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Please correct introductory note

The introductory note says: "Permission to reproduce content under the copyright license and technical conditions which apply to Wikipedia's content (see below and Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks) has already been granted to anyone anywhere without limitation [...]". I suggest to drop the part "without limitation" it is misleading or wrong, since the licenses impose limitations on the use. --G.Hagedorn (talk) 08:14, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Good point. While looking, I also noticed that this is misleading: "The only exceptions are those cases in which editors have violated Wikipedia policy by uploading copyrighted material without authorization, or with copyright licensing terms which are incompatible with those Wikipedia authors have applied to the rest of Wikipedia content." Wikipedia cannot grant permission for material used under fair use, but these are not copyright policy violations and they won't (as implied by the next sentence) be removed. Anybody have any thoughts on how to clarify that? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:10, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Copyright status: historical marker text

Hi. Feedback needed on the usability of text on historical markers for states in the US (as opposed to federal government). The question is raised at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2009 May 17, which see for more background, including links to a few other discussions.

It is my belief that this text is copyrighted except in those states that release government work into public domain or in those cases where it can be verified that copyright has lapsed (since we cannot presume). I would think we could make an easy fair use claim in an article about a specific landmark. I think we run into a problem, though, when we're compiling them into lists, as at List of New York State Historic Markers in Cortland County, New York (the article in question), New Hampshire Historical Markers (with its transcribed lists) and List of historical highway markers in Hampshire County, West Virginia (brought up for comparison at CP). In aggregate, use is less transformative.

Since this affects quite a few articles, I wanted to request feedback. Please weigh in. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:40, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I see there is additional conversation on this, including whether copyright has lapsed per failure to follow proper formalities, at Talk:List of New York State Historic Markers in Cortland County, New York. Contributors may wish to review that. I've pointed to this thread at that article's talk page, since more than that article may be impacted. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:58, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
The text is eligible for copyright, and is produced by an entity capable of holding copyright. If the text was first published before 1989, however, and was first published without a © notice, then it could be in the public domain due to failure to comply with formalities. (I don't know how to tell when historical markers were erected, other than to ask the state government.) – Quadell (talk) 14:35, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
For the record, in one of the linked discussions, i previously suggested that New York State's compilation and presentation of the plaque texts in a database/website recently could itself be copyrighted. But i did some reading about copyright law myself since then and was concluding that the compilation appears to be essentially non-creative, and would not itself be copyrightable. Moonriddengirl made that point already, that "if the material was public domain, the state of New York could not impose new copyright restrictions by posting them on their websites. In a derivative work, only the new creative elements can be protected." Anyhow i agree with that.
Also, i understand that Inoysterbay is taking steps towards getting New York State to give up any copyright claim or otherwise release using OTRS system, which would resolve the issue for these New York State ones. The issue is broader though: there are many U.S. state and local and also English "Blue medallion" program and other historic plaques that historic sites people would like to photograph and include in articles.
By the way, i looked through indexes of several copyright law books and series for any instances of "plaque" or anything like that, and find no mention. I did find legal advice that if a document or an original architectural plan is displayed at a museum or library, that does not constitute publishing it. For publication to occur, usually copies have to be made available for sale or otherwise give out to the public. It seems to me that the historic markers might be viewed as being museum-like displays, so possibly their texts are not technically published.
Moonriddengirl also stated that "Automatic copyright protection was not bestowed on works by the United States until the Copyright Act of 1976, as a result of which many artifacts published before 1977 without copyright notice are public domain. However, I don't know that we can presume that the markers were the initial point of publication for this text, which could very conceivably have been previously published with proper formalities. We can't presume that copyright was not renewed, but would have to show reasonable indication that it was not." That's interesting: the plaque texts might have been published previously, with formalities observed, meaning that pre-1976 plaques which do not themselves include copyright notices might nonetheless be copyrighted.
On the other hand, I think the obvious intent of many of these plaque programs was to push out information to educate the public, and the intent of the programs was not to preserve copyrights. So, asking state and local programs to be clear that they do relinquish all claims to copyright for the material, will often be acceptable to them. It will often be compatible with the goals of the history and archives departments that run these programs, to agree to OTRS-type releases. doncram (talk) 03:12, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I know that wikipedia is on US servers & therefore US copyright laws apply but what about historical markers in other countries (eg Blue plaque & the articles listed at List of blue plaques and other UK/European systems), which may have different systems to the US. I know that 2 D information boards should not be included - but does the fact that text/graphics may be embossed/raised make it 3D and bring it into line with public art such as sculptures which, I believe, can be photographed and then the images used?— Rod talk 12:42, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I am not a lawyer, and I don't know about UK vs. US. But offhand i don't think that embossing/raising the text changes whether the words of the text are copyrighted. I think you would agree that a raised text plaque which includes an explicit copyright statement (also raised) would be copyrighted. And, maybe raising the text also makes it an object of art, bringing more copyright into play. A photograph of such a plaque could itself be a copyrighted image of a copyrighted art embodying copyrighted text. To use the photograph in wikipedia you could conceivably need to get three parties' permissions. doncram (talk) 20:57, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
In England, government works are under Crown copyright, and signs (unless ineligible due to merely being a simple shape or letter) would be under Crown copyright for that reason. There's no requirement for a © notice in any other country that I know of. In most of the world, copyright lasts for at least 50 years after the death of the creator (usually 70 years), this is usually retroactive, and it usually applies to government works. – Quadell (talk) 21:56, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Is the Blue plaque program just in London, or broader? Either way, perhaps an OTRS-type release relinquishing any intention to hold copyright could be requested. I noticed Moonriddengirl and Inoysterbay talking elsewhere about slow progress towards getting the OTRS response from New York State for its markers, which would provide a good example, if secured all the way. Probably having OTRS precedents from several jurisdictions will make it easier for other jurisdictions to make similar concessions publicly. doncram (talk) 21:17, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Open University breaching GFDL?

I recently enrolled on a short course with The Open University, namely S189, Understanding the Weather. They supplied me with a DVD that contains, among other things, lots of pictures of clouds. The majority of those pictures are copied from Wikipedia, and are acknowledged as such. In some cases the text alongside the picture name-checks the GFDL, in some cases not. There is no copy of the GFDL on the DVD, and the DVD is marked "Copyright (c) 2008 The Open University. All rights reserved. No part of this disk may be reproduced or copied onto computing or other media, or adapted, without written permission from The Open University." Am I right in thinking that the university is breaching the terms of the GFDL by doing this? GrahamN (talk) 00:39, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes they are. Not the first time that's happened. – Quadell (talk) 03:12, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
It's also not confined to wikipedia. Schools (faculties and such) are some of the worst plagiarists and copyright violators. I still remember the old page for plagiarism for the comp sci department of my university. It was entirely plagiarized (somehow, that strikes me as ironic). And, all of the lecture slides used for several classes had copyright notices for the school on them, even though they were lifted from textbook material. In theory, schools can't do things like this. In practice, it's typically best to just ignore it, since it'd be more trouble than it's worth to try to stop it. 209.90.133.188 (talk) 03:35, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I was pretty sure they were in the wrong, but I just wanted a second opinion. What a nerve, eh? I plan to write them a letter asking for an explanation. GrahamN (talk) 21:10, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Quoting and fair use

This is raised on this talk page, but the current policy is not very clear on it. Or rather, if read very strictly, it is as if you're not allowed to quote at all unless you explicitly claim "fair use":

If you use part of a copyrighted work under "fair use", or if you obtain special permission to use a copyrighted work from the copyright holder under the terms of the license Wikipedia uses, you must make a note of that fact.

This seems very harsh. The policy does mention later that "Wikipedia articles may also include quotations, images, or other media under the U.S. Copyright law "fair use" doctrine in accordance with our guidelines for non-free content." In any case, see #Hoping to get a simple definition of copyvio included above, seems like a good proposal. CopoCop (talk) 01:12, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Hope that the change I document below has clarified this. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:50, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Clarification of NFC

I've altered the "using copyrighted works from others" section both to acknowledge co-licensing and to clarify "fair use." First, Wikipedia does not accept "fair use" in its straightforward definition, and I think it's misleading to imply that we do. As NFC notes, our standards are deliberately more strict that US fair use allowances. Also, the earlier text was clearly written with media in mind and not at all with the thought of utilizing quotations of text, which is also using part of a copyrighted work under fair use. How does one note the fact, along with the relevant names and dates? At the talk page? Clearly not standard practice. My hope is that by referring to NFC explicitly "for specific details on when and how to utilize such material" we succinctly cover both media and text. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:22, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

[[bn:উইকিপেডিয়া:কপিরাইট]]

Resolved

Please add this iw for Bengali wikipedia. [[bn:উইকিপেডিয়া:কপিরাইট]].- - Jayanta Nath (Talk|Contrb) 10:12, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Done, thanks. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:53, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi. I'm trying to come by a workable solution for dealing with massive, cross-article infringement by single contributors. I've opened two sections on the subject at Wikipedia talk:Copyright violations: one on how to clean them up and another on how to work with the contributors who place them. This is a big issue on Wikipedia that I deal with routinely. The processes we have in place simply are not intended for this kind of situation, and I would be extremely grateful for assistance in working out processes that are. Please contribute there. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:13, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

{{PD-PhilippinesPubDoc}} and the Philippines' law

Folks, Can someone help with this. I've followed through the links for this template, which appears widely used, and am not convinced that it is correct. The template alleges that Philippines Government works are public domain but the relevant section of the Philippines copyright laws state (my emphasis)

SEC. 176. Works of the Government. – 176.1. No copyright shall subsist in any work of the Government of the Philippines. However, prior approval of the government agency or office wherein the work is created shall be necessary for exploitation of such work for profit. Such agency or office may, among other things, impose as a condition the payment of royalties

The highlighted section seems to contradict the previous but my reading is that Philippines Government works are not free. Rather than PD my reading is the the works are covered by something similar to the CC "NonCommercial 1.0" licence which is not free for wikipedia purposes. Thoughts anyone ? - Peripitus (Talk) 06:16, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

That you're quite right and Philippines works are not public domain. Oh, dear. :/ (I'm going to publicize this at WP:MCQ and WT:COPYCLEAN. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:04, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
It would help if sec. 176 wasn't so self-contradictory! But I agree, we should treat it as an unacceptable NC license, and port the hundred or so files that use it over to fair-use (where possible). Physchim62 (talk) 11:59, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
I disagree. I think these works are still public domain. The statute says that Philippine government works are not copyrighted, but the same statute give additional restrictions on exploitation for profit. This is not a copyright restriction, since the work is not copyrighted. Frequently a law will restrict publication, exploitation, or reproduction, in a way that doesn't involve copyright. (You may not reproduce NASA logos in a way that might confuse the public, even though they are not copyrighted. You may not reproduce U.S. currency in color unless certain restrictions are followed, but those are anti-counterfeiting laws, and the work is not copyrighted. In France, "personality rights" are perpetual, even after copyright has expired. In Iran, you may not reproduce photos of nude women, even if they are not held under copyright.) The plain reading of the Philippine statute is that government works are not copyrighted, but other Philippine law restricts their exploitation.
So how does this relate to us? Well, Wikipedia's servers are in the U.S., so Wikipedia must comply with U.S. law. The various copyright treaties that the U.S. is involved with require the U.S. to respect the copyrights of other nations (with various caveats), but it is not required to (and usually does not) respect other nation's laws against reproduction when those laws don't involve copyright. It's not illegal in the U.S. to copy a photo of a nude woman, even though it's illegal in Iran. It's also not illegal to exploit a PD work of the Philippine government for profit, even though it's illegal in the Philippines. The works are still PD.
"But doesn't this prevent reusers in the Philippines from reusing Wikipedia content," I hear you ask, "and wouldn't this therefore violate the GFDL?" No, it wouldn't. Think of it as analogous to non-copyrighted trademarks, or personality-rights issues, or morality-law issues on profanity. It may well be illegal to reproduce parts of Wikipedia in Iran if used to appeal to the prurient interest, or in France if used for the purpose of defaming Jacques Chirac, or in the U.S. if used for the purpose of relating yourself to a company's trademark... but that's all perfectly compatible with the GFDL. How a reuser chooses to reuse WP is his or her own problem, and he or she must adhere to all relevant laws. But copyright concerns are all we're worried about.
Hope this helps, – Quadell (talk) 13:53, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
That's a bit like saying that sound recordings are not copyrighted anywhere outside of the United States, simply because other countries protect them under related rights and not under copyright (internationally, under the Rome Convention and not under the Berne Convention) You can't ignore the second sentence of section 176.1 just because you don't like it or becasue it's inconvenient for Wikipedia (not that inconvenient, as it turns out). That second sentence creates "rights in the nature of copyright", to use the English law term, or "legal or equitable rights that are equivalent to any of the exclusive rights within the general scope of copyright" to use the phrasing from 17 U.S.C. 301. This is a copyright concern, and we cannot escape it by a partisan choice of readings or jurisdictions. Physchim62 (talk) 14:25, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
It plainly can't be a copyright restriction, since the previous sentence says the works aren't held under copyright. This has nothing to do with whether it's "inconvenient for Wikipedia", and I resent the statement that I'm ignoring the second sentence for "partisan" reasons. I'm simply looking at what the law says, trying to apply it plainly, and I'd appreciate it if you take back your accusation and scale back your rhetoric.
The restriction on exploiting the work for profit is no more "equivalent to any of the exclusive rights within the general scope of copyright" than the restrictions on copying NASA logos for use on a ballcap, or the restriction on reproducing trademarked logos in a commercial context, or the restriction on making passable copies of currency. All these have superficial resemblances to copyright laws, but are not "in the nature of copyright", and all these are PD and widely used on Commons and the English Wikipedia. I believe the Philippine law quoted above is no different. To hold that it is actually a copyright restriction, and not a separate restriction on exploitation, one would have to ignore the previous sentence which says they are not copyrighted. – Quadell (talk) 14:46, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
You're trying to read the first sentence as if the rest of the section didn't exist. That is nonsensical, especially in statutory interpretation. There are, of course, many other restrictions on the use of intellectual property apart from copyright, as we both know. "Public domain" might be a universal concept, but it means different things in different jurisdictions: more to the point, Wikipedia does not have the right to declare something "public domain" simply because that suits us. Anti-counterfeiting laws, prohibitions of showing female nipples and your NASA logo example are clearly police powers: the restriction imposed by the second sentence here is clearly not a police power. The restriction grants the Philippine government the right to participate in the economic benefits of the reproduction of its works, whatever those works may be: if that is not "a right in the nature of copyright" then I don't know what is! It would surely be construed as such in any foreign court, regardless of the first sentence. The first sentence would be read as containing the implicit "except as explicitly provided here". Physchim62 (talk) 15:15, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Specifically, the second sentence is equivalent to the exclusive right granted in 17 U.S.C. 106(c): "to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending" Physchim62 (talk) 15:48, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Certainly a conundrum. Peripitus and Quadell both have very good points.
  • Quadell is right. The plain reading of the quoted section certainly sounds like the government is relinquishing copyright, but has a law forbidding the exploitation of governmental works for profit without permission.
  • Peripitus is right that the spirit certainly seems to be to permit general use, but prevent commercial exploitation. What's more, if they include the prohibition against unauthorized commercial use in the same section as the first statement, it really is hard to 'pick and choose'.
  • Sorry if it's a dumb question, but are we sure that's what 'copyright' even means to them? Do we have anyone with a better understanding of law in the phillipines? I know it sounds absurd to even ask, but they're using it as an analog for a highly-constricted terms of use.
  • The tie-breaker, for me, is the fact that they explicitly retain the right to collect royalties on the work. To me, that's a copyright. A direct assertion that the creator of the work retains the right to collect profits from commercial use? I'd say that clinches it. Simply put, if this were changed to plain english ("You can use this work as you like, but you can't charge money without permission and maybe paying me royalties"), then it wouldn't even be an issue. I think it's better to play it safe, unless we can get actual legal advice from someone familiar with law in the phillipines.
That said, it certainly wasn't fair to make such an accusation against Quadell. He made a very much good-faith interpretation based on his view of the phrasing. Simplified, he suggested that declaring a work uncopyrightable might mean there's no copyright on that work. There's no need to question someone's motivations when they're being logical and honest. 209.90.133.188 (talk) 22:51, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, anon. The only tweak I'd make to your analysis is that I'd say a direct English version is "This work isn't copyrighted, but you still can't make money off it without the government's permission." Consider a similar case: in Great Britain, it is illegal to copy and sell the King James Version of the Bible for profit without the permission of the crown. But it isn't a copyright, so no copyright treaty applies to it, and no other country respects this. Note that section 176, partially quoted above, is in "Chapter IV: Works Not Protected". The entire rest of the document gives information on how long copyright lasts, who holds it, etc., but none of that applies to anything in Chapter IV. Whatever that second sentence of section 176 counts as, it doesn't count as "copyright" in the same way that anything else in the document is considered copyrighted. (It has no expiration date, for instance, and no copyright holder who could potentially sue for damages.) Physchim62's argument above seems to be that we should consider this restriction to be a "copyright", despite the fact the Philippine government does not seem to. – Quadell (talk) 03:47, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Hmm... Actually... (btw, I'm the same anon as above. this is just my school ip address) I'm inclined to agree with you now, Quadell. This sounds exactly like your bible example. And your argument about it being in "works not protected" is very persuasive. 139.57.100.104 (talk) 17:23, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has asked the Philippine government whether it has relinquished its rights under Sec. 176.1 (or even if it could, without a change in the law), so it is presumptuous to claim that they don't see this as copyright. Section and chapter titles are not usually considered in the interpretation of statutes but, if there was any doubt in the matter, one can look at sec. 176.2, immediately following the paragraph in dispute here, which self-evidently gives force to Art. 2bis (3) of the Berne Convention. That is, it creates internationally recognised copyright where otherwise it would not exist. A reading of the paragraph which does not interpret this restriction as a copyright restriction is a reading which pretends that the paragraph ends at the first full stop. Physchim62 (talk) 13:55, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

