do people think they needn't give a source when they tag something as PD? Furthermore, please note that the commons also has this tag, see e.g. Image:Lenin's body.jpg. Lupo 08:40, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Besides, there is also {{Sovietpd}}, which is identical, and there are over 600 images in Category:Pre-1973_Soviet_Union_images! (Is WLH broken?) Lupo 09:01, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, WLH is known to be broken, especially when it comes to images.... Physchim62 (talk) 20:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Lupo. We have discussed this in the German Wikipedia already. --Historiograf 20:10, 29 January 2006 (UTC) PS [23] [24] --Historiograf 20:15, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi again! We've met on the commons before. Since I rarely see you around here on the English Wikipedia, here are a few pointers: maybe WP:PD would interest you, and I'm pretty sure that you'll be interested to know that Image:Albert Einstein by Yousuf Karsh.jpg is on WP:PUI... :-) Lupo 07:46, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

We cannot trust this template, it is arguing from a UCC standpoint when the countires concerned are now Berne Convention members. The Germans seems happy with a template which gives 1954-07-28 as the cutoff point for PD on Soviet works: caution demands that we go with that date, especially as on :en: we have the benefit of fair use under certain circumstances. Physchim62 (talk) 20:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Erm—minor correction: they are not happy with Vorlage:Bild-PD-Sowjetunion at all! There are extended heated discussions on the talk page, and they have not found any real solution. They haven't come up with a citation for that 1954 date. Lupo 11:12, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Let's try a summary. Everybody appears to agree on the following:

1. The USSR joined UCC on May 27, 1973, and was not part of any international copyright treaty with the U.S. before. (Circular 38a)
2. The USSR did not apply the UCC retroactively to foreign works published in the USSR, which causes quite some grievances. (Russia and International Copyright Conventions) But this irrelevant in our context. It just means that because such works were not copyrighted in the USSR in 1973, they still aren't. Foreign works published later in the USSR are copyrighted there, too.
3. The USSR joined the Berne Convention on March 13, 1995. (Circular 38a)
4. The successor states of the USSR are also the legal successors in terms of copyright. (Circular 38a)
5. The current copyright term in Russia 50 years p.m.a. (+4 years, if the author fought in WWII, or 50 years since publication, if published posthumously or anonymous work, or 50 years since rehabilitation if the author was "repressed" and rehabilitated posthumously.) See (Article 27 of the Russian Copyright Law).
6. The copyright term in the USSR in 1973 was 25 years p.m.a. (Russia and International Copyright Conventions)

I add the following to this set of facts:

1. The UCC, Article VII ensures that all works copyrighted in a country on the date of its adherence to the UCC are copyrighted also in all other UCC members. It does explicitly not apply to works that were in the public domain on that date.

Thus, I would say that at least anything where the author died 1948 or later (1973 minus 25 years) was copyrighted when the USSR joined the UCC, and hence any such work would be copyrighted also in all other UCC members, including the U.S. Then, in 1995 Russia joined the Berne Convention (as did most other successor nations of the USSR). Again, anything not in the public domain in Russia became copyrighted elsewhere, too. Questions:

1. What did the copyright law of the USSR of 1973 say precisely?
2. What were the copyright terms in the USSR between 1973 and 1995?
3. What other copyright terms existed in the USSR before 1973?
4. When exactly did the 50y p.m.a. become active?
5. And out of interest: Where does that 1954 date come from?

Without answers to the first four questions, I think it's impossible to come up with any "safe" cutoff date post-1923 for which works from the USSR/Russia could be considered in the public domain. Lupo 11:12, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

BTW, there is also {{Iraqcopyright}} and Category:Iraq before copyright treaty with USA public domain images, luckily with only 10 images. Lupo 15:04, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Lupo it would be very helpful if you could participate on the discussions on Commons: Licensing. I admire your deep knowledge of this difficult topic. Did you read the GRUR Int. article on USSR copyright German user (and lawyer) Stechlin has commented? --Historiograf 15:24, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

If you mean the comment of de:Benutzer:Stechlin from May 5, 2005 at de:Wikipedia:Löschkandidaten/Bilder/Sowjetunion: yes I had seen that some time ago. I have re-read it now, and the whole issue has prompted me to read the whole Russian copyright law from 1993. (I had previously concentrated on the issue of copyright duration). At the very end, there is a translation of the implementation act (Einführungsgesetz) by which this law entered in force: they say "The terms of rights protection specified in Articles 27 and 43 of the aforesaid Act shall apply in all cases in which the 50-year duration of copyright or related rights did not run out by 1 January 1993." In other words, they apply the 50y p.m.a. copyright term retroactively! Not being a lawyer, I may have a simplistic view of the situation—for instance, I do not know what the earlier USSR copyright law from 1991 ("Section IV of the Fundamentals of Civil Legislation of the USSR and the Republics, adopted by the USSR Supreme Soviet on 31 May 1991") said. But to me the above statement means that any published Russian work where the author died on or after January 1, 1939 (1993-54 years to allow for veterans) was copyrighted in Russia by this act. Two years later Russia joined the Berne Convention: all published Russian works where the author died on or after January 1, 1941 (1995-54 years to allow for veterans) became copyrighted also in all other signatory countries of the Berne Convention. And by the URAA, such works, if they were still copyright protected on January 1, 1996, also are protected in the U.S.: i.e. any work whose author died on or after January 1, 1942. (1996-54=1942) Because the EU (but not the U.S.!) applies the rule of the shorter term to non-EU-members (Schutzfristenvergleich), the 54y p.m.a. also apply in the EU (and not 70y p.m.a.), and thus I believe that in the EU currently (2006) only published Russian works where the author died on or after January 1, 1952 are copyrighted. If the author died 1951 or earlier, such works appear to me to be in the public domain in the EU. I am not sure this analysis is correct. As I said, I'm not a lawyer, and I may have missed something. And finally, factor in works published posthumously and rehabilitation. It's a mess.