To me, this seems rather like those cases at OTRS when people write offering to license something under GFDL, *but*. When that *but* is not consistent with licensing requirements, we reject the permission. (*But* I want to be notified of modications. *But* reuse is for non-commercial publication only.) If the disclaimer is inconsistent with our requirements, it's not usable. Even if they're using terminology that works for us (GFDL, no copyright), they're explicitly redefining it in a way that doesn't. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:04, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
That was how it sounded to me at first as well. (Personally, I hate it when someone licenses their image that way, and then someone else says, "sorry, they're incompatible", and then deletes everything but the GFDL licensing.) However, I think Quadell has a point here. It's very specifically listed as not protected. If we were trying to say that it fit under a specific special license, particularly one which actually did contract itself, then that'd be one thing. But the phrasing in the phillipines really isn't as contradictory as I'd first thought. It sounds perfectly analogous to the bible example. They assert no copyright, and are far more explicit than I'd realized about it, and then further instruct no one within their jurisdiction to use it for commercial purposes without permission.
That said, I would still suggest modifying the template. It seems to me that peoples within the phillipines could (at least theoretically) get in trouble for using such works freely, so the template should mention that it can't be used for commercial purposes within the phillipines. (or that it may not be eligible for commercial use, or however you'd phrase it) 139.57.100.104 (talk) 17:23, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
My reading is, on the basis of having to read lots of documents written this way, is that the when they wrote in the second sentence they intended for it to have real effect. The only way I can see to regard these documents/images as free is if we disregard the second sentence and apply a western interpretation to the language in the first....both not sustainable for a legislative document. The document states that there are conditions on use and I don't see how we can ignore the stated conditions - Peripitus (Talk) 19:37, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

The Philippine WikiProject is aware of this problem for a few years now. Our view is to treat media like this as if it were fair use (of course it's not applied uniformly due to the massive amount of work needed). There's a plan to lobby to remove the second sentence in the law but that's for the future and not the here and now. --seav (talk) 02:10, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

So long as documents are summarized and would not contain the same prose, it would be acceptable now for images and logos, that's another point for interpretation. --Maverx (talk) 14:17, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
The practical problem isn't huge: some of the images are PD for other reasons, others are not even Philippines government works so would need to be retagged anyway. Nor is it an "oh my gode, we've got to do this tonight" problem – the images were uploaded in good faith, and nobody has complained about them, so although we may have to remove one or two of them, we can at least give ourselves a bit of time to look and see what is the best solution for each image. Physchim62 (talk) 14:32, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
I fully agree with you here Physchim. When uploaded the uploader's thought they were ok, as indeed did those creating the template. These need to be gone through but on the scale of things here it is a small issue - Peripitus (Talk) 04:02, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

CopyLEFTvio - takes from wikipedia, claims copyright, demands takedown

What is to be done in situations where:

  • some outside business or individual has copied large portions of a Wikipedia article
  • they slap a copyright notice on it and claim it to be their original work and that peoples should link to it
  • takes the audacious step to have the original Wikipedia content cited as a copyvio of "their" work, and tries to get the wikipedia article deleted

I am right now seeing this happen to the article Plenum cable for which I have personally created several illustrations in order to make the text of the article easier to understand:

It seems recently someone has decided to rip the text and my illustrative work from Wikipedia which they are now claiming as their own work, and have recently requested a speedy deletion of plenum cable for infringing their work: 

* http://www.lanshack.com/pdf/PlenumVsRiser.pdf

Which came first? There's no easy way to know

What really can be done by Wikipedia editors contributing in good faith to the encyclopedia, to assert that their uploaded material is the original content source?

  • Someone could claim that I simply made a screenshot of the illustrations they created and uploaded them to Wikipedia.
  • If the outside thieving accuser claims prior creation (and that they merely hadn't made it widely publicly available until now) there is no way to verify their claim.
  • It is effectively their word against mine.

To whom will Wikipedia typically side? Siding with the outsider is certainly the far easier option, since it merely requires a painless deletion of the disputed content from the encyclopedia. Trying to get an outsider to take down uncited content that came from Wikipedia may require an expensive civil court case that Wikipedia appears ill-prepared to take on as a nonprofit organization.

Solution (?): Don't upload original drawings as SVG

It appears that at least in terms of my stolen/uncited-source illustrations that they took, I have created my own solution to the problem. My illustrations are uploaded as "baked" PNGs and JPEGs which cannot be easily reedited or used to recreate the original drawing files. Additionally I am retaining my original drawing files used to create the PNG/JPG and this drawing information cannot be extracted from my uploaded images.

I am not going to upload my original drawing files as proof of origination since these thieving bastards would be free to download those as well to use as evidence that "they created it" as well.

Note that by doing this I am flying in the face of another unwritten policy of Wikipedia. Many editors want drawings on here uploaded in a free open re-editable standard such as SVG. If I had created these as SVGs I would have no "unbaked origination evidence" to fall back on as the original creator of the content. If an editor on Wikipedia wants to make an SVG of my uploaded work and cites back to me, that is fine but at least I retain the original drawing files as proof of origination.

According to acrobat, their document was created 23/4/2008, whereas your picture was uploaded in 2007. That means that their document is not evidence of any copyright infringement. Unless they can come up with another document that precedes your images, you're in the clear. In fact, it's the other way around, they're claiming copyright for your image, but they're probably violating your GFPL license.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 02:38, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Need an off-wiki repository for origination evidence

Since these original drawing files (made with Office 2007 no less, ack) are my only evidence that the work is from me originally I am not particularly inclined to upload it directly to Wikipedia for all to download and claim as their own evidence of origination. I will only give this evidence to someone I trust and since most anyone can become an administrator over time, handing it to the administrators class doesn't provide sufficient safeguards. Such a copyleft/takedown thief also could strive for adminship to gain access to such materials.

Maybe I'll let Jimbo look at my origination evidence. DMahalko (talk) 01:33, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

The question has been raised as to whether or not Mississippi law is PD, specifically with regard to this document. I have not yet found any indication. Mississippi.gov says, "You should assume that everything you see or read on the Site is copyright-protected unless otherwise noted, and may not be used except as provided in these Terms and Conditions." and "You may print or download material displayed on the Site for noncommercial, personal use only, provided you also retain all copyright and other proprietary notices contained on the materials. You may not, however, sell, reverse engineer, distribute, modify, transmit, reuse, repost, use, or create derivative works based on the content of the Site in whole or in part for any purpose, without written permission from Mississippi.gov, its authorized agents and contractors, or the owner of such content in each instance."[1]. I don't see anything at [2] about copyright status. Anyone have any insight? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:19, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Mississippi government works are, in general, copyrighted. But laws are never considered copyrighted in the U.S., as the courts have verified. So there are no copyright concerns with reprinting city, state, or federal laws in the U.S. – Quadell (talk) 19:34, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
Are you sure about that "never"? I know there have been cases of organizations coming up with uniform, copyrighted versions of statutes that are then licensed by the individual states, but I don't remember what the outcome of those cases was... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:42, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure how those would be settled, but I've dug up reference in Stephen M. McJohn's Copyright that supports this. He quotes Compendium II in saying, "Edicts of government such as...legislative enactments...are not copyrightable for reasons of public policy. This applies to such works whether they are Federal, State, or local as well as to those of foreign governments." (p. 119). Wow. I had no idea that the feds were overriding foreign copyright policy on laws. Interesting. Thanks for finding the source, Sarek. :) Thanks for weighing in, Quadell. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:06, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
We're not overriding foreign copyright policy; we're applying U.S. law to determine whether there is a U.S copyright within the U.S.. That's the basic premise of National treatment under which all of our copyright treaties generally operate. TJRC (talk)
Sarek, there was a private legal company that wrote "template" laws for small-town governments, claimed copyright on them, and sold the right to use them to the individual towns. That's all legit. But one small town copied the law from a different small town, and the company sued. The courts held that once a government enacts a "template" bill into law, it loses all copyright. I have more details at home (from "Fair Use" by Fishman), but I don't have it in front of me. – Quadell (talk) 20:26, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
Seems to me I should explain the thanks for the source: it was Sarek who found that legislative document in the original discussion. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:32, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
With respect to Moonriddengirl's question about laws in general, the Copyright Office's Compendium II: Copyright Office Practices says, in § 206.01, Edicts of government, such as judicial opinions, administrative rulings, legislative enactments, public ordinances, and similar official legal documents are not copyrightable for reasons of public policy. This applies to such works whether they are Federal, State, or local as well as to those of foreign governments. I'm pretty sure that's been there since the Compendium II was released in 1978, and the prior Compendium I included a similar provision in its Supplemental Policy no. 9, Government Publications: "It should be noted, however, that public ordinances, court decisions and similar official legal documents of State and local governments are not considered copyrightable for reasons of public policy."" Courts have very consistently ruled in agreement with that policy as law.
SarekOfVulcan asks about the cases when organizations have developed unofficial codes that are subsequently enacted by a city or state government as law. I'm not current on this, but last I looked, the general thinking was that the enacted law was not copyrighted, although the original work retained copyright. See Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress, Inc., No. 99-40632 (5th Cir. June 2, 2002) (en banc) ("Our short answer is that as law, the model codes enter the public domain and are not subject to the copyright holder's exclusive prerogatives. As model codes, however, the organization's works retain their protected status."). However, this case had a pretty suspect factual record (the defendant apparently copied directly from the model codes, not from the actual enacted code, which strikes many commentators as contrary to the position that "as model codes ... the organization's works retain their protected status"), and I don't know how persuasive it ended up being outside the Fifth Circuit. As I said, I haven't followed the issue much in the last several years, so I cannot guarantee that's where matters stand on that particular point, even within the Fifth Circuit.
But the basic question about copyright in laws that Moonriddengirl asks is very clear. TJRC (talk) 20:38, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

While on the topic, note that even foreign law is not copyright in the US. See s:Template:PD-GovEdict and s:Wikisource:Proposed_deletions/Archives/2008-05#Crown_Copyright_waiver. The important point of that discussion is that since lawsuits for copyright infringement depend on the work in question being registered as copyrighted by the US Copyright Office. As far as I know, no law has ever been granted a copyright, and the Copyright Office has sworn black and blue that they will not grant a copyright to any enacted law - they will take it to the Supreme Court if they have to. John Vandenberg (chat) 04:37, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the laws exception has been mentioned in WP:PD for a long, long time. Dragons flight (talk) 05:58, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
And yet, Section 1-1-9 of the Mississippi Code of 1972 claims copyright over the text, and this is also mentioned elsewhere on state websites[3]. John Vandenberg (chat) 10:26, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
I think that's dealing with the difference between the acts as passed by the legislature and the subsequent codification (although it seems to cover the former too). The latter has some creativity in arrangement, and definite creativity in margin notes. The problem is when acts reference older laws by code section. --NE2 12:15, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Subsection, lyrics

While we're in the land of Mississippi, how about the Mississippi state song? The text describing the adoption of the song at Go, Mississippi (song) is copied from the page [4] (and there's no sign that that history is drawn from legislature). Are the lyrics themselves still governed by copyright, does anybody know? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:54, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
Probably not. It was adopted as the state song in 1962, so it's a pre-1978 work; published, at the latest, in 1962. Those works got a two-part term of copyright; first 28 years, then another 28, which was later changed to 47 and then later changed again to 67, but it only got the second term if renewed (that was later made automatic, but too late for this song; details on request).
I see no copyright renewal for "Go, Mississippi" in the Copyright Office database ([5]). Searching in the author, William Houston Davis (you have to search on "Davis William Houston") yields only one renewal, for a song named Gotta go, baby that had been published in 1952. Assuming we can trust the CO database, even if a copyright had ever been claimed in "Go, Mississippi" (and back in those days, a copyright notice was a requirement), it was never renewed and would have gone public domain 28 years after it was first published.
Ah, rats, I see a hole here. The CO DB only covers filings made 1978 or later; pre-1978 filings are on microfiche and need to be reviewed in person. If the song had been published in, say (to pick an arbitrary date) 1942, it would have been up for renewal in 1970. If it had been properly renewed in 1970 1) it would have gotten a second (eventual) 67-year term to 2037 and 2) the renewal would not show up in the post-1978 database.
I still think the answer is that it's probably not under copyright, but if it was published before 1950, there's no way to tell for sure without looking at the physical copyright office records. TJRC (talk) 01:34, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
Wow, you're good. :) Thanks. You should come lend us your expertise at WP:COPYCLEAN </shameless wheedling>. It's too bad that we can't verify, since lacking verification we can't use it. :/ You don't by any chance know of any Wikipedian who might have access to the copyright office records, do you? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:38, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, no. I'm on the left coast, and have no direct access, myself. (I think I looked at WP:COPYCLEAN once before, but it felt too much like work.:) But I'm happy doing these short little drive-bys that are kind of interesting. TJRC (talk) 02:02, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

The sheet music is available in this 0.5 MB PDF (pp.5&6) on the Mississippi Secretary of State website. John Vandenberg (chat) 09:51, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Clearer sheet music is available on page 34 of this 5Mb PDF which says it was copyright in 1962. The only doubt is that it says "Adapted from original publication." which may be mean that it is derived from another work which may also have the same problem of having its copyright renewed (the lyrics may be the same between both). Being copyrighted in 1962 means it must have been renewed in 1990-1, and as it isnt mentioned in the online post-1978 records under "Davis William" or "Jackson Board of Realtors" I think it is in the public domain. John Vandenberg (chat) 11:45, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
Of course it cant be that simple, can it.
Over at Wikisource, this text was deleted. I have initiated an undeletion discussion at w:Wikisource:Proposed_deletions#Go,_Mississippi.
Another possible issue is that Wikisource used to attribute this song to Jimmie Davis, noted singer and Governor of Louisiana. ::John Vandenberg (chat) 13:45, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
It seems to me that it's hardly ever "that simple." :D I appreciate that you are exploring it. Only way to shed light. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:50, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Unrelated subsection

On a somewhat unrelated note, but since I saw "lyrics" pop up on my watchlist: I'm currently in discussion with Pamela at Gracenote, which hosts fully licensed song lyrics. We worked through a reliable method of linking the lyrics and she set about working with their IT staff to simplify the access method and I was going to post at WT:SONG, but then they apparently got cold feet, possibly because someone took notice of what I was saying: "we might want to massively link to your site, from the world's biggest encyclopedia and 4th most-trafficked website". I'm still waiting for the callback and discretion is appreciated, but there is a site out there with fully-licensed lyrics which we can link to on a limited basis if the lyrics are there. Limited basis at least until they buy another 75 servers or so, I doubt they'll miss the hits from en.wiki.x.io! Franamax (talk) 14:22, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

That would be extremely cool. MTV also sometimes hosts legally licensed lyrics. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:12, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

More from Mississippi

Can anyone offer any insight into the copyright status of [6]? It is not explicitly disclaimed, although it is not explicitly reserved either (images are; no mention is made of text). Footnote says, "The user must assume responsibility for compliance with federal copyright law (Title 17, United States Code) or any other issues involved in the use of the item(s) listed." WP:PD offers no guidance on Mississippi. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:12, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the text is copyrighted. States are fully capable of holding copyright, even if that state isn't particularly interested in enforcing it. I doubt they would sue, but the text is nonetheless copyrighted unless some statute says it's not. – Quadell (talk) 14:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. Governmental works were never something I had to address in my day job. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Invariant sections

I think this material is deprecated by Wikipedia's new licensing terms, which now permit CC-BY-SA and GFDL or CC-BY-SA compatible only, since Wikimedia:Terms of Use says the GFDL source must be "unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts." Accordingly, I'm removing it. I'm tucking it here in case I'm mistaken. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Under Wikipedia's current copyright conditions, and with the current facilities of the MediaWiki software, it is only possible to include in Wikipedia external GFDL materials that contain invariant sections or cover texts, if all of the following apply,

  1. You are the copyright holder of these external GFDL materials (or: you have the explicit, i.e. written, permission of the copyright holder to do what follows);
  2. The length and nature of these invariant sections and cover texts does not exceed what can be placed in an edit summary;
  3. You are satisfied that these invariant sections and cover texts are not listed elsewhere than in the "page history" of the page where these external materials are placed;
  4. You are satisfied that further copies of Wikipedia content are distributed under the standard GFDL application of "with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts" (in other words, for the copies derived from wikipedia, you agree that these parts of the text contributed by you will no longer be considered as "invariant sections" or "cover texts" in the GFDL sense);
  5. The original invariant sections and/or cover texts are contained in the edit summary of the edit with which you introduce the thus GFDLed materials in wikipedia (so, that if "permanent deletion" would be applied to that edit, both the thus GFDLed material and its invariant sections and cover texts are jointly deleted).