But regardless of all the above, I think it just reinforces the point that {{PD-USSR}} and {{Sovietpd}} are wrong. I do not feel confident enough in my own ramblings just above to say whether we can determine a post-1923 cutoff date, and much less what it should be. Lupo 21:19, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I have placed both {{PD-USSR}} and {{Sovietpd}} on TfD. Lupo 10:31, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I can not discuss in this thread (my English is not good). But I want to point:

• copyright exploration of similar problem en Russian Wikipedia. The periods are described:
  • 30.05.1925 — 01.05.1962
  • 01.05.1962 — 03.08.1992
  • 03.08.1992 — 04.08.1993
  • 04.08.1993 — 29.07.2004
  • 29.07.2004 — now.
• from 2004 en Russia is 70 p.m.a.
• Need to discuss apart copyright by organization an copyright by individual (Their rights differed in the USSR much)
• Need to discuss apart copyright for text and photo (it's also important, copyright time for photos by Soviet law of 1925 (it was active up to 1962) was only 3 years (in special case 5 years).
• En Russian Wikipedia we use 28.07.1954 date as limit for PD.

--ajvol 09:32, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much for posting these hints. Maybe that will get us further. Can you elaborate at least on that 1954 date? I'll now try reading these Russian documents, but since I don't read Russian, I'll have to Babelfish translations. I hope I can make at least some sense out of that. :-) Lupo 10:26, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Got that 1954 date, see #Link to Russian Wikisource below. However, I believe it really should be "author died before January 1, 1954", instead of "published before July 28, 1954". Lupo 10:59, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

More discussion is at Template talk:PD-USSR. Lupo 09:30, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Russian copyright law irrelevant? IIRC, the Berne Convention requires that foreign works be given the same copyright protection as domestic works. This means that even if Russia has laxer copyright laws, the U.S. (where Wikimedia is based) will still require them to be accorded the death of the author plus eighty years (or variants thereof in case of anonymous/group/etc. works). —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:54, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll correct you. :-) Before the U.S. joined the Berne convention, works were only copyrighted in the U.S. if the copyright was registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. That was changed when the U.S. joined the Berne Convention, and it was even changed retroactively for foreign works by the TRIPS agreement (the Uruguay Round Agreement Act, URAA). The URAA defined that any foreign work that was still copyrighted in its home country on January 1, 1996 would be copyrighted in the U.S., too, even if it had previously been considered not copyrighted in the U.S. (for instance, because no copyright was registered with the U.S. copyright office, or because the home country was not a memeber of international treaties relating to copyright). Thus, a work that was PD in Russia on that date did not become copyrighted again. This is why foreign laws are interesting for us. See also WP:PD. Lupo 08:53, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Interesting. And quite tiresome. So in other words, Russia joined the Berne convention on March 13, 1995, and they were not a "treaty party" according to the meaning of USC Title 17 § 104(b)(2) before then? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:04, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Right, originally the USSR (and then Russia) was not a treaty party. However, Russia joined the Berne convention, and thus Soviet works that were still copyrighted in Russia on Jan 1, 1996 retroactively became copyrighted in the U.S. again. See Template talk:PD-USSR. And anyway, as I had argued at the very beginning of this section here, the UCC, which the USSR joined on May 27, 1973, states in article VII that it applied to all works where the copyright had not expired yet, and requires, like the Berne Convention, reciprocal copyrighting between countries. Thus, I believe that under that old rule only Soviet works that were PD in the USSR before 1973 would ever have been PD in the U.S. Lupo 08:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

As a side note unrelated to this USSR business, foreign laws are also interesting for another reason. The Berne Convention has a "rule of the shorter term". It says basically "yes, foreign work are protected outside their home country, but at most until their copyright in the home country expires". Unfortunately for us, this rule is optional, and not all signatory countries of the Berne Convention follow it. The U.S. does not, but the European Union (for non-EU works) and Japan do. As a result, works now in the public domain e.g. in Russia are in the public domain in the EU or in Japan. (That point is interesting for re-users of Wikipedia content based in Japan or in the EU, e.g. the UK, and of course also for our commons.) Lupo 08:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Mexican government

I don't speak Spanish and so can't tell what this page says. It relates to the translation of Sierra La Laguna Nature Reserve that I have listed as a copyright violation for being a straight translation. Rmhermen 14:32, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

No, that is not a copyright license which is acceptable for Wikipedia: it merely states that the Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas (a Mexican public body) must by law provide certain information to the public.

(interpretation, not from the text) Copyright in the material rests with the CNANP unless it is specifically waived or licensed. Physchim62 (talk) 17:09, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

1903 text still copyrighted?

How can this be explained? The original text is from 1903, and it was digitized as a plain html text (as well as a pdf and probably other variants) by a Polish university project. The page clearly states (in Polish) that original text is unchanged and there are no addition. Does process of digitalization bestows some form of copyright on the digitalizating party? If the material is in PD, then we could use it on Polish wiki or translate into en Wiki.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 06:36, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Under United States copyright law, it's public-domain. Digitization confers no copyright. I don't know about Polish law, however, so you might want to be careful about using it on the Polish wiki. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 07:12, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Re-write

I'm attempting a re-write of the Copyrights page to be better organized and more user-friendly. My draft is here. Feel free to comment at the talk page. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 18:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Song lyrics

I have hidden the lyrics to One-Winged Angel (edit it to see the lyrics). It is a composition of various lyrics from Carmina Burana, a work beyond copyright law. My question is whether the lyrics can be used, or is it copyrighted, regardless of the copy-and-paste job? ' ^{(Feeling chatty? ) (Edits!)} 01:11, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Since the lyrics were written well before 1923, they are in the public doman. They are not copyrighted, and can be used. However Wikisource may be the most appropriate place to put them. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 03:24, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Split

Why did this article suddenly schism into three articles? Yes, be bold, but that's a bit excessive. There wasn't even a template for discussion. Stevage 19:34, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure you aren't confusing this policy with that draft version of a rewrite? Otherwise, I just don't understand what you're talking about. Lupo 20:04, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Copyright violations and Wikipedia:Reusing Wikipedia material (and of course this article itself). Was there any discussion of this anywhere? Stevage 21:31, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

There is now - what do you think? – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 21:51, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the reusing Wikipedia material is justified, as it's not really a copyright issue. I think the other two should be remerged - copyright violations is very clearly a subtopic of copyright. Stevage 22:35, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Can I use this copyright template?

I made this template. Am I allowed to upload images with it under Wikipedia terms of service or whatever, or is uploading images under it against wikipedia rules? I'm sure if i read the GFDL it would answer my question, but i'm hoping someone who already has read it will answer my question so i don't have to go through that drudgery. {{BobburitoImages}} Bobburito 02:53, 10 February 2006 (UTC) (Please reply to [25] as well as here or on my user talk page, as I don't know whether i'll remember to check back here again)

I'm sorry, but this license is not compatable with the GFDL. Since Wikipedia wants to only use material under the GFDL, any images uploaded and tagged this way will have to be deleted. Sorry. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 13:02, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I figured as much. Bobburito 20:52, 10 February 2006 (UTC)]]

One more thing: What is the difference between putting "CopyrightedFreeUse" on an image I took and "GFDL-Self" on image? Must I do either, or may I choose? Which is better? Bobburito 20:52, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you can choose. GFDL-Self means that anyone can use the image, so long as what they make with the image is also released under the GFDL. So for instance, I could use your image to illustrate a book I wrote, and I don't have to get your permission. . . but I would have to also release the book under the GFDL, meaning anyone could copy the book without getting my permission. In short, the GFDL says "You can use my image freely, so long as you're making something free with it."

CopyrightedFreeUse, on the other hand, means that anyone can do anything with the image. I could use your picture in my book and not let people copy my book. It basically says "You can use my image freely, even if you're making something unfree with it."

GFDL is the default, and it's what I recommend. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 21:11, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Once again, thank you very much for your copyright wisdom. Bobburito 21:20, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Link to Russian Wikisource

Just a minor thing - being a lowly non-admin I am unable to change the page myself.

On the main page (Wikipedia:Copyrights), under "Russian - copyright exemptions", there is a link to en.wikisource.org/wiki/Закон об авторском праве и смежных правах - this page does not exist. ru.wikisource.org/wiki/Закон об авторском праве и смежных правах does, however, if only as a redirect. This may not be the most appropriate page to link to (being in Russian, not English) - there may be a translation of this law elsewhere on the web. I didn't take the time to read the whole of the PD-USSR discussion above, but perhaps one of the links in there would work best. Darobsta 09:24, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I've made the change you suggested. Thanks. Superm401 - Talk 20:30, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Isn't that the original Russian of the Russian copyright law from 1993? Actually, I'd be far more interested in the other law/decree from 2004 linked at that Russian page. Anyone have that, either in Russian or (preferrably) in English? Lupo 09:37, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Self-correction: It's the 1993 law with the 2004 changes incorporated. Lupo 10:54, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

In fact, I found it in Russian here. Lupo 09:49, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