Seen the stringent conditions above, it is very desirable to replace GFDL texts with invariant sections (or with cover texts) by original content without invariant sections (or cover texts) whenever possible.

Updating for licensing transition

I think I have brought it up to date. I have incorporated quite a bit of text directly from Wikimedia:Terms of Use (all noted in edit summary, for attribution). Please review. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Billboard charts

Second time I've seen a question with wide-ranging implications concerning music charts come up at WP:CP. The soup du jour: Top Hot 100 Hits of 2008. The fundamental questions: is there sufficient creativity in the selection criteria of Billboard's Hot 100 rankings for Billboard to put teeth in that "© 2008 Nielsen Business Media, Inc", because those of us who were around for that DMCA takedown on sports markets TV listings know they will if they can (and even, some suggested then, if they can't). Fallout: if we can't use it, probably many of the bluelinks at Template:Top Hot 100 Hits will also represent problems. Selection criteria for the Billboard Hot 100 is a weighted evaluation of retail for singles, albums, and airplay that has been modified over the years. Wikiprecedent: New Zealand's top singles, 9/2008. So, selection criteria: objective enough to use, or selective enough to restrict? What say we? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:55, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Certainly if I published a list of "The best songs of 2008 in my opinion", that list would be copyrighted. And if I published a list of "The top 100 most downloaded songs from iTunes", that would not be eligible for copyright. The question is, was there any choice involved in the list, given the set of criteria they came up with? Could a different group, using the same published criteria, have come up with a different list? If so, then selection was involved and the list could be copyrighted. If not then the list is a mechanical presentation of facts. – Quadell (talk) 18:43, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
I would imagine the debatable part here is the degree to which creativity is involved in weighting the criteria. That creativity is involved is evident in the fact that the criteria have been altered over the years to recognize changes in market realities. No doubt that the "100 Hottest People" would be a creative list, but given that this list reflects "hotness", which is subjectively defined, I'm just not sure. "Best selling", no question. "Top played?" no question. "Hottest?" Um. ? (Let me note explicitly that precedent, linked above, was for "keep", but I don't want to declare these a-ok without due consideration, particularly given our history with the publisher.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:54, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
It doesn't matter how often the criteria have changed. The question is, are the criteria (1) public, and (2) non-subjective. If yes, then it's PD. If no, then it's not. – Quadell (talk) 19:23, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
Okay. I don't know if they are public. I'll have to look to see if they publish their ratio. I didn't notice in the Wikipedia article. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:41, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
Their current website says, "Most of the charts in Billboard are either sales charts or radio charts. The only exceptions in which we try to mingle sales numbers with radio data are three of our signature charts: The Billboard Hot 100, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and the Billboard Pop 100. We use both pools of data because while the consumer's decision to purchase is a significant vote of popularity, singles have a job that extends beyond being a sales vehicle: to capture radio play and, hopefully, stimulate album sales. Beyond that, in today's competitive market, radio programmers do not make music decisions lightly, but rather use extensive research to play songs their audiences want to hear. These three hybrid charts each use formulas to mix Nielsen SoundScan sales with BDS audience. The Hot 100 and the Pop 100 each utilize the a la carte sale of downloaded tracks with sales of the few retail-available singles that are still shipped to stores. The former chart also factors in streaming audio and video data (both on demand and passive) from AOL and Yahoo. The Hot 100 utilizes audience from all popular formats monitored by BDS -- from top 40 and hip-hop to country, Latin and rock -- while the Pop 100 confines its radio panel to mainstream top 40 stations."[7] I don't see the formula itself. Here's a reference to the formula as of 2007 at the NY POST: [8]. If the NY Post was to be trusted, at that point it was 55% radio airplay, 40% music downloads, and 5% streaming (with a ratio of 50 streams = one download = 1,000 radio plays). I don't know if the NY Post is to be trusted or where they got that info. Maybe it's tucked somewhere on Billboard site itself? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:50, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Good job finding that quote. It's vague, and probably deliberately so. I was advise that we treat the list as copyrighted unless (1) Billboard says they don't think it's copyrighted, (2) Mike Godwin and/or the WMF say they think it's not copyrighted, or (3) we can find the formula and reproduce the results. Note that average price data for baseball cards was once successfully defended in court as copyrighted, since the compilers claimed they were choosing which venues to survey and which exceptions to exclude. – Quadell (talk) 20:04, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

We've traditionally regarded music charts as copyright: if my memory serves me correctly, it is on the basis that there is more than one way of compiling them, and so there is creativity in selecting the sources and weighting the results. I think this a sensibly conservative approach: we shouldn't be saying things are exempt from copyright unless we're absolutely sure, and we're obviously not sure on this one, even if we accept that it's fairly borderline.
Interestingly, there is a German case (the Hit-Bilanz case, BGH 1 ZR 290/02) which treats exactly this question in the light of the EU Database Directive. It's a little difficult to extrapolate the result to the U.S., as Germany has a notoriously high threshold of originality, even though this threshold is supposedly unified throughout the EU for databases (see this European Commission report for more discussion). The Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) ruled that "airplay" and "music sales" charts did not "constitute the author's own intellectual creation", and so were not protected by copyright, but did qualify for sui generis rights under Chapter III of the Directive. The test for sui generis protection ("substantial investment") is a "sweat of the brow" test, but it is failed, for example, by listings of sports fixtures or runners in a horse race (ECJ cases C-203/02, C-444/02, among others, cited in the German judgment). Physchim62 (talk) 14:33, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
I have reduced the one in question to the top 5, but have also written Mike to clarify...particularly timely since another one has been listed at CP. Poor Mike. :) I'd expect a week or so for response. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:45, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
Mike responds with dizzying speed that we should be okay with these as no human judgment is involved. I have restored the one that was stubbed and cleared the next one that had been listed at CP. It seems our official approach should be that these are okay unless we learn otherwise later. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:59, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
Wow, I didn't expect that! Alright then. Full steam ahead. – Quadell (talk) 15:46, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm inclined to think that almost all of that should be moved to Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights—with the exception, obviously, of the US copyright information which would be patently inappropriate there. Thoughts? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Commons:Commons:Licensing (their version of Wikipedia:Copyrights) has a wonderful summary of copyright law in various countries. But that makes sense, because Commons takes into account an image's copyright status in the country of origin, as well as it's status in the U.S. But en.wiki only cares about its status in the U.S. (Often it's status in the U.S. is based on its status in its country of origin though.)
I think it's useful information, but it crowds up the page. Simply link to the information elsewhere. – Quadell (talk) 22:12, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure that enwiki "only cares about its status in the U.S." In fact, the current section starts with a policy statement from Jimbo which shows that that isn't the case! Just because a work is PD in the U.S. doesn't make it PD in enwiki terms. A useful purpose for this section would be to tie down our policy on this issue, not to duplicate the work at Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights and Commons:Licensing. I completely agree that the current coutry specific sections (with the possible exception of the U.S.) should be taken elsewhere: this was the whole rationale for creating Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights in the first place. Physchim62 (talk) 10:36, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Ah yes, the Jimbo thing. See, it's like this: Wikipedia has from the beginning been an open-content project, accepting only public domain or freely-licensed material. But early on, we became aware that there is no "global public domain": Mexico protects works 99 years p.m.a., and the UK still considers the King James Bible to be copyrighted. So since all Wikimedia servers (at the time) were housed in the U.S., we decided that only U.S. copyright law needed to be heeded. That worked fine for a while, until someone noticed that the U.S. has no treaty with Iran, and started using Iranian material as PD. The rationale was that the material was effectively PD in the U.S. since Iranians could not bring a copyright claim in the U.S. against us. This rubbed Jimbo the wrong way, and he declared that we should treat this Iranian material as copyrighted, saying "Just because we can get away with something doesn't mean we should." This led to quite a bit of confusion; after all, we were routinely using UK works that were considered copyright in the UK, so long as they were considered PD here. It wasn't clear how to deal with international copyright issues, given the seemingly incompatible but unequivocal statements, and Jimbo did not respond to requests for clarification. After much hammering and yammering we decided that for copyright concerns, the English Wikipedia followed U.S. law exclusively, with the exception that countries that did not have a copyright treaty with the U.S. (Iran, Ethiopia, etc.) were treated as if they were signatories to the Berne Convention. And that's pretty much where things stand now. – Quadell (talk) 12:41, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
That's a good summary, Quadell. It's also worth noting that Commons has some weirdness too and hosts some classes of images which are not PD in the US (some URAA restored material, some FOP stuff). Haukur (talk) 15:38, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Inaccurate reference to copyleft

The paragraph:

The licenses Wikipedia uses grant free access to our content in the same sense that free software is licensed freely. This principle is known as copyleft in contrast to typical copyright licenses. Wikipedia content can be copied, modified, and redistributed if and only if the copied version is made available on the same terms to others and acknowledgment of the authors of the Wikipedia article used is included (a link back to the article is generally thought to satisfy the attribution requirement; see below for more details). Copied Wikipedia content will therefore remain free under appropriate license and can continue to be used by anyone subject to certain restrictions, most of which aim to ensure that freedom.

Should have the second sentence moved to the end, like this:

The licenses Wikipedia uses grant free access to our content in the same sense that free software is licensed freely. Wikipedia content can be copied, modified, and redistributed if and only if the copied version is made available on the same terms to others and acknowledgment of the authors of the Wikipedia article used is included (a link back to the article is generally thought to satisfy the attribution requirement; see below for more details). Copied Wikipedia content will therefore remain free under appropriate license and can continue to be used by anyone subject to certain restrictions, most of which aim to ensure that freedom. This principle is known as copyleft in contrast to typical copyright licenses.

In fact, as detailed in Wikipedia:Copyright_FAQ#Copyleft_licenses, copyleft does not refer simply to the concept of being licensed freely, but to the more specific concept of requiring redistribution in the same terms.--Pot (talk) 18:01, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems uncontroversial to me, and I have implemented this. I'm sure others will let me know if I'm wrong. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:06, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
"No, you and Pot are right. It's the "remain free" part that makes it copyleft, not just the free part. Superm401 - Talk 00:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Category for articles with imported Creative Commons text

Is there a category for articles that have imported text from Creative-Commons only sources? I think this would help both re-users and people working on Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. If such a category doesn't exist, I can help create it. A possible name would be Category:Articles with imported Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 text. Superm401 - Talk 00:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd agree. It should be simple enough to add it to Template:CCBYSASource. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:27, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 Done Thank you. I wasn't aware of that template. I've gone ahead and created the category as a {{hiddencat}}, then added it to the template. Superm401 - Talk

There's a copyright question at WT:CP that could use more eyes concerning a chart duplicated in many points from an existing chart. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:27, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Truman Capote article quotes short NY Times article in full.

I notice that the article on Truman Capote quotes the entire (short) New York Times article on the Clutter slayings that inspired his book "In Cold Blood". Because it is quoted in full, the quotation does not seem like fair use to me, but I'm no lawyer. Just thought I'd draw attention to it. Phiwum (talk) 15:12, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll check it out. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:50, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Quotes from a single source; how much is too much?

Hi. There's a question at an FLC that may impact several other featured lists or featured list candidates (including Crafoord Prize. In both of these cases, we have list articles about prize or award winners with a quoted reference to the reasons that they received the honor. In both cases, the quoted reasons add up to a fairly substantial portion of the source. Rewriting in original language will be difficult, but for the most part, not impossible. The question is whether the use of quoted material there is extensive enough to represent a copyright concern and a problem under WP:NFC. Some of the quoted snippets may not have enough originality to represent a copyright concern; others do. Opinions welcome, here or there. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:50, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

"See also" section

Please add Wikipedia:Identifying copyrights in links. -- Wavelength (talk) 03:13, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
Please add Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. -- Wavelength (talk) 18:43, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Consensus review: handling close paraphrases on Baksar, Darla Crane

I'm bringing this up here after a quick chat with Jclemens. While working on WP:SCV, I flagged Baksar for G12, finding it still way too close to the source for comfort. Jcelemens declined suggesting AfD or PROD (which is of course absolutely fine for any other borderline CSD cases). I then tagged that article for copyvio and listed at WP:CP, and when I went to notify Jclemens, I noticed another editor had a very simlar discussion on the same matters just before me. Jclemens graciously agreed to submit these for comment here since we're both interpreting consensus on such cases a bit differently. What do you recon is the best course of action? MLauba (talk) 21:31, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I endorse this summary of events, and will have this page watchlisted for the community's input on whether I'm too narrowly construing CSD G12. Jclemens (talk) 23:01, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, first, let me just note that close paraphrasing can constitute copyright violation if it follows closely enough on the original source to constitute "substantial taking" and it can't be excused by fair use. To quote, "Protected writing has been held to be infringed by paraphrase that remains sufficiently close that, in spite of changes, it appropriates the craft of authorship of the original." (Section 13-40; Perle & Williams on publishing law, 3rd edition. 2004 Supplement. Perle, Fischer & Williams. Aspen Publishers. ISBN 9780735504486.) I'll also self-plagiarize a bit from my own article on substantial similarity: Richard Stim noted in 2007's Patent, Copyright & Trademark that "[a]n infringement may be found based on several paraphrased passages of a few hundred words each, or just 20 words copied verbatim."(Stim, Richard (2007). Patent, Copyright & Trademark: An Intellectual Property Desk Reference (9 ed.). Nolo. p. 220. ISBN 1413306462.) To a court of law, it won't make much difference if it's a straight-up copy or a close paraphrase. If it takes substantially enough from the original (through literal similarity or comprehensive non-literal similarity), it's a copyvio. So if we do decline a speedy because we decide it doesn't meet WP:CSD#G12, we should probably blank it by the copyright procedure with {{copyvio}} for the lengthier handling or in some other way address copyright concerns (if they're substantiated, of course).
I think it would come down to the following. Are we dealing with "Text pages that contain copyrighted material with no credible assertion of public domain, fair use, or a free license, where there is no non-infringing content on the page worth saving"? If so, G12 is appropriate. However, if there's enough changes to give clear evidence that the contributor attempted to craft a complete rewrite but failed, I myself would be inclined to tag it for the copyright problems board and explain to them what's needed to make this work. I think the contributor of Baksar made an effort and will try to explain this to him, since he's been doing this since 2007 (by evidence of tags on his page). With Darla Crane (which I've blanked), selective deletion under G12 would be appropriate under the current language of G12, as there are clean versions in history (for example, [9]). But I myself take the username of the contributor as an unsubstantiated credible assertion of permission. This may or may not be the real Darla Crane, but if she is, and she also authored the external source, there's no copyright violation here. She should be asked to verify her identity. I'm off to do that.
I think in general close paraphrasing is subject to speedy, but would only utilize it in very clear cases. I think both of these pages constitute copyvios, if the contributors of text do not hold rights to the materials. I also think that WP:CP can be a fine alternative for these for the reasons I set out above. As long as we block publication, we're exercising due diligence either way. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:29, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Sigh. I have now found pasted text in literally dozens of articles by the contributor of Baksar. Every article he's contributed to or created that I've examined is pasted from somewhere else with no or minimal revision. His primary source doesn't contain scads of creativity, but it has some, and it is copyrighted, and the cumulative impact of copying dozens of their articles onto Wikipedia could be considerably more serious. :/ I'm halfway through, and CP is going to fall behind today, because I've got way too much work to do in the quote real world unquote. </complaint> --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:28, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
So in the future if I decline G12 on such marginal cases, posting to WP:CP would be the most appropriate venue to get more eyes on the situation? Jclemens (talk) 15:57, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, please! WP:CP is the place to get a second opinion from editors who've chosen to deal with copyright problems. On the other hand, simple G12s should be speedily deleted. If in doubt, ask; if there's no doubt, delete! Physchim62 (talk) 18:39, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Second opinion: close paraphrasing on CVs

Reposting the below from my talk page for other opinions. Note that the article was flagged by CorenSearchBot and is now listed at WP:CP. The community's input would be appreciated. Thanks. MLauba (talk) 12:15, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Andrei Tsygankov

Could you point out how exactly is the article a copyright violation? It is very little text, mostly information from his CV, which is difficult to paraphrase in any other way than what is currently in the article. If this is a copyvio, then by the same logic we should delete all "List of publications" sections from all articles of academics, as these are usually also directly taken from the person's CV. Please explain. Offliner (talk) 10:52, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, please personally compare the article text[10] and the resume [11]. Offliner (talk) 10:54, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

This is the source:

Andrei P. Tsygankov is Professor at the departments of Political Science and International Relations at San Francisco State University. He teaches Russian/post-Soviet, comparative, and international politics since August 2000. A Russian native, Tsygankov is a graduate of Moscow State University (Candidate of Sciences, 1991) and University of Southern California (Ph.D., 2000).