It's basically the Russian equivalent of the U.S. CTEA. It extends the copyright term in Russia from 50 years p.m.a. to 70 years p.m.a. (or for corporate authorship: 70 years since publication or, if unpublished 70 years since creation) of a work. This extension applies only to works not yet in the public domain when that decree was published on July 28, 2004. However, that doesn't give us July 28, 1954: §27(6) of the Russian copyright law of 1993, which is untouched by that decree, states that copyrights expire at the end of the year. Thus works whose author died between January 1, 1954 and July 27, 1954 were still copyrighted on July 28, 2004 (under the 1993 law, their copyright would have expired on December 31, 2004), and thus are subject to this copyright extension. Therefore, the correct date would be January 1, 1954. A correct phrasing of {{PD-USSR}} would thus state that works of authors who died before January 1, 1954 would be in the public domain in Russia. Whether they would be in the public domain in other successor states of the USSR, I do not know. There may also be other cases that make certain works in the public domain; see Ajvol's post above: it appears one needs to consider quite a few cases and even historical changes of law. Lupo 10:43, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

For more, see Template talk:PD-USSR. Lupo 09:31, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Canadian PD and Crown copyright stuff

The user who uploaded this picture asked me if the current tagging was ok (after I alerted him about it's previous missing tagging), and frankly I don't know. The image in question is Image:Canmilhist.jpg wich is a crop of a Canadian propaganda poster from WWII. He tagged it as {{PD-Canada}}, wich at first glance looks ok, but then I read the tag again and I'm wondering it it applies. First of all it's not a photograph, secondly the tag says that it only apply to stuff that is not subject to [Canadian] Crown copyright. As I understand it Crown copyright is used for work of the government, wich I would asume a propaganda poster would be. So, can {{PD-Canada}} be applied to WWII propaganda meterial, or are such posters still protected by Canadian Crown copyright meaning we would have to invole fair use to use it? --Sherool (talk) 01:33, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Canadian Crown copyright expires 50 years after the first publication of a work, so the poster is clearly in the public domain in Canada. The interesting question is whether it would also be in the public domain elsewhere. I think that any Canadian work where the Canadian Crown copyright expired before January 1, 1996 is also in the public domain in the U.S. (See WP:PD for an explanation of that date.) Thus any work subject to Canadian Crown copyright published prior to January 1, 1946 can be considered in the public domain in the U.S. The European Union applies the "rule of the shorter term" to foreign works (again, see WP:PD), so any Canadian work subject to Canadian Crown copyright published more than 50 years ago (currently, that means published prior to January 1, 1956) would be in the public domain in the EU. Likewise for Japan, which also applies that rule of the shorter term. I don't know the situation in Australia or NZ. Maybe we should have a new tag "PD-CanadaGov" for such works, or you could tag it as {{PD-because}} and give the reasons I outlined here. Lupo 07:53, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Aah, the intricacies of international copyright laws. Kinda silly how something that be considered public domain by the host country but not nessesarily elsewhere... Maybe {{CopyrightedFreeUse}} would apply, but I guess that's not a given either. Anyway thanks for the help, I sobbled togeter a PD-because tag for the image in question for now. Would be nice if anyone could check it (Image:Canmilhist.jpg) to make sure I got it right. --Sherool (talk) 10:50, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Surely the Canadian government is effectively stating that it allows free use of the image by declaring it free of copyright within its own laws. Technically that might not stop it from suing under U.S. law, but at this point I think it's safe to assume the image is free and avoid copyright paranoia. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:26, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I did some minor rephrasing, but I notice that this image does not have a source. "From warmuseum site" is not good enough. The URL should be given as the immediate source, and if they state where they got it from, also mention it. Maybe they even give a year for the poster. Lupo 15:57, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

If the publisher (Canada) thinks it's in the public domain, then it's PD everywhere, no matter about "international copyright". It's basically the same as if officers of the government were to go around and add {{PD-self}} tags to all 50-year+ images - who has standing to tell them they can't do that? Stan 22:36, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Stan, that is wrong. If the Canadian government told us that they consider Canadian Crown copyright expiry to apply world-wide (as the UK did), then the above might be all right. Such a statement would be the same as "officers of the government were to go around and add {{PD-self}} tags". But absent any such statement from the Canadian government, even governmental works can remain copyrighted outside their country of origin even if their local copyright has expired. Please read WP:PD. Lupo 08:51, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I posted the image in question, the poster is off http://www.civilization.ca/cwm/propaganda/collection_e.html (then search for wartime recruting posters, the search seems to be down at this time...). Mike McGregor (Can) 23:38, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

• I was looking for the actual poster and i found this. http://collections.civilization.ca/collections/other/pere.html so the discussion may be moot?Mike McGregor (Can) 23:45, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
  • No, it's not moot. Museums all the time claim copyright, even on items that are in reality in the public domain, even though they cannot copyright PD works. And Bridgeman v. Corel makes also 2D reproductions of public domain 2D originals be in the public domain in the U.S. (Other countries may or may not have similar "reproduction" provisions.) It's your call, though: if you don't feel comfortable with ignoring their copyright claim, or if you don't feel sure enough with the reasons given here for its actually being in the public domain, you could try getting it deleted. (And if that failed, wash your hands of it.) Personally, if I had uploaded it, I would be fine with it. Lupo 13:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

page protection

I've changed the page to semi-protected status. Sure, it contains legal information, but Wikipedia:Copyrights is just like any other (unprotected) policy pages. However, I did add an HTML comment stating that the actual texts of licenses should not be changed. I do believe that pages like Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License should remain fully protected, though. --Ixfd64 11:25, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Note: If another administrator disagrees with this action, they may restore the full protection.

Understanding

I wish to use a Wikipedia article on my website. I'm sorry, but I really don't understand the article at all. Could we have a simpler version or something because I don't understand exactly what I have to do to put the article on my site. Please help. This unsigned comment is by Bouncing Rat.

You can put an article from Wikipedia on your own site whenever you want. An example of people doing this is Answer.com, which often uses Wikipedia articles to form it's results. If you look at Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License (all Wikipedia articles are released under the GNU license), you will see under the first section that: "to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially". You should however put a notice on your site explaining where the content has come from. Hope that helps. The Neokid - Wikihalo Guiding Director talk 18:40, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Besides attributing the authors, the GFDL also requires that you make the text of the GFDL available together with the article you want to put on your website. Attributing the authors is done simplest by stating (with a link to the live Wikipedia-version of the article) where the article came from. Lupo 19:25, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, thankyou, so much, that simplifies things so much for me! - Bouncing Rat. Also, do you know if I can use the pictures? - Bouncing Rat.

Depends. What article are you talking about? Where in the world are you located? "Fair use" may or may not apply in the country where you are, and beware of mis-tagged images. What is PD in the U.S. may not be PD somewhere else. Check the licenses of the images to figure out how to use them. In no case attempt to serve them directly from our upload server: that's commonly called "bandwidth theft", and your site will just be denied access to our upload server as a consequence. Care to also give the URL of the web page where you put your copy of the article up? Lupo 11:04, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Reusing Wikipedia material. Lupo 11:08, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I live in the UK and my website is http://pureblood.bravehost.com[26]

All right. And which article? BTW, you can sign your messages to talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); the software will replace that by your name Bouncing Rat and a timestamp. Lupo 11:52, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Several articles. Anything related to Harry Potter really, especially the character pages like 'Harry Potter (character)'. Bouncing Rat 15:25, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

In that case, I can't help you further. I've just looked through the images in Harry Potter (character): they're all copyrighted publicity photographs, screen captures, or movie stills and are being used on Wikipedia under the provisions of U.S. fair use. I do not know whether you could use them on your personal web site under the UK fair dealing provisions. I also note that Image:Nimbus2000.jpg doesn't have a source and thus technically isn't even a correct fair use on Wikipedia itself! If you should decide to use images, make sure they are available off your server, and that they are clearly described on your server: where they come from originally, and what their copyright/licensing status is. Lupo 08:19, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Reusing Wikipedia material

If an article is on the same place it's no problem to put a link on the Wikipedia or the history containing the names of the authors. But what if the article is redirected or deleted? If one will continue using the article according to the GFDL - will Wikipedia's admins provide him the names of the contributors he needs or should we write a warning for this case in our policy? --Historiograf 23:57, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Good question. I don't think redirects are a problem as the history is still there. Deleted articles, on the other hand... I just don't know. How frequent is this case? Admins providing the list of authors upon request is certainly one solution, or maybe the history of deleted articles could be made accessible again for everyone (just the history, minus edit comments and without links to the deleted versions: only edit times and authors). Lupo 13:24, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I have no precedence, I concede that it's - for now! - a more theoretical question. Thanks for the quick answer the Germans haven't answered yet ( I think they suppose that I should know the answer myself ...) --Historiograf 17:48, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

May I add something offtopic: Please sign the petition for PUBLIC GEODATA http://petition.publicgeodata.org/ --Historiograf 23:32, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to remove disclaimers from Template:GFDL

Please see my proposal and rationale for creating a new version of the {{GFDL}} image template that does not include the troublesome "Subject to disclaimers" line. Dragons flight 18:35, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Time Magazine

This following section, including the title, was moved from the policy page by Lupo 13:01, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Permission received from TIME MAGAZINE: cover & texts

We asked Time Magazine if it was okay for Wiki to use the cover photos. Here's the answer:

• Subject: RE: AskArchivist Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 10:51:30 -0500 From: Bonnie_Kroll at timeinc.com Thanks for submitting your question to Ask the Archivist. Fair use doctrine allows you to use a reasonable text excerpt with a link back to the entire article at time.com. You may also use a thumbnail of our cover images, as long as you link back to a page on time.com. Best regards, Bonnie Kroll Ask the Archivist http://www.timearchives.com Rjensen 12:45, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

End of copied section. Lupo

That just means that you can use them under the fair use doctrine where such fair use applies. You don't even need to ask them for that. Lupo 13:01, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Is the link to the magazine even legally required? I don't think so, but I'd like to get another opinion on this matter. --Robert Horning 02:34, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Of course it isn't. Just proper attribution is required. However, Wikipedia has the policy that every image must have a source, and therefore any image taken from elsewhere on the web should have the URL where it was taken from. Lupo 07:42, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

How many words = fair use? guidelines

from: Chronicle of Higher Education 2-23-2006 [27]