This is the article:

Andrei Tsygankov is Professor at the departments of Political Science and International Relations at San Francisco State University, where he teaches Russian and post-Soviet, comparative, and international politics.

Now please explain why this is a copyright violation. How does the information need to be worded so that it's not? Please give an example. Offliner (talk) 11:01, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

This is an example of what is called a close paraphrase of the source material, which is currently held to be a violation in the USA (where our servers are located). While rephrasing this particular sentence is indeed a tad difficult, the recommendations set forth in the above essay are a good way to do so. What could work for instance is something along the lines of "Andrei Tsygankov (birth date) is a Russian-born academic and author in the fields of International Relations. He currently teaches Russian/post-Soviet, comparative, and international politics at San Francisco State University." (without my horrible grammar of course). You retain some of the facts but the wording and flow no longer follows the bio. In general, it helps to have access to two or more distinct sources and to summarize these in your own words. You may lose detail but at the same time you avoid the problems highlighted above. Regards, MLauba (talk) 11:19, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but this is just ridiculous. By the same logic I could tag about 1,000 articles in Wikipedia as they contain "close paraphrasing" in exact the same way as here or worse. What about publications lists? They are always copied from the CVs. Shouldn't they all be removed as well? Also, why don't you just fix the issue at Andrei Tsygankov instead of covering the entire page with your tag? I personally don't think the page is a copyvio at all, so I'm not going to fix anything. Offliner (talk) 12:07, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
I should note for others viewing this that the quote is not the extent of the article or the source. The article duplicates other runs of phrases from the source as well: The article's "He has spoken at various forums and has contributed to [list redacted]...and other media publications." mirrors "Tsygankov spoke at various forums...[list redacted], and he contributed to [list redacted]...and other media publications." The article picks up with "He has also consulted various publishers and state agencies, and he served as Program Chair of International Studies Association (ISA), 2006-07"; cf. the source: "Tsygankov consulted various publishers and state agencies, and he served as Program Chair of International Studies Association (ISA), 2006-07." Copyright governs language as well as creative structure. I agree that this is a close paraphrase. Whether it would cross the line into copyright infringement is something that only a court could decide. As per our copyright policy, we should "Never use materials that infringe the copyrights of others. This could create legal liabilities and seriously hurt Wikipedia. If in doubt, write the content yourself, thereby creating a new copyrighted work which can be included in Wikipedia without trouble." This material can be rewritten so that it does not duplicate language and structure from the original, and there's no reason it should not be. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:55, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
In that case, you (or anyone) is welcome to fix the issue. I'm not going to rephrase a simple list of his jobs and activities so that it's completely different from the wording and structure used in the person's public CV. I have neither the time nor the English skills for that. I also do not agree that this is necessary here. Also, it's a public CV. The probability of him suing someone who is following its wording too closely is next to zero (even in America with its crazy laws.) I'd be interested in hearing your opinion on publication lists as well. Would you like to rephrase those as well so that they do not follow the wording and structure used in the CV? Offliner (talk) 14:12, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia's policies prioritize creating a free encyclopedia. This is at the core of the project's purpose. Even if the subject is unlikely to sue, we only use non-free text in conformity to the non-free content policy and guideline so that our text can be used anywhere, for any purpose, even commercially. Publication lists are not protected under US copyright law if they conform to a basic and obvious criteria that does not rely on human selection. A list of "outstanding publications" or "notable publications" would include human selection, since these require judgment. A list of "recent publications", provided completely and chronologically, would not. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:08, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Do I understand correctly that every list of publications that is not a complete list is a copyright violation? Offliner (talk) 17:15, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm going to assume that you're not being deliberately obtuse here and I have to echo what Mlauba and Moonriddengirl have told you. Referring to your question about lists, please re-read what Moonriddengirl wrote - she did not say all lists (complete or not) are copyrightable and whether or not copyright can be asserted has nothing to do with whether or not a list is "complete". Shell babelfish 17:24, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
I meant: is every list that is taken from a source and not a complete list a copyright violation, since it is based on human selection by the source? Offliner (talk) 17:31, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
If (a) the selection criteria reflect somebody else's human creativity, (b) they have not released the list for reuse, and (c) you reuse it anyway, then you stand in danger of infringement (a determination of which depends on a number of factors, including the centrality of the material you've copied and how you've used it). If an incomplete list uses obvious criteria such that anyone might create the same list, then it probably isn't. (Example: if the incomplete bibliography lists, say, all works in American science journals, you're unlikely to have an issue.)
The often cited test case here is Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service. In that case, an alphabetical listing of addresses & phone numbers was found not to infringe because there was no creativity in selection. However, the Court reaffirmed in that case that "The first [well established proposition] is that facts are not copyrightable; the other, that compilations of facts generally are." They went on to explain that "A factual compilation is eligible for copyright if it features an original selection or arrangement of facts, but the copyright is limited to...the particular selection or arrangement. In no event may copyright extend to the facts themselves."(citation omitted; both of these are quotes from the case, which see: [12].) This doesn't mean that you can't list some of (or even all of) the same publications, but you cannot duplicate their creative criteria & structure. In other words, while you can't copy Entertainment Magazine "List of the 100 best books of 2009", you can certainly include the same books as part of your own comprehensive list of "Books published in 2009." And there may be overlap between my EM list and another fictitious publication's list of of 100 best books of 2009. If the lists are too close, though, said second fictitious publication may be called on to defend the similarity. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:32, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Doesn't this make the construction of "selected publications" lists, or indeed any "selected list of notable things the person has done" very hard, since we cannot copy the list from somewhere else, and writing such as list by ourselves, based on our own judgement (or even just taking some of the items from a copyrighted list while leaving others out) would be WP:OR? Because Tsygankov is an academic, there is very little information written about him elsewhere than in his CV, so we will have to rely heavily on that single source and it is not possible to combine information from different sources to make the text look less like a copyvio. The Tsygankov article is basically a list of which positions he has, what he has done and where he has his degrees from. It is hard to phrase the information in a different way (I don't feel like being able to do that; others are invited to help fix the issue instead of replacing the whole article with a giant tag), and it is not possible to avoid following the CV's judgement of what is notable of what is not. I could say that "he has written for the Moscow Times" and drop every other item from the list of media outlets he has contributed to, but that would be WP:OR as I would be personally choosing which contribution is notable and not basing the selection on a source. Offliner (talk) 17:53, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
If it comes down to a choice between OR, which is forbidden by Wikipedia's policy, or copyright violation, which is forbidden by Wikipedia's policy and US law, I think we have to violate OR or leave a list of "selected publications" out altogether. I've so far not run into that situation; I've always either been able to locate multiple sources or to clearly distinguish inclusion criteria. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:52, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Trafford Training Centre

Text from Trafford Training Centre has been lifted and used almost verbatim (one word was altered) in the narration of a short documentary made by Manchester United F.C. about the centre, but no credit has been attributed to Wikipedia or the authors of that specific article. This is clearly a violation of the GFDL and/or the Creative Commons license that the article was submitted under. As one of the contributors to the article, and the author of the specific passage that was lifted, I had intended to telephone Manchester United to inform them of this, but I wondered what other Wikipedians would suggest as an alternative course of action first. – PeeJay 01:45, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Could you please add als:Wikipedia:Lizenzbestimmungen? Thanks, --Holder (talk) 19:48, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Motion picture stills

I would like to address the subject of the copyright of motion picture stills. First, a definition. A motion picture still is a still photograph taken by a still photographer (usually on a 4 x 5 negative) before or after a scene is photographed by a motion picture camera. It is not a frame enlargement or a screen capture.

For over a hundred years now, stills have been distributed freely (usually as 8 x 10 prints) by the studios to motion picture distributors, exhibitors, and to the media to publicize motion pictures. Typically, the still would carry a copyright notice on the bottom of the front, and a "snipe" (caption) on the back describing the scene pictured and what actors appear. Often a summary of the film's production credits would also appear at the bottom of the front.

The studios virtually never renewed the copyright on these motion picture stills. In over a decade of using the U.S. Copyright Office copyright renewal database, I have yet to see any renewal of the copyright for a motion picture still published before 1964 (those published from 1964 onward received an automatic copyright term renewal).

I bring this up at Wikipedia because there are those who attempt to throw roadblocks in the use of these pre-1964 stills. Some still erroneously assume that stills are frame enlargements, and thus are protected by the film's copyright. Others will understand that stills are separate works, but will claim that they probably are covered as derivative works, adaptations so to speak, of the film. I come here today to say that a federal court has in effect said that is not so. And this federal court is right in the Wikipedia Foundation's backyard.

The case involved the loss of copyright due to the failure to display a proper copyright notice on motion picture stills. However, the important thing to note is that no theory of a derivative copyright was recognized by the court. The copyright of the stills stood or fell on their own, as separate works from the film that they publicized. Here I quote from one of the case's headnotes at Westlaw:

Milton H. Greene Archives, Inc. v. BPI Communications, Inc., 378 F.Supp.2d 1189
C.D.Cal.S.Div.,2005
Photographs entered into general publication, forfeiting any copyright photographer had in them under 1909 Copyright Act, when photographer provided photographs without copyright notice to publicist and movie companies for dissemination to publicize motion pictures, when publicists and motion picture studios provided photographs without copyright notice to press and to theaters in campaign books with photographer's permission, and when photographs without copyright notice appeared in press, either accompanying article or in advertisement. 17 U.S.C.A. § 410.

This would also have implications for the copyright of motion picture posters published before 1964.

I hope that Wikipedia administrators and editors will keep this in mind when dealing with the use of published pre-1964 motion picture stills and movie posters from American motion pictures. — Walloon (talk) 19:07, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Looks like good info to me. Hopefully others will see it too. DreamGuy (talk) 20:39, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Comics image

There is a discussion on Talk:Star Sapphire (comics) regarding image File:StarSapphires01.jpg. The image used for the group Star Sapphires in the hero box. The image comes from Green Lantern: Blackest Night #0 which was part of Free Comic Book Day and could be interpreted as promotional material; however, the image seems to be part of a characters description page, similar to that of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and use of the images in wiki, let alone in the herobox, is a direct reduplication of their intended purpose, which I understand to be a copyright or fair-use violation. Additional input either here, or on the talk page would be appreciated. -Sharp962 (talk) 19:49, 24 July 2009 (UTC).

This seems like a very standard fair use rationale for an article: small scan of part of an image used to accompany it in an article directly discussing it with no hope of a free version. I don't see what it is you're concerned about, as this is both legal and extremely common here. DreamGuy (talk) 20:43, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
My concern was that it may be replicating the original intended use of the image, similar to a baseball card being used for a baseball player. The gray was that it is a promotional comic and not just a standard comic, at least for me. -Sharp962 (talk) 21:22, 24 July 2009 (UTC).

Licensing question

There is a question of licensing at Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems#James Temple. A contributor long ago placed content here that was licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA, which (of course) has never been compatible with Wikipedia's license. The article has subsequently been heavily edited and contains substantial new material (it has grown from 286 words to ~1570). The question is, since CC-By-NC-SA requires that "If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a licence identical to this one", are the contents contributed here by subsequent editors also a copyright violation of that original source, since the license is incompatible? In other words, must the roughly 1200 words of creative content that was contributed by Wikipedians be deleted along with the original text, if we cannot obtain permission to license the original under CC-By-SA? Please give feedback there. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:12, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

Could an admin please update the link to Wikipedia:Standard GFDL violation letter in the If you are the owner of Wikipedia-hosted content being used without your permission section of the page to Wikipedia:Standard license violation letter?

The current link is outdated, and could lead readers to assume that Wikipedia is still solely under the GFDL.

Thanks twilsonb (talk) 01:23, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

 Done. Thryduulf (talk) 01:59, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

General Services Administration building descriptions.

I came across the U.S. General Services Administration Historic Building Posters & Brochures series, so I wrote the administrator of that program to ask if the text and images on those pages was in the public domain, or otherwise available to be used by Wikipedia. She replied, by email:

The text on the building overview pages is the property of the federal government, and we have no problem with it being used for Wikipedia articles, provided credit is given to the U.S. General Services Administration. We are delighted to be able to contribute.

I have since copied all of the text of those pages to my userspace, indexed at User:BD2412/courthouses, with an attribution note at the bottom (which is clearly permissible under the express license granted by the GSA). The text will need a lot of work in terms of wikification, layout, and tone, and may end up much altered before it is moved to article space. My question is, does the permission provided by the GSA suffice to permit our use of the material, modified or not, in article space? As a matter of copyright law it certainly does, but does this also meet our internal policy requirements? bd2412 T 14:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm confused — in what way would our policies not permit such usage? Nyttend (talk) 15:33, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
That's what I'm asking, really. bd2412 T 22:02, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
We can use the text, but not because we received permission to use on Wikipedia only, which we normally wouldn't accept. However, since the General Services Administration is a federal government body, anything it creates, or its employees create in the course of their duties, is in the public domain. See also {{PD-USGov}}. Stifle (talk) 10:51, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
That's assuming that these are works of the U.S. government, which is probably the case, but not certain. If they were authored by non-U.S. government entities, and the copyrights licensed or transferred to the gov't, then section 105 does not apply. I think it's safe to say, however, that the person at the GSA is probably confused about their copyright status. TJRC (talk) 15:20, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

GFDL-only image and media uploads

I am proposing that images and media files uploaded after a cutoff date and licensed only under the GFDL be prohibited and subject to speedy deletion. Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Image use policy (not here). Stifle (talk) 10:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Question

Is it copyright violation if one copies one page of wikipedia to another other page within wikipedia without mentioning which article the stuff was copied from? I suppose not. But what about directly translating from Wikipedia in one language to Wikipedia in another language without attributing it to contributors of the original wikipedia? Would that constitute a copyright violation? Would you please quote the policy that applies here. Thanks --DoostdarWiki (talk) 06:43, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, in fact, it is a violation of copyright to copy material from one article to another without attribution or to translate without acknowledging the original. Wikipedia's licenses require that the copyright holders of material be acknowledged at minimum through a hyperlink or a URL. Wikipedians are bound by the same reuse conditions as outsiders. It is the section of this policy that begins, "To re-distribute text on Wikipedia in any form, provide credit to the authors...." Acknowledgment is held to be satisfied by providing a link in the edit summary of an article. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:38, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Thank you. --DoostdarWiki (talk) 06:37, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Logos of defunct companies

Not sure about this one. I have a logo of a defunct company that was published in 1918. The company probably stopped using the logo around 1923 but I think the company itself survived until the 1970s. My question is, should I upload this under {{PD-1923}} because it's an image published prior to 1923, or should I still use the "fair use" tag for logos? Thanks. Gatoclass (talk) 13:58, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

The logo is old enough that any copyright on it has expired (at least in the US), so the {{PD-1923}} tag is appropriate. It may or may not still be protected by trademark: if it is, then add the {{trademark}} tag as well. --Carnildo (talk) 23:04, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Carnildo! And my apologies for leaving it so late to respond. I've been very busy lately and I'm afraid I momentarily forgot about starting this thread. Gatoclass (talk) 04:58, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

PD dates

I've got a policy application question based on a recent copyright problem, pertaining to Wikipedia:Public domain and Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights. The latter says, without disclaimer, "Any work published before 1923 is in the public domain in the United States, regardless of its source country...." The former says, with footnote, "In the U.S., any work published before January 1, 1923 anywhere in the world is in the public domain." That footnote further adds:

Strictly speaking, only U.S. works published before January 1 1923 and foreign works published in compliance with U.S. formalities (registration, © notice) before that date are in the public domain in the U.S. For non-U.S. works published without compliance with U.S. formalities (i.e., without © notice), the situation is a bit more complicated:

  • If published before 1909, such works are in the public domain in the U.S.
  • If published between 1909 and 1922 (inclusive) in a language other than English, the Ninth Circuit has considered them as "unpublished works" according to Peter Hirtle and following the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case Twin Books v. Disney in 1996. The case was about the book Bambi, A Life in the Woods; the decision is heavily criticized in Nimmer on Copyright (ISBN 0-820-51465-9), the standard commentary on U.S. copyright law.
  • If published between 1909 and 1922 (inclusive) in English, they are highly likely to be PD, given that the aforementioned controversial case was only about a work published in a foreign language.
  • Additionally, any work first published outside of the United States without copyright notice prior to 1989, when the U.S. joined the Berne Convention, is in the public domain in the U.S. if it was in the public domain in its country of origin on the URAA date (in most cases January 1, 1996). See the section on country-specific rules for more information.