"A fact sheet on fair use published by the U.S. Copyright Office does not say that fair use is limited to a set number of words. It says fair use of a work is permitted for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair-use guidelines published by the office... say that 1,000 words or 10 percent of a work of prose, whichever is less, can be republished. But at least two publishers, Blackwell Publishing and Elsevier, advise authors and editors seeking to make fair use of a book to republish no more than 400 words." Rjensen 22:57, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you should ask at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fair use. Here's my answer: there is no hard and fast limit beyond which a certain use no longer is fair. Maybe a good rule of thumb for text quotations (just about the only case where text fair use can occur on Wikipedia—remember that our text is licensed under the GFDL) is that they must not outweigh our own text in any article. In other words: minimize the use of quotations. And of course, any quotation must be properly attributed (author, publication, date, if possible link). Lupo 07:49, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Those 10%-is-ok guidelines came from Copyright office publication: [28] page 8. Publishers and educators came up with safe harbor guidelines, that have been very widely accepted by publishers and educators: "Publishers and the academic community have established a set of educational fair use guidelines to provide "greater certainty and protection " for teachers. While the guidelines are not part of the federal Copyright Act, they are recognized by the Copyright Office and by judges as minimum standards for fair use in education. A teacher or pupil following the guidelines can feel comfortable that a use falling within these guidelines is a permissible fair use and not an infringement. Many judges look to these guidelines when making related fair use determinations. The educational use guidelines can be found in Circular 21, provided by the Copyright Office (lcWeb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ21.pdf )" from [29] Rjensen 10:50, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

As made clear by the Stanford discussion you cite, Wikipedia is not in fact an educational use within the meaning of Circular 21. Those guidelines are limited to fair use in the context of research or a specific course of instruction, and would not generally apply to the construction of an encyclopedia with open ended goals. However much of the discussion is relevant, and so does point at the appropriate factors to consider. Dragons flight 12:50, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Those guidelines were indeed designed for schools--and of course are pre-internet. But they show what publishers are willing to agree is "fair use." Wiki qualifies as an educational institution: specifically the Internal Revenue Service has granted it 501c3 status as "B60—Adult, Continuing Education" --we are a "non-profit organization with the goal of providing free knowledge to every person in the world." Rjensen 13:25, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

There is a key difference however, an educational service in the context of Circ 21 will generally be limited to a particular institution and so have only a limited opportunity to compete in the same marketplace as the original work. By contrast, because Wikipedia is free and global, there will be instances where Wikipedia can effectively replace the original work across much of the marketplace. Regardless of other factors, if the material being copied can result in significant economic losses to the original, then the use will almost never qualify as fair. This won't be a problem with all (or even most) fair use claims, but at the same time we shouldn't mistake our non-profit status as blanket protection for copying chunks of materials irregardless of the consequences to the original publisher. Dragons flight 13:32, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree--I think it would be wrong of Wiki to significantly reduce the market value of a book or publication by putting its saleable parts online. I have never anything come remotely close on Wiki. Rjensen 13:51, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Stick around long enough and you will. I have modified or deleted a couple dozen pages for this reason. For example, The 100 used to reproduce the author's entire list of the top 100 figures in history, which is of course a significant part of the reason that one buys the book, even if it is a relatively small portion of the text. Dragons flight 14:00, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest that any Wikipedia article quoting even as little as 400 words from a single source was seriously flawed and out to be rewritten. Rmhermen 21:40, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Mexican copyrights

Someone may want to include a section on the most recent situation regarding Mexican copyright law:

• Prior to July 23, 2003, all works published had copyright protection of life of author + 75 years. In case of multiple authorship, the 75 years begin with the death of the last surviving author. Works published by any branch of the Mexican government had copyright protection of 75 years from the date of publication.
• All works published after July 23, 2003, have copyright protection of life of author + 100 years. The same provision for multiple authorship remains. Works published by any branch of the Mexican government had copyright protection of 100 years from the date of publication.

See relevant articles, 29 and 46, of the "Ley Federal de los Derechos de Autor". I have also received legal advise from the government institute in charge of the copyright business (basically re-stating what I wrote above). It's available upon request to whomever wants to see it, however it's in Spanish.

Hopefully this should clear any misunderstandings I've seen around, especially regarding works by the Mexican government. These are not in the public domain unless explicitly stated (as is currently the case with some images released by the Office of the President through a specific website). I'll post this info in the relevant project pages as well. Regards. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 22:16, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

please remove equivocal statement

Therefore, it is perfectly legal to read an encyclopedia article or other work, reformulate it in your own words, and submit it to Wikipedia

The above quoted sentence should be deleted. It is at best misleading, and at worse amounting to sheer incitement to plagiarism. Teofilo talk 22:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

why is the editprotected template here? And the line following the one you quoted is "(See plagiarism and fair use for discussions of how much reformulation is necessary in a general context.)" I don't see a problem. Rmhermen 22:57, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

11:21, 15 February 2006 Ixfd64 protected Wikipedia:Copyrights (has important legal info, yes, but this is just like any other policy page [edit=autoconfirmed:move=autoconfirmed])protection log (probably I had forgotten to log in) (template:editprotected removed)

Fair use allows direct quoting, albeit in small quantity. Apart from the quantity allowed through fair use, no amount of reformulation is allowed. So reformulation is never needed, where allowed. Let's change the second sentence into (See plagiarism and fair use) only, and delete for discussions of how much reformulation is necessary in a general context which is also misleading. Teofilo talk 06:33, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