Also, the 1923 cut-off date applies only to the U.S. This means foreign works first published before 1923 are in the public domain in the U.S., but may still be copyrighted outside the U.S.

Given the footnote at the former, the statement at the latter seems misleading. My work never really dealt with the early stuff, but it seems we need to clarify a bit gray area. My copyright work off Wikipedia has never involved material of this age, so I am not as familiar with it as with some other aspects. But, based on the footnote, it seems we should alter those guidelines to read "Any work published before 1909 is in the public domain in the United States, regardless of its source country...." and add a further statement that "Works published between 1909 and January 1, 1923 may also be public domain in the United States, depending on the details of original publication" (including footnote of explanation). Is it possible to include some practical advice on how to verify the pd status of works published between 1909 and 1923?

Since this is mentioned in both those guidelines and is a standard often applied in determining whether content is PD, I thought to bring it up here, where it may attract more notice. I'll request input at the talk pages of both of those guidelines. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:50, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Seems sensible to clarify the guidelines (assuming people actually read them in a meaningful way). I would, however, be keen on keeping the 1923 headline figure, and in this respect, I think the footnote works nicely. To be fair, the 1923 date is everywhere and is about the simplest rule that exists in copyright law (having spent many happy hours using genealogy software to track down the dates of remote late nineteenth-century photographers here in the UK for use on Commons). I hope that makes sense! Also, the 1909 to 1922 period does seem ill-covered, but I am unfamiliar with how actively the Supreme Court decision is applied in reality. - Jarry1250 [ In the UK? Sign the petition! ] 16:17, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
It was not a Supreme Court decision; it was a circuit court level and is only binding in one judicial circuit. In general, the U.S. always uses its own copyright terms (even for URAA restored works), and under those terms anything published before 1923 is public domain. That one court case is sorta twisted; it decided that a work published in Germany in another language was still technically "unpublished" in the United States and retained copyright that way. I'm pretty sure that was in contradiction to many earlier cases, and I have not heard of it being cited in other cases (which would be needed to indicate courts in other districts approve of the reasoning). I've never heard of another case determining if something was "published" or not depending on the language it was written in. It personally feels like the decision contorted itself to get to a decision they felt was "right" (upholding copyright for a German author who *almost* got all the old registration requirements right). I'm pretty sure Commons pretty much ignores that decision, especially now that the URAA has rectified all those situations anyways, and just goes with the 1923 dividing line. The Hirtle chart pretty much says it only applies to part of the United States. Carl Lindberg (talk) 01:46, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
The only way to firmly check the 1909-1922 period would be to get sued and take it all the way to the Supreme Court. Generally speaking, Twin Books v. Disney is considered bad law, I don't know that it's ever been cited, and I think we're better off joining everyone else in ignoring it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:49, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
One little exception you forgot to your otherwise brilliant prose here in regards to copyright exceptions: Copyrighted works published prior to 1963 (not 1923) that had been formally registered with the Library of Congress but have not had their copyrights renewed, and were originally published in the United States. While I'll admit that this is an astonishingly small sliver of material, even for items published prior to 1963, it does represent surprisingly a fairly large amount of material in the sense of projects like Wikipedia and the Gutenberg project. It is also a fairly well defined list that can be created as these items were formally deposited with the Library of Congress.... and for most of the works easy to dismiss as well. Most of this is stuff that there is a reason why the copyright was never renewed. In a few cases a publisher "forgot" to renew copyright, and there are a few gems in that otherwise pile of rubbish.
This said, many other countries don't recognize that the copyright has expired on these works, so it is a bit of a stretch to say you are in the clear to actually use this content. I do wonder about the legal consequences of somebody trying to file a copyright lawsuit in an EU court on behalf of an author who lived and published their work in the USA and where that lawsuit is seeking compensatory damages from an American non-profit organization like the Wikimedia Foundation. It becomes a bit more toxic if you are filing a lawsuit against a citizen of an EU member nation who has added this content to Wikipedia or some other similar project in a place where the copyright is still considered to be in effect. It is this ambiguity that this "exception" is rarely mentioned, and there are many Wikipedians who would rather not even discuss this exception either and consider the exception to be bad Wikimedia policy to even accept.
From a public policy standpoint, I think copyright renewal was a good thing as was formal registration, and I find it unfortunate that works are considered automatically copyrighted upon publication. That is of course a political philosophy and not really a matter of debate over what the law actually is. --Robert Horning (talk) 11:11, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Yes, the discussion above was mainly about works first published outside the United States, since those copyrights were restored. After that, they are assumed properly registered and renewed, so 1923 is the dividing line for those. For works first published in the United States during that era, then the registration and renewals and proper copyright notices do come into effect. Commons policy is that works should be PD in the U.S. and the country of origin, so if U.S. works are public domain then they are fine there (and here, obviously). Works published prior to 1964 needed to be renewed (not 1963). The EU uses the rule of the shorter term, so U.S. works public domain in the U.S. are also generally public domain in the EU (and any other country using that rule, which is not all of them). Some countries may have specific, older copyright agreements with the U.S. which may mean they are still protected in those countries; users need to be aware of their own law. Determining if works were renewed can be rather difficult; the Copyright Office renewal records for books are online, which helps Gutenberg, but the visual arts renewal records are (to the best of my knowledge) not online, meaning it is near impossible to truly search for photographs (which is the most common type of file upload). Carl Lindberg (talk) 02:49, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Muhammad Muradyab Khan (Nawab Sarbuland Khan)

I tagged the above aricle and a similar one since they are verbatim copies from another website. Please see: A-History-of-SindVol-II license url and more detailed info. Information about the book status from the book url provided above: Date Added10/24/2007 Category Uncategorized. TagsHistory, of, India, Indian, conquest, history, ArabGroupsGroup_add Copyright Attribution Non-commercial However since then it has come to my attention that the book itself was published in 1902. Does that make it public domain? If this is the case, can (or should) the website requirement under their more restrictive copyright license be bypassed? Should the article remain here as is and the CSD tag removed? Thanks. Dr.K. logos 15:15, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

If the book was published in 1902, which it seems to be, then the text of that book is public domain in the United States, yes. Any annotations, or perhaps elements of the presentation, on the website may have their own copyright. But the raw text is fine. It looks like it was translated by a Mirza Kalichbeg Fredunbeg (died 1929), so it would be public domain in India too, presuming the original Persian book is out of copyright. Carl Lindberg (talk) 03:40, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
Thank you very much. This clears it up quite well. Take care. Dr.K. logos 20:07, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Dab needed

I need an admin to dab contributory infringement to contributory copyright infringement. --UncleDouggie (talk) 23:35, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Done. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:32, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I understand that the issue of UK Crown Copyright has been discussed at great length in the past, with the conclusion that such material is not suitable for Wikipedia even if it is covered by the waiver. I would be grateful if I could be directed to a record or summary of the debate on this topic before I waste people's time bringing it up again. Thanks — Labalius (talk) 13:27, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia

Wikipedia currently has the process pages for Help:Merge and WP:Split, but no clear guideline in place to ensure that contributors understand the attribution requirements for reusing text within Wikipedia. It is brushed on at WP:C, but not clear, and I believe that expanding its coverage there would muddy the waters of that policy's primary purpose. I would like to propose this new guideline to govern Help:Merge and WP:Split and to which contributors may easily be pointed when they inadvertently violate copyright by failing to attribute (and this happens all the time). Feedback and assistance at that talk page in reaching consensus would be very much appreciated. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:10, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia has several processes in place for dealing with limited copyright concerns--single articles or files, even a small grouping of these--but no workable process for dealing with massive multiple point infringement. While WP:COPYCLEAN has attempted to fill this gap with Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Contributor surveys, this solution is not ideal. It is difficult to publicize and to regulate, and in addition it may seem to suggest exclusivity. I hope that generalizing clean-up will encourage other contributors as well as making it easier to publicize the investigation option at relevant policies and guidelines. (To substantiate the need for this, I need only point out the listings currently at Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Contributor surveys and those few which have already archived. Additionally, these come up routinely at ANI, where response is hit-and-miss, depending on who is reviewing ANI in a given day.) The processes proposed are based on existing policies and practices for handling copyright problems (I've worked with many of these); the board is inspired in large part by WP:SPI. More information is available at the process page and in the purpose statement at the process talk.

I think this is critically needed. Wikipedia has chosen to address copyright concerns proactively, demonstrating due diligence, and when we know a contributor has widely violated copyright, we must have a streamlined process for handling it. The primary point for text copyright issues, WP:CP, cannot handle this specific situation: a listing such as Wikipedia:CCI/Singingdaisies would bring it to a halt.

Please help address this need. Your comments are much welcome at WT:CCI. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:38, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

PD Status of Illinois

Hi. A question has been raised about the PD status of public records in the State of Illinois. Evidently, "Information presented on the Secretary of State’s web site is considered public information and may be distributed or copied. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credit is requested." It doesn't mention modification, and I'm not sure if this is specific enough to be considered a release into public domain. With respect to text, it seems that we could defensibly incorporate extensive quotations, but can we work it directly into text to be modified as we do with US government text? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:04, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

No, it doesn't appear to allow derivative works. --NE2 12:56, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Moonriddengirl's plan makes sense. The policy doesn't allow and it doesn't forbid it either; assuming we know either way would be inappropriate. FYI: {{tl|PD-ILGov} is invalid; see Wikipedia:Public_domain_status_of_official_government_works--Elvey (talk) 19:04, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
Discussion moved from Wikipedia_talk:External_links#Link_to_films_on_Internet_Archive_that_are_PD_in_US_but_not_elsewhere_(Things_to_Come_and_others)

An interesting case not explicitly covered in WP:ELNEVER: According to the article about the British film Things to Come the film "lapsed into the public domain in the United States in 1964 [but] copyright remained in force in the UK, the European Union, and elsewhere". The Internet Archive, with headquarters in San Francisco, is thus distributing the film legally in the US. This case is not unique as there are several more films in PD in the US only but that may be copyrighted somewhere else in the world. It would be really sad if WP could not link to theese films. I suggest we change the sentence in WP:ELNEVER
from:
"Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work."
to either:
"Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work or is otherwise distributing the work legally."
or:
"Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work or is otherwise distributing the work legally in its country of origin."
(or some other clarification) and leave the legality of downloading to the websites' visitors. If we instead decide that this linking is not allowed the sentence should be clarified accordingly. --Bensin (talk) 00:21, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Well FWIW, since the servers are in the US, it's certainly legal to link to here. Not if it SHOULD be is a different matter of course... ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 01:10, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
Are the links widely functional outside of the US? If not, then they're unacceptable as external links per WP:ELNO #7.
If you haven't already shared this with them, I suspect that this issue will be of more interest over at WP:COPYLINK. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:40, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
Bensin's quoting did not include the most pertinent information on copyright, as per the film's page:
"The film came back into copyright in 1996 in the United States under the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), which - amongst other measures - amended US copyright law to reinstate copyright on films of non-US origin if they were still in copyright in their country of origin." (emphasis added)
Despite the recent ruling in Golan v. Gonzales, this remains at best a disputed issue. Nick Cooper (talk) 10:21, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
The fact of the matter remains that the URAA was rendered unconstitutional in the United States and at this time, linking to the above mentioned films would not be violating U.S. law, copyright or otherwise. If the situation is changed in future court rulings, then the wiki can adapt. As long as the sites being linked don't violate any standards, there's no legal exclusion for their use on Wikipedia. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing wrong with it ethically, either.
-K10wnsta (talk) 19:25, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:COPYLINK#Copyright_laws_by_country:
"The Wikimedia Foundation is based in the United States and accordingly governed by United States copyright law. Regardless, according to Jimbo Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, Wikipedia contributors should respect the copyright law of other nations."
In any case, it's rather naive to think that the final word on the URAA has been written, so why link to something that may well have to be removed again later? Nick Cooper (talk) 21:43, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
Of course it's naive to think that. I don't think anyone is. But not doing something because it may have to be changed later would be irresponsible methodology. One of Wikipedia's primary advantages is its fluid adaptability. Wikipedia is change.
The rationale behind Jimbo's statement was in keeping with our goal to re-use content on different language wikis. In the case of an EL (not so much article content), while its use here certainly warrants more thoughtful assessment, the ultimate decision should not be influenced in any way by speculation of how the law might change.
-K10wnsta (talk) 21:17, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Some discussion on the recent ruling on Talk:Golan v. Gonzales has put a different slant on this, in that it only applies to the URAA infringing on the rights of "reliance parties," i.e. those who were exploiting PD material at the time the URAA was passed. IANAL, but it seems to me that since the URAA was passed before IA even existed, then IA should not be hosting previously-PD films whose copyright was reinstated under URAA/GATT, which includes Things to Come. Nick Cooper (talk) 04:31, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm more interested in a general guideline for linking to films that are PD somewhere in the world but not somewhere else. Things to Come may have been an unfortunate example. There are a lot of films that are PD just in the US according to List of films in the public domain in the United States, that are not part of URAA and Golan v. Gonzales and that are available on the Internet Archive. If it's allowed to link to these films on the IA i wish it explicitly stated in the guideline. If it's not, I wish that explicitly stated.
WhatamIdoing: Yes, there seems to be some overlap between WP:ELNEVER and WP:COPYLINK. Any chance of merging the two into one guideline? --Bensin (talk) 01:38, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
It should be noted that, despite their policy statements, a production being on IA is no guarantee that it is PD anywhere. Most of the documentaries of Adam Curtis are on IA, and are an interesting example. Although the overall copyright to them is owned by the BBC, they contain much archive material that has only been licensed for TV broadcast use, and in some cases despite high demand it has been stated that it would not be possible to release them on DVD. This has not stopped people from uploading them to IA and claiming them as PD. Nick Cooper (talk) 11:49, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Bensin, personally, I'd put the odds of merging COPYLINK and ELNEVER at basically zero. COPYLINK is part of the copyright policy, and there's no compelling reason to remove it from that context, or to "demote it" to "mere" guideline status. This guideline should (and does) point people to it for more information (because editors might reasonably look here for information on that issue), but COPYLINK "owns" that issue. ELNEVER simply reports what other pages have decided. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing:I see what you mean. In that case I agree that this discussion perhaps better belongs at WP:COPYLINK. Should we move it there? --Bensin (talk) 20:48, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
If you think that the information above requires a specific action from Wikipedia, then yes. Discussions at WP:EL cannot change the text at WP:COPYLINK. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

←I'm not entirely sure what's wanted here with respect to this policy. :) At this point, I don't think I would support amending it to include this specific situation. Policies typically need to remain general to avoid bloat. While the Internet Archive itself may merit the mention it has, it is prone to being cited in any article. This would seem to affect a small subsection. The sentence amendments proposed at the head seem rather specific to WP:ELNEVER. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:29, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree that the policy must remain general. But I want it to also include the case mentioned above, namely when a website is distributing a work worldwide and this distribution is only legal in some areas (for example where the work is in the public domain) but the distribution may be illegal somewhere else where the work still remains copyrighted. I want it to be explicitly allowed to link to sites like these from Wikipeida as it is up to the distributing website to block foreign IP-addresses or up to its visitors to refrain from downloading the material. --Bensin (talk) 17:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Well, while Wikipedia tries to respect copyright laws of other nations, it is itself bound by US law, which means that if the work is illegal in the United States, it doesn't matter if it's legal in (say) Korea. Our linking to it could be seen as contributory infringement in our own governing nation, regardless of the legality of the material in another country. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Then I suppose the opposite is also true. That linking to a site that is legally distributing a work in the US is OK regardless of the work's copyright status in other countries. --Bensin (talk) 15:35, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
Legally, yes, as indicated in Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights: "While Wikipedia prefers content which is free anywhere in the world it accepts content which is free in the United States even if it may be under copyright in some other countries." However, while consensus can't override the copyright laws that say we can't use if it's copyrighted in the US, consensus can impose stricter standards than law requires. There is Foundation mandate to respect US copyright law; the degree to which we respect (or not) the copyright laws of other nations (as this policy notes Wales says we should) is a matter for community discussion. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:47, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
Oh, but by way of a "nota bene": see National Portrait Gallery copyright conflicts. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:48, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
Since Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights (and National Portrait Gallery copyright conflicts) is referring to material uploaded to Wikipedia, I assume you mean the same is true for external links from Wikipedia to another site by means of extrapolation? --Bensin (talk) 22:32, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I'm sorry if that wasn't clear. Wikipedia is subject to prosecution under US laws, which makes staying within them (including on matters of contributory infringement) mandatory. Everything else is up to community consensus (or additional Foundation mandate). But National Portrait Gallery copyright conflicts is a bit of a warning to contributors that this situation may someday change. Depending on how the dust eventually settles on such matters, it is possible that a contributor could link to a film that is legally free in the United States only to be sued by an entity in a nation where it is not. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:48, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Linkable source for song lyrics

18-Nov-2009: I have found a legal source for song lyrics, LyricsTime.com, which (for 2 years) has had no slow, pop-up adverts, but might not have some particular songs. See:

That webpage, for the musical Show Boat, has a bottom DISCLAIMER:

"You must agree to the following statement or leave this website. All Show Boat Soundtrack - Cant Help Lovin Dat Man lyrics, artist names and images are copyrighted to their respective owners. All Show Boat Soundtrack - Cant Help Lovin Dat Man song lyrics are restricted for educational and personal use only." [bold type from original]

I think that disclaimer sufficiently covers the copyright concerns, and plus having no sluggish pop-up ads (for over 2 years), I think it should be considered an acceptable, linkable source for text that describes or analyzes song lyrics. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:42, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Unless they have legally licensed the lyrics, we can't use it. I don't see any indication that they have been legally licensed. What makes you believe they are legal? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:45, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Since there's been no further discussion here, I presume there is no evidence of legal licensing. I'm removing the link accordingly. (In addition to this policy, see the policy at WP:NOT#LYRICS: "Never link to the lyrics of copyrighted songs unless the site linked to clearly has the right to quote the work." That clear right hasn't been established. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:40, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

The trials of war

The UK government has just released thousands of aerial reconnaissance photographs from the Second World War. Of course, they have tried to do so under a personal/educational use only licence… what's more, the licence is subject to Scots law which, while being a noble and ancient legal system, rarely has much to say about copyright matters! If anyone feels like complaining about this ludicrous situation, feel free: the home page for the collection is here. Physchim62 (talk) 14:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

This is great news. But what are you trying to say, copyright-wise? How is this ludicrous? Complain to whom? What ,if anything, makes them public domain exactly? Scots law? I don't see a tag here that applies. But a FUR for educational use could fly. I'm happy to be educated. There certainly are cases where we ignore bogus copyright notices. archive's notice. --Elvey (talk) 19:22, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
UPDATE: WP:Crown_copy#Crown_copyrights says: "For photographs taken before June 1, 1957, Crown copyright expires 50 years after the creation of the image. All such photographs are therefore in the public domain.

There is the template {{PD-BritishGov}} to tag images which are claimed to be in the public domain under these rules." I don't think we want to import all '10 million' or so images, however.--Elvey (talk) 19:57, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

List articles, take 2,750

Hi. There is a question about university rankings at Wikipedia talk:CP#Global University Ranking. More feedback would be very much appreciated. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:12, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Translation without attribution

Martin Schneider looks like a translation of the german article de:Martin Schneider but the history is missing, the fact it is a translation isn't mentioned anywhere either. Is there any place to report this so the history can be imported (or at least a template added or whatever should be done in that case? --Schuhpuppe (talk) 22:50, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

It is a translation, as is noted in the edit summary of the very first entry in the article history (2007-01-28). I don't see what purpose would be served by importing the aticle history from dewiki over here. Physchim62 (talk) 23:02, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
The summary is sufficient, as Physchim62 notes, but I've also added the template to the talk page that is recommended in Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:17, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

States

{{editrequested}} Current text:

  • Also, most state and local governments in the United States do not place their work into the public domain and do in fact own the copyright to their work. Please be careful to check copyright information before copying.

Let's provide more info here. How 'bout making "most" or "check copyright information" link to this: http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_the_U.S._government#State_and_Local_Governments_in_Florida.2C_California.2C_and_Minnesota

Here's the replacement text I suggest:

  • Also, most state and local governments in the United States do not place their work into the public domain and do in fact own the copyright to their work. Please be careful to check the copyright information here before copying.

--Elvey (talk) 18:27, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

  • cutting inMay I suggest another version?:
  • In addition, most state and local governments in the United States do not release their work into the public domain and do in fact own the copyright to their work. Please make sure to check copyright information before using their work.
173.130.184.19 (talk) 06:21, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure why Florida, California, and Minnesota should be picked out there, but perhaps a link to that article might be useful. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:01, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
I think they're the only states that place the bulk of their works into the public domain. --Elvey (talk) 22:30, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
 Done. I've incorporated both suggestions. Hope this is okay. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:31, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Great!--Elvey (talk) 08:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

CSB II - for Flagged Revisions / Patrolled Revisions Feature Identification

Good day,

In the context of the "any day now" trial on Flagged Revisions, the thought's been floating around (well, OK, I plead guilty on at least part of that) on running User:CorenSearchBot(CSB) on newly patrolled revisions in order to start tracking down on all of these copyvios added in existing articles.

This discussion here is meant to determine how the new bot should be implemented and how we will interact with it.

For context, Patrolled Revisions are generated whenever a user with the Reviewer flag (yet to be determined who gets this flag and how) validates changes on an article, these changes will then, and only then, appear to the viewer.

Reviewers need to conform to the following criteria in order to "sign off" a new revision (or series of revisions) for public viewing:

A revision should not be marked as patrolled if it:
  • conflicts with the Biographies of Living People policy
  • contains vandalism or patent nonsense
  • contains copyright violations
  • contains legal threats, personal attacks or libel.''

The item about copyvio is the one that will present the biggest headache for human reviewers. There's therefore been some considerations given to unleash CorenSearchBot on newly patrolled revisions to help out cracking down on these.

I see two main challenges to overcome:

  1. Whitelisting: the main reason CSB isn't scanning live articles is because of the zillion wikipedia mirrors in existence that may duplicate our content. This is bound, in particular at the beginning, to generate hundreds of false positives
  2. Sheer volume of listings: it is highly likely that CSB II, out of our 3M+ articles, will find thousands of true positives, which will have to be handled manually one by one.

CSB II possible feature list

Here are some of my own thoughts around these.

  • For many reasons, among other identification, CSB II should run and report separately
  • We should have a solid whitelisting method
  • When CSB II checks a positive, parse the rest of the alleged source document and see if there's a link back to the Wikipedia article it is checking, if yes ignore the entry / alternatively, create a separate listing for manual checking
  • A positive will flag the article as unreviewed by adding a new brand of CSB notice
  • The user feedback will be sent to the reviewer asking for his help to identify
  • The log of positives will be rolled over for one month at first, to avoid the same article being reviewed twice with the same copyvio in there (though a reviewer should certainly not patrol an article that has a CSB notice since the previous review)
  • Possibly, an additional warning could be written by the bot on the article's talk page, to ensure wider help with the cleanup.

Thoughts? MLauba (talk) 16:34, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree whole-heartedly with the separate running and reporting. We need to prioritize cleanup, I think, to address newest violations sooner, since downstream users may not have picked these up. While due diligence requires cleaning up everything, our best potential for reducing harm to copyright holders is in addressing newer issues. If CSB bot could look for a reference to Wikipedia, that would spare a lot of time. I wonder if it could also check the source against Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks? (I don't really have much grasp of what bots can and cannot do. sometimes I ask things that I think will be easy only to find they're undoable, while things I may think will be hard have proven to be easy.)
The notification ideas here seem sound. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:11, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Codon adaptation index

I have stumbled across Codon adaptation index and the article is a direct copy of the site listed, but the site does not have a copyright on it. What is WP policy in this case? --MWOAP (talk) 03:00, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi. A notice is not necessary in the United States copyright law, which governs the Wikimedia Foundation. Copyright is presumed in the absence of clear evidence otherwise. Frequently, we might blank such an article and list it for review at Wikipedia:Copyright problems (using the template {{subst:copyvio}}), but there are a couple of things we can do first to make sure it is warranted. (These steps are essential for the reviewing admin, but not essential for the user who detects the problem. However, they can certainly save time and unnecessary drama. :)
First, I'd check the source to be sure it didn't copy from us. There are a couple of ways to do this. We can check Wayback to see if the site clearly predates the text here. We can check the history of the article to see if the material evolved gradually.
With this one, it definitely didn't. I see that there was conversation about it at Talk:Codon adaptation index, with some users wondering if it would be covered under GPL, a free license somewhat similar to the ones we use. At this point, that license is immaterial. Wikipedia can only accept material compatible with WP:CC-BY-SA as of November 2008, and this text (added in April 2009) would not be compatible even if it is GPL. There is also indication at the talk page that the introductory paragraph is a copyvio, which I'll look into.
Generally, if we cannot verify that the source is free and there is good evidence that they had it first, we have three options: clean the article, rewrite the article, or delete the article. Our copyright policy is clear that we cannot use material that is dubious. Generally, if there are clean versions in history, it may be possible to revert to that, with a {{subst:cclean}} on the article's talk page to make sure that it is not returned. If not, interested contributors may choose to replace the entire contents with a new article, either using {{subst:cclean}} again or requesting deletion of old versions of the article with {{Copyvio-histpurge}}. To simply stop publication of the copyvio while giving other contributors a chance to either rewrite it or confirm permission (or to allow an admin to investigate the history), {{subst:copyvio}} is appropriate.
Anyway, I'll take over this one, but this is fyi. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:26, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Policy cat

I'm conforming WP:LOP to the recent changes, and I see that page has a "legal and copyright" section. That suggests this page and maybe WP:COPYVIO should be in the legal cat, but that's up to anyone who wants to argue the point on this page. It looks like we're done with the general categorization effort. - Dank (push to talk) 19:31, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I conformed LOP to the current policy subcats and their contents yesterday; since the subcat is currently named "Wikipedia legal policy", that's what I used. I have no objection to whatever direction you guys want to go with this ... we could have a new subcat called Wikipedia copyright policy, or this page could join the legal subcat or remain outside the 6 current subcats. - Dank (push to talk) 13:42, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Legal policy is fine IMO. MLauba (talk) 13:57, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Okay, I'm ready to roll with the "legal" suggestion. On a related note: please see my comment at WT:Copyright violations#Experiment. - Dank (push to talk) 19:02, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

In an effort to try to come up with some solutions for massive and/or chronic backlogs on copyright issues (such as at WP:PUF, WP:SCV and WP:CCI), I've opened a discussion at Areas for Reform. Please contribute, if you have any ideas. I think there's a critical need. At this moment, WP:PUF has images that have been listed for over three months, while there are literally hundreds of articles and images still waiting review at WP:CCI. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:40, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Forgot to add the legal policy template; I've done that now. We haven't really had the discussion about what it should look like ... we only got consensus that we might want it to be different from the usual policy template. There haven't been any complaints so far about the spartan look of the current one, so maybe people are okay with it as is, but if you'd like to change it, feel free to suggest a change at Template:legal policy. - Dank (push to talk) 18:41, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Some people prefer to do the shortcut box separately from the legal policy template; since this page is protected, I won't make the edit unless there's agreement to do it. - Dank (push to talk) 18:42, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Looking for a quick decision that will reduce the list of legal policy pages from 11 to 7; link is WT:POLICY#Tweak to list of legal policies. That would make a legal policy sidebar more appealing. - Dank (push to talk) 02:49, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, no objections and the deed is done; feel free to revert. Template:Wikipedia copyright currently lists WP:GFDL and WP:CC-BY-SA in the "policy" section; would it make sense to replace those two links with WP:Wikimedia policy, or not? - Dank (push to talk) 20:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
Also, just added the Template:legal policy list sidebar per WP:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_70#Policy_templates since we're down to 6 legal policy pages ... this page is protected, so I'll revert that edit myself if any non-admin asks me to. - Dank (push to talk) 21:19, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I have a recently-published book which covers the early years of aviation. All of the images used are said to come from Getty Images. It claims "Photographs (c) 1997 Getty Images". Since some of the early images, e.g. in the first decades of the 20th century, were taken in the USA and Europe by unknown photographers over 70 years ago, these would presumably be considered as being in the public domain. Is the retrospective copyright claim by Getty Images legally valid and enforceable? There is no image attribution appendix in the book. Thanks. --TraceyR (talk) 09:25, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, really, the only bar for the US photographs is to show they are in the public domain. Being indisputably in the public domain per Bridgeman vs. Corel (assuming they are just slavish copies), you should have no problem uploading them. You could also assert that that held for European photographs, but it's far more complicated a situation. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 09:52, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the reference to Bridgeman vx. Corel. It would seem that the blanket claim "(c) 1997" is, at least for some of the photographs, intimidatory bluster by Getty Images. I'd like some sort of WP ruling before risking the legal wrath of Getty Images (and the zeal of the WP sopyright watchdogs) before uploading images! Is there a WP committee which rules on such issues? Thanks again. --TraceyR (talk) 11:33, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree that many of Getty's copyright notices are copyfraud, especially if they are trying to claim a separate copyright on the scans. There is, however, one problem: should we be assuming that the photographer is unknown? And what about first publication details? This is information that Getty Images has, but we don't. If Getty comes along and says "this photograph was taken by Jean Deau, a French citizen who died in 1954, and was first published in 1926 in American Magazine", we'd have no choice but to take the image down. Physchim62 (talk) 11:47, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
The best place for such a conversation is Commons, since that's where free images belong, and it's the community that would be judging the uploaded images. That said, I tend to agree with Physchim62 that the issue may be complex. Images are not my major area, but based on Commons:Licensing, it seems that the year of initial publication is important here, if Bridgeman does not apply. According to that document, if the US pictures in this book were unpublished before 1978 and the photographer is unknown, the copyright persists for either 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation. If the works were published between 1923 and 1978, they are copyrighted for 95 years from publication. (See also Wikipedia:PD#Unpublished works.) Though there's really no forum where you can get pre-approval in such a way to guarantee that images will never be deleted, copyright questions on Commons are generally taken to Commons:Commons talk:Licensing. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:43, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks to all. The reason I asked here was that WP has, I believe, slightly less demanding criteria than Commons and as I only contribute to the English-language WP (as a rule), the 70-year-rule would seem to apply. My main area of interest is early aviation (pre-1930 or so), so most images will be at least 80 years old, many (but not all of them) anonymous; some were first published as postcards, usually without a photographer's name but sometimes with a publisher's or printer's name. I don't like what seems to be a less than honest approach by Getty Images and would like to get to the bottom of this matter somehow sometime. It's not as simple as I thought! --TraceyR (talk) 20:40, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

DAB

{{Editprotected}} Please add WP:COPYEDITORS, Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors to the 2nd DAB hatnote. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 18:37, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Where? Can you link a section, please? - Rjd0060 (talk) 00:04, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Can I just say that all those notes for users experienced enough to use a redirect, but not experienced enough to check which redirect they are using, seem to me like they would be massively confusing to many of our readers ? Are we sure we want to defile our page that explains a very confusing concept, the copyright status of Wikipedia to our users, with these notes ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:24, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't know if it's so much defiling the page, but I agree that it could be confusing. :) The guild of copy editors is linked from Wikipedia:How to copy-edit, which is already hatted. I wonder if that's enough. People experienced enough to be looking for a WikiProject may be experienced enough to take the additional step if the "copy" shortcut doesn't get them where they want to go. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Does anyone know the answer to this? (a) If I ask someone to take a photograph of me, and they do so on their cell phone, do they own the copyright, or do I? (b) If they take the photograph of me on my cell phone, does that change the copyright?