As I see the page is semi-protected only, not fully protected, I will perform the changes I request. Teofilo talk 06:47, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Teofilo, I am having difficulty understanding your argument from the limited discussion here, but your conclusion appears to be incorrect. Copyright (as applied in the US) extends only to the expression of ideas, not to the concepts themselves. If I read your work and re-express all the same concepts and facts without using any of the same writing, then I have not violated your copyright. From the point of view of copyright law, I would have created an independent work with a new copyright. This is a seperate issue from fair use, which governs the direct incorporation of your writing into my own. While it is not illegal to reformulate your ideas and express them as my own, it is still unethical to do so without referencing your original work, hence plagarism but not copyright infringment. I have restored the section, but added a sentence noting that the original should always be referenced when works are reformulated. Dragons flight 11:30, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Many students do not realise that paraphrased material should be attributed to the original author in the same manner as a direct quotation. (quoted from plagiarism) means that paraphrased material taken from a copyrighted work is a copyright infringement when it is published. Of course many student works are not published and therefore never constitute a breach of copyrights severe enough to be worth suing for. Teofilo talk 15:37, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Teofilo forgets that facts are free. --Historiograf 18:17, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Many facts are protected for 15 years through Database rights in the European Union. Teofilo talk 15:37, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

And in the United States, the United States Copyright Act protects compilations of data whose "selection and arrangement" is sufficiently original. See 17 U.S.C. § 101 ("compilation" as defined by the United States Copyright Act includes compilations of data). The standard for such originality is fairly low; for example, business listings have been found to meet this standard when deciding which companies should be listed and categorizing those companies required some kind of expert judgement. quoted from Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service. Facts are free in the USA, but selection of facts is not. Teofilo talk 15:55, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

India Right to Information Act

I was clearing out Category:Images with unknown copyright status as of 16 February 2006 when I came across Image:Indian Soldier in Lanka.jpg. The uploader (User:IndianCow) states, "This image is under public domain. It finds its source from one of the websites managed by the departments of Government of India. The image can be used from the recently enacted Right to Information Act." I read that article, which really appears to be an FAQ copied-and-pasted from somewhere, and I'm not exactly sure if this essentially means that all products of the Indian government are now public domain or not. Anyway, I'd appreciate some input on this. Thanks. howcheng {chat} 01:07, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

)

I have the strong impression that any "public domain" claim under the U.S. FOIA or, as here, similar acts in other countries, is a big red herring. These acts give citizens the right to access governmental records, but they do not give the right to republish said records, and they certainly do not imply that any copyright that might exist on the records were waived. I do not think that documents (including images) obtained under these acts are public domain. (Maybe with the exception records obtained under FOIA from the U.S. federal government, as these, as U.S. federal government works, are not copyrighted. But most other governments, including U.S. state governments, can and do copyright their works.) Lupo 07:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. That's what I figured. It never mentions anything about releasing content into the public domain. howcheng {chat} 19:35, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Plagiarism

Sorry, I don't know where to post the links, world-foot.com is using your content [30] [31] No link to wikipedia, no GFDL notice. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.248.190.101 (talk • contribs) .

All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 130.79.155.36 (talk • contribs) .

Paper copies

I am considering printing paper copies of some Wikipedia articles. I have been reading for hours trying to work out what is involved in complying with the GFDL but it still isn't clear to me. I am planning to include a text at the start saying "these articles come from wikipedia and are licensed under the GFDL..." and will include a copy of the GFDL at the back. I will also provide links to the original articles at wikipedia.org Is that enough? Do I need to name the authors of each article? If so how do I get the list of authors? I have used the wikipedia export feature to get the article text. Is there a similar machanisim to get the authors or do I have to used screen scraping on the history page- I can't believe this is the case but I haven't found an alternative. I have also seen a mention of citing Wikipedia as the author. Is that sufficient? Thanks -User:ThomasRynne

Does Wikipedia:Reusing Wikipedia material help? Note that citing a wikipedia article is not quite the same as attributing authors when you distribute a copy under the GFDL. Lupo 09:46, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes it does help a little but I still do not know what to do about crediting the authors of an article. I get the feeling I have to choose an interpretation of the GFDL and hope I don't get into trouble if one of the authors goes after me. --ThomasRynne

I don't know. I've just skimmed through the text of the GFDL, and unless I'm mistaken, it requires listing the five principal authors only if you distribute a modified version (together with the authors responsible for the modification). But you seem to want to publish verbatim copies, so sections 2 and 3 are applicable, but not section 4. Maybe Wikipedia:Verbatim copying could help, and if not, I suggest you send an e-mail to User:Jimbo Wales, he should know or forward it to someone who knows. Once you know what to do, it would be great if you explained it here or clarified the relevant Wiki pages. Lupo 08:14, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I cannot believe that it is possible not to mention all authors when verbatim copying. Please note that we do not use the Addendum template thus I think our version history are the copyright notices who nobody may eliminate --Historiograf 03:53, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Request you take a look at Procrastination