The image in question has become famous. The subject of the image has released it under cc-by. The question is whether he has the right to do that, or does the photographer need to be the one who releases it? SlimVirgin TALK contribs 20:14, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know of any legal precedent (I'll poke and see if I come up with one, but no longer have access to any databases), but I believe in both cases copyright is likely owned by the photographer. The copyright in any creative work belongs to the creator except when it is a "work for hire." [13] sets out some of the distinguishing factors of a work made for hire. These are either (a) works made by an employee in the scope of employment or (b) works commissioned under certain circumstances "if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire." In "work for hire" considerations, who owns the instruments used to create the expression may be considered, but the photographer is unlikely to be considered an employee unless he meets certain factors, so ownership of the cell phone is unlikely to affect copyright ownership. Few people would bother with a written contract in such a case.
These kinds of cases seem to me generally unlikely to come up for court action except in situations like the one you're discussing. A case like that could wind up landmark. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:45, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Okay, thank you, that's very interesting. I'm trying to contact all the parties, but so far can't find the photographer, who is the key person. Time magazine used this as one of their images of the year in 2005, and a lawyer of theirs got involved trying to establish copyright, because one of the image companies that distribute images like this (it wasn't Getty Images, but a similar company, I forget the name) reportedly tried to claim the copyright. As I understand it, copyright remained unclear even after the lawyer got involved. The reason the issue has arisen now is that User:Fastilysock thinks it should be deleted, [14] so I'm trying to track down all concerned to determine once and for all whether this was released properly. See the image page for what I know so far. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 21:19, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

List article: Copyright?

Hi. A question has been raised at WT:CP about yet another list article. Determining whether these violate copyright requires determining whether human creativity is involved in the information. More input would be very much appreciated there. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Question on cropping

Hello. I don't know if this has been asked before, but I have a question. If an image is currently unavailable as free-use but is still on here, having (at the time of its upload) been cleared as free-use, is it possible to crop that image and still claim free-use? The image in question is this, which I would like to use to crop out images of Victor Cook and Greg Weisman. Thank you, The Flash I am Jack's complete lack of surprise 00:44, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I assume you mean this... the answer is yes. Once freely licensed, it stays that way, which means we can do any of the activities allowed by that license -- which easily including cropping. The author is no longer distributing it under the original license, which makes it harder to prove, but Commons seemingly does have evidence the image was licensed that way, which is not a revocable license, and making use of the work should be fine. But, it's not likely we'll get a higher resolution version, and those crops may be pretty small ;-) The author and license of the crop should be the same as the original, since a crop really isn't a derivative work (not a creative act, in most cases) but rather a copy. If on commons, you can use the Commons:Template:Extracted from template to note that the image was pulled from the larger one (which also identifies the source). Carl Lindberg (talk) 06:59, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
It wouldn't be allowed here (on Commons) if you couldn't modify it. Rocket000 (talk) 07:03, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Oh, okay. Thanks a bunch! The Flash I am Jack's complete lack of surprise 23:59, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

The burden of proof is on the Wikipedia editor to prove this

When indisputably copyrighted material is not available online, or only available behind a paywall, and the material appears on a open web site with a correct citation, does the Wikipedia editor have to prove that the appearance of the material on this open web site is authorized by the copyright holder to the publisher of the open web site before citing it in an Wikipedia article with a link to that web site? If the answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no, please elaborate. patsw (talk) 03:04, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

This is mostly covered in WP:COPYLINK. There's no requirement that sources be available online or for free, so we shouldn't link to works that we know are copyrighted and where there's no indication of permission. If a source is impossible to verify except through a "convenience link" then that's a separate issue.   Will Beback  talk  03:43, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

If WP:COPYLINK is explicit about the burden of proof issue I raise here, please point that out. My read of WP:COPYLINK is that only if the editor is aware of the copyright violation does a prohibition apply:

patsw (talk) 04:32, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

The burden is always on the editor adding the material. Is there some reason why it's necessary to add the link?   Will Beback  talk  04:39, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
As the Harper's link is behind a paywall, the source can't be readily verified without the convenience link.--Drrll (talk) 10:17, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
The source can easily be verified by someone paying to access it, or, if it's in print, by buying a copy or finding it in a library. Ty 14:27, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Virtually every decent library in the US has back issues of Harper's, so it is not difficult to access.   Will Beback  talk  17:17, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
My read of WP:COPYLINK is that only if the editor is aware of the copyright violation does a prohibition apply. Of course, some burdens are on the editor. Let's discuss this one burden in particular: if WP:COPYLINK imposes on Wikipedia editors, explictly, one to prove in order to link to copyrighted material on a site other than the copyright holder that its publisher has permission of the copyright holder. patsw (talk) 12:21, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Are you asking if we are required to prove permission? If so, I don't think so, no, but there should be some reason to believe that the content is legally used. Often, this requires considering the nature and reputation of the publishing website and what relationship, if any, exists between the copyright holder and the website. Similar conversations took place recently at WT:IRS and at RSN. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:37, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
As WP:COPYLINK already states, the context is important. Imagine I wanted to link to a music video, and I could link to it on YouTube or on a fansite: I would assume that the copyright holder, especially if it is a major label, had given at least tacit permission for it to appear on YouTube because infriging videos are frequently removed from that site; for a fansite, it would be much less clear. Similarly with film trailers (although these are often available on the copyright holder's site). My reading of WP:COPYLINK is that it gives a reason to remove links which are blatant contributory infringement, for example a link to a Bit Torrent site with the whole of a movie available. I don't think it places any greater obligation on the editor than the simple common sense test of "official and/or well-run sites = GOOD; unofficial and/or badly run sites = BAD". Physchim62 (talk) 14:22, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
In this instance, the article is available for sale from the publisher[15], but the version from a blog page favored[16] by User:Drrll evades paying the fee to the publisher. There is very little doubt in my mind that WP:COPYVIO policy here is not to evade paying the fee to the publisher. SaltyBoatr (talk) 20:23, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
That would be a pretty strong context clue of the sort Physchim62 is talking about, I would think. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:32, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
I have seen other major websites host articles that aren't available for free on the actual publication's website, and I'm not talking about user forums where there probably are copyright violations. Since Discoverthenetworks.org is a major website (not a blog as SaltyBoatr claimed) under David Horowitz's editorial control (a former academic and a prolific author who knows a thing or two about copyrights), I believe that the more likely scenario is that the site has procured permission.--Drrll (talk) 01:09, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
How do we know that he has permission? We're just guessing that he might?   Will Beback  talk  03:37, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I believe Drrll does not have a burden of proof to show that Discoverthenetworks.org obtained permission from Harper's. If DTN were notorious as lyrics web sites or if Harper's went public with a complaint against DTN, then that would be a trigger for "if you know..." and the link would not be allowed. patsw (talk) 02:36, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

There's no clear reason for adding the link. The article is still available on the publisher's own website, and the publication is widely held in U.S. libraries, so verification isn't a real problem. No one has asked for help verifying the material.   Will Beback  talk  03:37, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
The reason could be as simple as the editor thinks it is helpful to have the link available. This is an WP:AGF matter: The editor doesn't know it to be a copyright violation. patsw (talk) 04:15, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps it's a coincidence, but the website that the editor wants to link to is highly partisan. Unless there's a very good reason, it appears that it'd be best to avoid linking to this site, especially since there's no real problem with verification.   Will Beback  talk  04:19, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
WP:AGFC is somewhat specialized when it comes to copyright. There's no good reason to risk contributory copyright infringement for Wikipedia if the original itself can be cited and licensing is not explicit at the secondary site. But this may not have to remain a mystery. I'll contact Harper's through my WP:OTRS account. If they confirm that they have permitted the material, then only the question of the neutrality or non-neutrality of the hosting site need be considered. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:28, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Individuals who have access to the Wikimedia e-mail system will be able to see my letter at Ticket:2010041010014681. I will update when there's something to report for the benefit of those who do not. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:41, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Moonriddengirl, is it possible that proper copyright permission to the Harper's article could have been granted by the author of the article instead of by Harper's itself?--Drrll (talk) 13:44, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
It depends on the terms of publication with Harper's. If the original author has (as frequently is the case) assigned rights to the publisher, then they do not have the rights to permit the work to be published on that site. Harper's should clarify if they do not claim copyright to the content. Considering that Harper's have renewed copyright on their own back catalog under claim of their own copyright, I suspect that they do. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:58, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
I do think it would be helpful to have the link available. It is coincidental that the only accessible site hosting the article is an ideological site. The page linked to just has the Harper's article, not some additional comment on the article. If the article were available freely from Harper's, that would obviously be the first choice; if it were available from a less ideological source then that would be my second choice.--Drrll (talk) 13:36, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
It is hardly "the only accessible site hosting the article". This article is available at nearly every public library in physical form and indeed, it is easily available online from the website of my local public library to anyone with a library card, and library cards are given out for free. SaltyBoatr (talk) 21:06, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
It's accessible that way only if you assume that the reader of the SPLC article has a library card handy (not a huge number these days), that their library subscribes to the necessary database, and that their library offers access to the database from outside the library (unless they don't mind taking a trip to the library). That would exclude a large segment of the population.--Drrll (talk) 02:02, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
That is not a relevant argument. Per WP:SOURCEACCESS: "The principle of verifiability implies nothing about ease of access to sources: some online sources may require payment, while some print sources may be available only in university libraries." Ty 04:32, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
You're right about source access and verifiability. That only speaks, however, to whether a source should be included in an article at all, since WP content must be verifiable. It would improve the SPLC article for the user to be able to read the Harper's article that is referenced twice.--Drrll (talk) 11:42, 11
It would be helpful to readers to provide copies of all kinds of sources, but that's not how copyright works. The source is "Harper's Magazine". The link to David Horowitz's Discover the Networks is not necessary for verification.   Will Beback  talk  11:48, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
I realize that's not how copyright works and that the free access link to the article isn't necessary for verification. Once we find out Harper's response to the inquiry about copyright, we'll know whether it's on the DTN website under permission, and thus whether it can be used in the SPLC article.--Drrll (talk) 18:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
As I expected, neither DTN nor Harpers answered the emails I sent them. patsw (talk) 03:50, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for asking them, Patsw. I also asked DTN/DHFC and didn't get a response back. Moonriddengirl hasn't said whether she got a response from Harper's, but it doesn't seem likely. You would think that Harper's would complain or ask that the article be yanked from DTN if they had a problem with its use.--Drrll (talk) 18:29, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
No, I'm afraid I haven't received any response. But I'm afraid that lack of response from the webmaster can't be taken to indicate approval. It could also just be that the webmaster doesn't know. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:32, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

This page has this text: Someone holds the copyright unless they have been explicitly placed in the public domain. Images, video and sound files on the internet need to be licensed directly from the copyright holder or someone able to license on their behalf.

I suggest that this wording is more accurate: We presume that all works are subject to someone's copyright unless they can be shown to be in the public domain. Copyrighted images, video and sound files on the internet need to be licensed directly from the copyright holder or someone able to license on their behalf.

I suggest this change because there are some works which are not subject to copyright, and never have been. Thus "placed in the public domain" is not accurate because they were never copyrighted. Similarly, these works don't need to be licensed from anyone.

Anybody object to this change? --RussNelson (talk) 00:16, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Though I agree with the first sentence, I am a bit worried that the second will be taken out of context. We get enough people saying, "It didn't have a copyright notice" as it is. :) What about "Accordingly, images, video and sound files on the internet need to be licensed directly from the copyright holder or someone able to license on their behalf unless they can be verified to be free of copyright"? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:04, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Strong oppose in the proposed form. We presume language will inevitably lead to arguments and wikilawyering around the notion of presumption. If you want to clarify the public domain language, Someone holds the copyright unless it can be shown explicitly that the works are in the public domain is something I can live with. MLauba (talk) 10:48, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Fair enough. How about this: Someone holds a copyright unless there is cited evidence that the works are in the public domain. Without that evidence, images, video and sound files need to be licensed directly from the copyright holder or someone able to license on their behalf. Is that an improvement? --RussNelson (talk) 03:43, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Yup, I can go with that myself. MLauba (talk) 10:19, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
The only problem I see is whose public domain. Take the Sherlock Holmes stories for example. It is easy to show all the works are public domain in the UK but that is not the case in the United States. However comments about Holmes even being copyrighted in the US are vague. Also thanks to Golan v. Holder any work that went public domain in the US will remain public domain even if it copyright in it country of origin is extended.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:46, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

edit to section If you are the owner of content...

I suggest the following editing of the section If you are the owner of Wikipedia-hosted content being used without your permission.

  • Bold the template to be used by the copyright owner
  • Alter the following words as shown below, inserting underlined words, striking struck-through words. A page so templated will in a short time be reviewed and deleted if the claim of copyright violation is reviewed as substantiated by an administrator. The embedded link to WP:CSSD#G12 is helpful to explain to those who don't know, under what authority admins may delete.
  • "Inversely" is a weird word choice.

Suggested edit... --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:01, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

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 and replace it with the words {{copyvio|URL or place you published the text}} but the text will still beremain in the page history until a volunteer administrator reviews your action and deletes the infringing material. Either way, we will, of course, need some evidence to support your claim of ownership.

Inversely, iIf you are the editor of a Wikipedia article and have found a copy hosted without following the licensing requirements for attribution, please see Wikipedia:Standard license violation letter.

Sounds good to me in general, but a few points: G12 is not what gives admins the authority to delete non-foundational copyright violations. That's Wikipedia:Copyright violations. And sometimes content that is marked with {{copyvio}} is not deleted; sometimes articles are reverted to clean or content is simply removed. That's why it says "will still be in the page history", I believe: this section seems to have been written under the presumption that will happen. We do not yet have a policy of expunging all copyright violations from article histories, though personally when violations are extensive I frequently do. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:45, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
You remind me of an unclear issue... Some people think that any copyright infringing material must be deleted from public access, while others say that it is sufficient to merely remove it from the current version. I suppose the question is: Is copyright infringing material available in the history of an article considered z problem? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:03, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
That depends entirely on the person you're talking to. To some, no, it's no problem. As long as its not actively published, they feel we're clear. I myself worry about inadvertent restoration of the content, but not to the point that I selectively delete every copyvio in the history of every article. (For me, it depends on how long it's been there and how much it is.) As policy is written, no, it's not considered a problem. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:02, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
I support deleting such revisions, if technically possible and not onerous, and especially where users have made efforts to restore them. On the other hand, admins have declined most or all of my requests for WP:Selective deletion. Flatscan (talk) 04:36, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Maybe this is worth WP:RFC or WP:VPPing at some point. I'm getting ready to travel through most of May, but I know that there's a pretty wide divide and some consensus from the community might be a good thing. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:22, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Other possible uses of WP:COPY

I put the following hatnote on the page Copying. I know it's weird, but this is how I search for Wikipedia guideline or policy pages. Over time, I suppose I'll remember "WP:" if I know that's the sort of thing I'm searching for. In the case of the hatnote below, though, I needed some guidance on copying and pasting where two articles, one a stub, had similar content and I felt I needed to redirect the stub.

For copying policy in Wikipedia, see WP:Copying within Wikipedia.

I brought this up on The Village Pump, but got no answer there. I shouldn't have asked a two-part question, I guess. I thought there was a template problem involving the hatnote I was using to format.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:06, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

It seems like a self-reference that should be removed (WP:Self-references to avoid#Examples of self-references as defined by this guideline), but I'm not familiar with that guideline. Flatscan (talk) 04:33, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, they're all over the place in hatnotes. My concern was that this article (the one this talk page is for) needs that hatnote.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 14:48, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying. I wasn't entirely sure what action you were looking for here. I've added a link to the top of the policy page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:49, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Thank you.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:14, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Apologies for not understanding your comment. I support the hatnote here, and was thinking about adding it. Flatscan (talk) 04:52, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit prot

{{editprotected}}

In "Copyright laws by country"

according to Jimbo Wales, the founder of Wikipedia,

Please change to;

according to Jimbo Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia,

...according to the precedents in e.g. Jimmy Wales etc. Thanks,  Chzz  ►  05:56, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Prot was changed to semi, so done myself.  Chzz  ►  16:52, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

 Done

LINKVIO question

So linking to an actual infringing site is a clearly stated no-no, but what about torrent sites? This and the drama immediately following it prompted my curiousity. Maybe I'm just not up on the intricacies of copyright law, but is contributing (linking to the torrent site) to contributory infringement (the torrent site's torrent allowing infringement) still contributory infringement? VernoWhitney (talk) 22:48, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm having a little trouble parsing your question. :) Still jet-lagged I'd guess. I don't want to follow that particular link. The question is, I'd guess, is the torrent legally hosted? If so, then it's as usable as any content on YouTube that is legally hosted, I'd guess, in line with WP:ELNEVER. That said, we have blacklisted some sites that are particularly prone to abuse, even though they may also host some legitimate content. Comes to mind a lyric hosting site that had a very dodgy copyright policy. Some of their stuff could well be public domain, but the bulk of it was clearly not. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:17, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Sorry if I was being unclear, the website linked to isn't directly providing the infringing content, but it is a contributory infringer (it provides a file which allows users to get the content from other users who already have it). VernoWhitney (talk) 03:56, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
While there may be a few steps involved, linking to a site which provides the ability to access a torrent which contains copyrighted information (that is not being released by the legal copyright holder) is a no-no. Linking to a site that indexes torrent files probably isn't in an of itself contributory infringement, but linking directly to a torrent listing that is copyright infringement would be. Shell babelfish 04:02, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
That answers my question well enough. Thanks. VernoWhitney (talk) 04:28, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Protection level

I have restored full protection to this page. The admin who protected it in 2008 did so under the following rationale: "legal, high-visibility, vandalism". The first two of these continue to apply. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:17, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Non-US copyrights

In long-overdue follow-up to Wikipedia talk:Copyrights/Archive 13#Copyright laws by country, I've relocated the several country specific information bits to Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights. It is obviously woefully incomplete here. I believe based on the response that I got then that this should be non-controversial, but of course am prepared to bow to consensus if I'm wrong. If I am wrong about controversy here, we'll have to update the material on countries without copyright relations with the United States, as the text did not reflect the most recent circular.