Somebody cut and pasted 2 lists (that make up the core of the article) from other websites. I read the page on fair use, but couldn't find anything specific on including lists or chunks of text from copyrighted sources. Therefore, would somebody who is knowledgeabe about copyrights please tak a look at this article? Thank you. --Go for it! 14:55, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not really acceptable to just paste lists, even if you link back. Arguably the "overcoming procrastination" thing may have been minor enough to be okay, at least if reworded, but then again maybe not. Better for contributors to write their own stuff. I've removed the sections. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 19:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Photographs of artwork in the UK

I want to use a photograph of a painting that was made before 1923 on Wikipedia. The painting was created in 1579 and is on the UK's National Portrait Gallery website [32]. I understand that in the US, photographs of 2-d artwork contain no creative content so can be used in Wikipedia as long as the original painting predates 1923. But is this the case in the UK? The UK's National Gallery (not Portrait Gallery) is listed on Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources#Visual_arts as a site in which "All other copyright notices can safely be ignored". Thanks Andeggs 22:32, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

This is treated as the same application of the Bridgeman decision. So yes, it is ok. Rmhermen 23:47, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Or, to clarify: Wikimedia is based in the US and doesn't really care what UK law is. The Bridgeman v. Corel decision did suggest that the law would probably be the same in the UK, though. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:36, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Can these be used in the Wikipedia: namespace?

I'd like to make use of some of the following icons for a menu on a page in the Wikipedia namespace, but I need to track down information on the legalities of doing so before I proceed. What do you know of the licenses, copyrights, and trademark rights to these icons?

96 - a link is included on this page to a crude translation of the author's permission. Though it's hard to tell, because the translation is pretty rough.

Image:Finder icon.png Image:Pages icon.png Image:Apple Dictionary Icon.png Image:ICal Icon.png Image:IPhoto Icon.png Image:Apple iDisk Icon.png Image:ISync icon.png

Though it appears that these icons are from a trademarked program. So I'm still not sure if they can be displayed as menu items for a page. Any help you could provide in tracking down the information clarifying to what uses we can legally put these icons to would be most appreciated. --Go for it! 13:31, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

The icons appear to be copyrighted, if I'm not mistaken. As such, you will need permission from Apple to freely use, modify, and sell them if you want to use them for anything more than fair use (which would not include using them as icons for menus). The trademark issues aren't relevant provided you make it clear that Wikipedia is not affiliated with Apple or its products. But as for the copyright, until someone provides definitive evidence that they're GFDL-compatible, they're presumptively unusable. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 23:34, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, slight correction: if I'm reading the LGPL correctly, the first icon (Image:Crystal Clear app mac.png) is acceptable for free use. Don't take my word for that, however. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 23:41, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

My attempt to write a "easy" copyright primer

After trying to explain basic copyright stuff to a number of users and tagging thousands of mistaged images I was inspired to write this. Basicaly I would like it to be a non-intimidating bare bones, easy to read primer to copyright issues that sum up all the relevant stuff without getting too "heavy". Some help mercilesly fine tuning it would be greatly apreciated. Hopefully we can make it good enough to be worth linking to from the upload page or as part of the welcome template or something like that. --Sherool (talk) 16:42, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Image:1st-eeg.gif

I've added source information for this image, tracked down from the original paper. THe paper was published in 1929 in a German academic psychiatry journal, and this image is a segment from one of the figures from that paper. Now, this is just a line drawing of a segment of an image... so I'm not sure the copyright restrictions. The tag used is for author dead 70+ years, but the authore died in 1941 according to his wikipedia article. Anyone have any insight into this matter? Semiconscious • talk 06:31, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

This is debatable, but I would tag this {{PD-ineligible}}. After all, it's not creative content; it was made by a machine, not as art. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 12:14, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, it's almost certainly {{PD-ineligible}}. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 06:29, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

History of Saxony

I'm not sure with this one but it seems to be almost a verbatum copy off the catholic encyclopedia posted at [[33]]. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia article that site was created using the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia (which is no longer copyright protected) but I believe this site's content would be. I have not yet tagged the article for speedy deletion (it was created last night) as I'm not sure as to whether it really does violate copyrights. --Mmounties (Talk) 13:08, 22 March 2006 (UTC) ":no it is not copyrighted. No new intellectual work. Rmhermen 14:01, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Radical Change in Fair Use

BBC News Link to Story

Now, while this may not even be passed in Connecticut and may never be passed in Florida where the Wikipedia servers are located, am I correct in assuming that a similar law in Florida would prohibit all fair use images of living or recently deceased persons used in articles on Wikipedia? That would be... a problem. —Cuiviénen, Sunday, 26 March 2006 @ 02:47 (UTC)

It depends on the exact provisions of the law. I suspect that critical review and commentary would apply on a constitutional basis under freedom of speech, at least under certain circumstances, but I'm not sure whether Wikipedia wants to be on the cutting edge of case law here. If this passes, we'll have to ask the Wikimedia legal team. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:02, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

STOP permanently confusing copyright and other issues. This isn't a copyright fair use issue. Users of our photographs have already to respect other rights (right on the won picture etc.) --Historiograf 19:24, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Our Gang

Could someone who knows about this copyright stuff comment on Talk:Our Gang#Copyright as it's starting to escalate. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 10:43, 31 March 2006 (UTC)