Do the changes seem appropriate? ([17], [18]) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:05, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

fictional characters

In wikipedia, there are alot of different franchises such as Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Crash Bandicoot, Star Wars, Mickey Mouse, etc, which are copyrighted by a company such as Nintendo, Disney, etc. We have articles on their characters, movies, games, etc. How is this not a copyright violation? SeanWheeler (talk) 02:16, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Fair use. :) Now, if we were hosting fan fiction, that would be another story. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:10, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

How much plot summary is too much?

I am concerned that the current plot section constitutes a copyright problem in its level of detail. At the time I am writing this, it is 3,049 words - using an academic estimate of 400 words per page, it would fill almost 8 pages in a standard scholarly book. I believe this crosses the line of acceptable summary, creating a derivative work. See Twin Peaks v. Publications International. The Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)#Plot summaries notes that "The length of a plot summary should be carefully balanced with the length of the other sections." WP:PLOT notes that while "a concise plot summary is usually appropriate", the purpose of an article on a piece of fiction is not to retell its plot, but to discuss reception and significance. I believe the summary needs to be cut to a small percentage of its length and balanced with additional material that provides critical commentary; otherwise, there is little transformative about the content, and we are merely saving readers the trouble of buying the book. That we are non-profit is no defense; as WP:NFC points out, we are not only concerned with our own use, but that of our reusers.

I am seeking further opinions; having interacted with this article before (though as an admin), I would be grateful for additional eyes. I'm asking this here rather than at WT:CP because while dealing with a single article, it really has broader implication. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:32, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Avoiding the copyright issues for a bit since I'm not familiar with the case law, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (novels)#Plot says "Three or four paragraphs are usually sufficient for a full-length work, very complex and lengthy novels may need a bit more." and WP:FILMPLOT which Theleftorium just commented and retracted says "Plot summaries for feature films should be between 400 and 700 words" (obviously not a film, but most well-written plot summaries I've seen on Wikipedia come in at about 100 words/paragraph making this 4-7 paragraphs and at least reasonably close to the novels guideline). Now for comparison I look at the epic War and Peace, where the plot section condenses 1,225 pages to a mere 2517 words in 27 paragraphs. Looking at an actual Featured article, To Kill a Mockingbird turns 296 pages into 547 words in 5 paragraphs. In both cases there's about 2 words/page. Following that standard, this 480 page book should surely be less than one-third of it's current length. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:28, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
I should have also mentioned Wikipedia:Manual of Style (television)#Plot section which suggests "summaries for episode articles should be about 200 to 500 words", also in line with the other plot guidelines. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:42, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
Okay, now I'm back for copyright review: your cited case of Twin Peaks v. Publications International finds that a 46 pages covering 8 episodes is in keeping with substantial similarity. At 400 words per page that's 2,300 words per episode, which is about ten times our MoS guideline, and the legal threshold is clearly below that. This is significantly more copied content than is the case here though, so I look elsewhere for a more comparable case. That case however cites Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, where a 2,250 word article was found to infringe on a 500 page book, going by the 2 words/page extrapolation earlier, this appears to be a bit over twice our MoS guideline, being in length a little over 1% (again using the 400 words per page estimate). This article, however, also included 300-400 words of verbatim quotes and was released before the first public distribution, so the legal threshold for a summary after distribution and without quotations is likely somewhere higher than this. In support of the findings regarding substantiality this case goes on to cite "Roy Export Co. Establishment v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., 503 F. Supp., at 1145 (taking of 55 seconds out of 1 hour and 29-minute film deemed qualitatively substantial)." This comes out to just over 1% of the film, and being an excerpt of the film naturally corresponds to verbatim quoting. Even given that a summary rates somewhere lower than verbatim when it comes to the substantiality, in keeping with WP:NFC being purposefully more restrictive than fair use law to (hopefully) avoid any possibility of infringement, I feel that approximately 1.5 times the MoS guidelines (or 3 words per page), should be the maximum allowed even for complicated novels, as 2 times the guideline when combined with verbatim copying has been found to be ingringing. If this maximum is supported, then the plot for the novel needs to be cut in half. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:16, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
I know nobody probably cares and there're plenty of more pressing copyright matters, but Category:Wikipedia articles with plot summary needing attention is probably filled with loads of other examples of this. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:49, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
Oh, I care. I'm just swamped at the moment in Wikidrama. :/ I'm barely keeping on top of WP:CP at the moment. (I am beginning to discover that occasional breaks to pitch in at ANI may be a bad idea.... Due to some lingering effects, it's currently feeling the other way around. :P) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:53, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
My apologies, I should've said nobody else, since you and I are the only ones who took part in this discussion (such as it was) a month ago. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:00, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

A bad light?

"Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors." Should we really be supporting the moral legitimacy of copyright in this way? I suggest excising that sentence from the page. The remaining content will make it clear that the reason we don't link to copyvios is that the government won't let us. It's not that there would be anything morally wrong with linking to it; it's just that the government holds a gun to our heads and says, "Don't do it or we'll fine/imprison you." Tisane talk/stalk 02:38, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree in part, anyway. :) I'm not sure it buys into the legitimacy of copyright to suggest that developing a reputation for violating it might cast you in a bad light. My neighbors will think poorly of me if I don't maintain my lawn; I know this, but that doesn't mean I buy into the megamillion $ lawn industry. (In fact, on this issue, I'm willing to brave their disregard.)
That said, I personally have no particular attachment to the line. I don't think it adds anything substantive. Let's see if anybody pops by to defend it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:49, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
While I know of case law in the USA where linking to illegal content is considered as if you are hosting that content yourself, I really don't see the logic in that philosophy and it is technically a false point as well. A link is really just an address, just as if you posted a street address for stores or people that could help you to obtain illegal products. While something like that may be useful for police to use as an investigative tool, should that be illegal to publish? I guess what I'm saying here is that the legality of copyvio links is really more of a grey area of the law rather than something clearly defined and part of codified statutory law.
Regardless, I do think there is a moral issue at stake here too, where even if there isn't a legal issue of a link to a website that has content which is a violation of copyright laws in some form (or a way to subvert copyright where the web server is hosted in a country where copyright for that item doesn't apply) I think the high ground should be taken here as well and to discourage that kind of linking. Good-faith efforts ought to be made to respect copyright and following licensing terms of copyrighted content of all kinds, particularly for something like Wikipedia. By taking copyright seriously, it also strengthens the terms of copyright for Wikipedia as well.... something I hope is enforced better in other contexts as well. I have seen my contributions to Wikipedia abused in terms of others asserting copyright to content I've written and made as original contributions to Wikipedia, and we certainly shouldn't be encouraging others to ignore copyright issues either. It really does put Wikipedia in a bad light when this happens. By using a moral rather than a legalistic argument here, the legal status of links (which is different from one country to the next and in the USA from one legal jurisdiction to the next) is immaterial and doesn't need to be used. --Robert Horning (talk) 15:53, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
Arguably, the enforcers of copyright lack the moral high ground. See some of the references to libertarian perspectives on intellectual property, especially Against Intellectual Property. So a moral argument is inappropriate. Having said that, international law bans copyright violations pretty much everywhere, so I think a legal argument will suffice for our purposes. Even if there were countries that didn't recognize copyright, the WMF servers are all located in countries that enforce copyright. Tisane talk/stalk 04:18, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I tend to like moral arguments as arguments based on law tend to be very arbitrary and fail to address the specific issue at hand anyway... particularly if you invoke common law or something that results from legal precedence. The entire premise of worrying about copyright status on Wikipedia centers on two somewhat dis-jointed viewpoints:
  1. Legalistic/Pragmatic
  2. Moralistic
The legalistic viewpoint is one that if we don't take copyright seriously, Wikipedia simply won't be here because somebody (the WMF, Jimmy Wales, etc.) will be sued into oblivion and there won't be something to work on. It is the view that because Wikipedians have been serious about copyright issues that this simply will never be a problem.
From a moral viewpoint, I will agree that there is one premise that simply must be accepted before you go through any other arguments: That granting for "a limited time" some sort of monopoly towards original content is useful and that the creator of that content should have the ability to define how that content is used during that time limit. You can argue about the terms, conditions, and exceptions as applied to that content, but the basic premise is something presumed here. If you don't accept the premise... that is another story and I'd agree that the moral argument falls apart at that point.
Presuming that the premise is something that has been accepted and is a useful concept, I argue that in turn links to a site which disregards that premise is in turn something that should not be done. Furthermore, since Wikipedia in fact relies upon copyright law as a basic premise for its underlying structure (via the GFDL & CC-by-SA licensing requirements), I would argue that the basic premise is something that can and ought to be taken as something comparable to one of the standard 5 basic pillars of Wikipedia. This doesn't preclude somebody who doesn't care about copyright from contributing to Wikipedia, but the protection of the content on Wikipedia is in place explicitly because copyright is honored. From a policy perspective, I argue that it is important for Wikipedians to accept the premise of copyright even if it isn't universally accepted.
Laws themselves change over time and international law in particular is even more vague and selectively arbitrary when trying to put into any sort of formal policy role. Essentially, you need to apply a lowest common denominator solution that really starts to bite hard if you really try to push the issue. That is something that doesn't really work out in the long run and in fact is one of the sources of problems in terms of copyright issues between countries.
I am arguing that as a matter of policy, linking to sites that disregard copyright and in particular use copyrighted content without permission of the original author/creator is something that should be discouraged or even prohibited as a matter of policy. If Wikipedia wants to take copyright seriously because copyright is by itself useful, it must respect the copyright of others who are not contributors to Wikipedia as well. A failure of doing that does indeed put Wikipedia in a bad light and is hypocritical.--Robert Horning (talk) 01:25, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Oh, I am not proposing that we change the rules on what editors should or shouldn't link to. I am just saying that the moral argument should be dispensed with, because it's not valid. The empirical evidence suggests that the disadvantages of the monopolies created by copyright law outweigh the advantages. Wikipedia, for instance, relies to a large extent on fair use laws, which are basically a limitation of copyright. If we couldn't repeat what other people have said (in small enough doses not to count as an infringement), or synthesize the substance of many different works (yes, we do synthesize; that's why our articles have so many footnotes), our project would be dead in the water. We rely on copyright not being a complete and unlimited monopoly, and we are hindered to the extent that copyright does exist. For instance, if there were no copyright, we could used articles from a more recent Britannica than the 1911 edition.
One might argue, If copyright didn't exist, the Britannica company would never have produced an encyclopedia. But I think in the absence of copyright laws, the ability to copy other work would have enabled the creation of Encyclopedia Britannica anyhow, because it would have reduced the costs of obtaining the articles that went into it. The ability to freely produce and distribute derivative works is a wonderful thing.
An invalid moral argument doesn't strengthen the justification for the rule; therefore, said argument should be dispensed with. If legal arguments aren't enough to support the rule, and the rule is indefensible without flawed moral arguments to prop it up, then oh well. That's just the way it goes. Tisane talk/stalk 05:38, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

There may be (US) case law which states that linking to a copyright violation may be contributory copyright violation, but the preliminary injunction in Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry was "dissolved and vacated", and the final settlement had no such finding. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:10, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

It might also be pointed out that our fair use rules are much stricter than required by law.
An invalid legal argument doesn't strengthen the justification for the rule; therefore said argument should be dispensed with. If moral arguments aren't enough to support the rule, and the rule is indefensible without flawed legal arguments to prop it up, then.... — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:27, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, that was a little WP:POINTY, wasn't it. Still, I don't know of a case on point, especially since, in the named case, the plaintiff's claim was that the defendent:
  1. Posted the copyrighted material on their web site.
  2. Removed the material.
  3. Pointed to web sites which had copied the material from them.
That seems more like contributory infringement, even if the other web sites were in a jurisdiction which didn't observe copyright law.
However, I am not a lawyer, and the legal issues should be dealt with by the Foundation and its counsel, rather than by the editors. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:19, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
On this I tend to disagree. It is useful to create policies so that actions of editors and administrators stay within the bounds of the law, and hopefully well within the law as well so we aren't always pushing the extremes of it either. What we are are talking about is a policy, and the justification of that policy, that can and does include a legal perspective. That perhaps legal counsel may join into that discussion or point out issues from law to help in setting such a policy can be helpful, but such a policy can and must come from the community itself too. I think it is wrong for a group like the Wikimedia Foundation to pontificate a policy when editors are already working their way to creating such a policy anyway.
In addition, while legal issues often are dealt with directly by the Foundation, it is important for editors and administrators to be aware of copyright violations, to remove those violations when they are discovered (I have pointed some copyvios out even recently), and to come up with the policy like is being said here in terms of even having links to other websites that may also be copyright violations. This is not foundation business but rather editor business, as it is individual editors who are going to have to "enforce" this policy. This can be something that comes up in an edit war. Is that something for which the WMF must always step in to settle?
I do think that it puts Wikipedia in a bad light to be deliberately putting links to other websites that don't have permission to post copyrighted content. It has been said, even recently, that "open source projects" (which does including Wikipedia in this umbrella) are only interested in stealing copyrighted material. FYI, that was with the recent flair-up from ASCAP that was sent to members, but there are other examples too of similar sentiments. If Wikipedia treats copyright seriously and tries to avoid links that may even be technically legal but are questionable, it does make for a healthier project. There obviously is an extreme that you can head to on this topic, but this does seem like a "common sense" concept here. It is a moral issue, and I think it is wrong to stress only the legal aspects of this as well, even if they may or may not be there. --Robert Horning (talk) 05:34, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
In re: the legal aspects, the preliminary injunction in Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry was vacated, but the court's tendency there was clear. It was not vacated because they reversed, but because the parties settled privately. (And to that, Point 4 of the permanent injunction - incorporating terms agreed upon by the parties - seems pertinent here.) Since the parties reached settlement on their own, the court did not firmly decide the matter, but by no means did their final decision indicate a reversal of their earlier inclinations. Do we really want for Wikipedia or one of our content reusers (the ones we encourage to copy us) to be a new test case? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:48, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
Might as well; someone has to be the test case. What, are we going to back down and let the copyright-mongers win? Copying is not theft, and Disney can kiss my butt. Tisane talk/stalk 08:42, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
If you want to risk yourself, that's fine. I am opposed to risking our content reusers. The Revolution needs informed consent. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:48, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm staying out of the discussion, but I feel it would be incomplete without this image I stumbled across recently. VernoWhitney (talk) 15:28, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
LOL! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:39, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I've found that if you're going to commit civil disobedience, it's better to do it as part of a group than individually; the government can easily crush individuals. The peer-to-peer copyright violators get a slap on the wrist, if any punishment at all, because there are too many of them to throw them all in the clink for extended periods; plus, studies show most people don't view copyright as being a huge moral issue. Tisane talk/stalk 16:11, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

People may not care about moral issues, but legal ones can bother them. Again, I'm opposed to risking our content reusers. They are among the reasons we are conservative with respect to copyright law to begin with; I don't see any reason to jettison that approach with regards to this issue. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:14, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
So, if people may not care about moral issues, and the moral issues are subject to debate anyway, why mention moral issues at all? Don't risk our content reusers, if you don't want to. Just have the page say that because of the potential legal issues, we don't allow links to copyright-violating stuff. That's what was originally proposed at the beginning of this thread. Tisane talk/stalk 17:16, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
My opinion hasn't changed. I "personally have no particular attachment to the line. I don't think it adds anything substantive." But I don't care enough to argue for its removal, either. However, I disagree that a "bad light" has necessarily to do with morality. One of the reasons we are cautious with Youtube links is because their prior and ongoing copyright concerns raise red flags. In other words, their past behavior casts them in a bad light when it comes to evaluating the likely copyright status of their material. Dictionary.reference.com defines this as "favorable (or unfavorable) circumstances". No moral judgment need be appended. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:30, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
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