Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems

For image or media copyright questions, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions

See also: Wikipedia:Public domain, m:Do fair use images violate the GFDL?, m:copyright, m:fair use, m:GFDL, m:GFDL Workshop.

Content reused without correct procedure

I'm not sure how to go about resolving this as I've not dealt with this side of WP before. Basically, this web page uses content from two or three of our articles – without adhering to the content's licence. Could someone help out and explain what the procedure would be to clarify that a violation has occured, and to ensure that the material is removed (or attributed)? Cheers! Fribbulus Xax (talk) 19:50, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi. It should be fairly easy to determine if a violation has occurred. First, can you confirm that the material originated here? If you're quite sure that we didn't steal it from them and there's no reason to suspect we stole it from somebody else (say, if it evolved naturally here), then you look to see if they're attributing and licensing it properly. If there is no mention of Wikipedia and the material is not properly licensed under CC-By-SA and/or GFDL (if the article doesn't specify CC-By-SA only, either license is fine), then it's worth sending them a letter about it. The procedure is set out at Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks under "non-compliance process". However, be warned that this dual-licensing business is so new that the standard license violation letter page is all of 22 minutes old. :) It's based on the one we used for GFDL, but has not yet undergone extensive review. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:25, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Duration of Copyright (UK)- Possible Copyvio

User:Fabrictramp placed a copyvio tag on Duration of Copyright (UK) and suggested that I placed the conversation here. Would someone who enjoys researching these things and playing with Copyvio tags like to check this out.

Duration of Copyright (UK)- Possible Copyvio

Thanks for visiting the page I created. It will be easier for you to judge whether this is a copyvio if I give a few words of guidance.

• All the information was taken from the one page that I cited, but references back to other pages that were less clear.
• I found the route through his diagram to be very woolly.
• I recast the logic, in a way that was easier to be followed by someone with CS training. Original work.
• I recast the work to distinguish between questions, and statements by using different symbols. Original work.
• I recast the rendereing of the diagram so all nos go down and all yeses go across. Original work.
• I recast the logic, so each blue shaded question box had one point of entry, two points of exit, and each red outlined output boxes had a single point of entry. Compare with Tim Padfields output boxes that breach this rule. Original work.
• I used the same legalese as Tim Padfield as (this as matter of fact) is the language to use matter of fact
• I added the advise Not on Commons and the correct Wiki copyright tags to all red outlined output boxes. Original work.

To my mind, all we have in common is that we have both chosen to represent the information in visual form, and both chosen to use the correct legal jargon. To my mind, Tim is the acknowledged expert, and any diagram must lead the editor to the identical conclusion. Tims representation is flawed because it does not attempt to stick to BS flowchart convention. My diagram is limited by Wikimedia not supporting the use of a background image in table cells, and the need for a high resolution monitor to display the image correctly.

After having read all the points above, could you let me know if I have missed something obvious and any point of the page does contain a copyvio, or what was the sticking point that caused you to suspect that any part of the page was dubious so we can tag that area for future users --ClemRutter (talk) 20:53, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

As I said in my message to you, I'm certainly not an expert on copyright violations, but it definitely seems like the changes are superficial. I do know that things like changing a symbol or a color aren't enough to avoid copyvio. Perhaps the best course would be to post at Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems -- feel free to link to this conversation to save on retyping.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:16, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Posted as requested --ClemRutter (talk) 23:32, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I have some serious misgivings about this one. WT:CP doesn't always get that much traffic. I will invite other contributors from appropriate points. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:25, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment - the full discussion can be found here (which is why I suggested a link, not copy/paste.)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 21:31, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Atle bakken

I'm not set on listing this one formally yet. I had a look at the above following an WP:SCV report, and it's a bit of a head-scratcher to me:

• The article originated on Wikipedia
• It was subsequently deleted under WP:CSD#G7 (author-requested deletion)
• It was picked up by wikibin.org
• It was then re-copied recently from wikibin.org

Wikibin.org licenses content under GFDL (unversionned), and hasn't switched to dual licensing. That being said, assuming no modifications have happened on wikibin since the deletion, the source was ours.

I believe the sanest course of action would be for an admin to retrieve the original author from the deleted version's history and credit him with a null edit, but I'll leave this up to wiser and more experienced minds to ponder. Cheers, MLauba (talk) 11:08, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, Wikibin uses our deleted articles for reasons I don't fully comprehend (and doesn't seem to actually satisfy the terms of the GFDL, which it is using, but that's another matter. I've deleted it as CSD G4, as it's the same article that was deleted via this deletion discussion. – Toon 13:54, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Home of the copyright problem

Hi. Currently, copyright concerns that are not tagged by real people for G12 are reviewed at two venues: WP:CP and WP:SCV. While WP:SCV is specifically for handling listings by CorenSearchBot, these articles are also listed at WP:CP. This means that the teams of editors on both pages often wind up reviewing the same articles, since those working SCV do not come to CP to note resolution here and those working CP do not go to SCV to note resolution there. User:MLauba and I were thinking that one good way to reduce the redundant effort is to refocus listings on one page, probably this one. If the CorenSearchBot listings could be sectioned off in a subsection for each day, that would allow SCV volunteers to easily access the materials they usually handle. I wanted to gather thoughts on this idea. Good one? Bad one? A better way? Please offer input on this one, since I think it could simplify the lives of all parties involved. Seems like the best place for the conversation is probably at Wikipedia talk:Suspected copyright violations, where this is also listed. Thanks for any input! --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:31, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

One core place for copyright violation discussion, concerns, reports, policy, etc seems to be a good idea. International law is tricky (see art galleries) and not obvious (see photographs of toys). A large effort is needed to make core policy simple to understand and obey, with clear pathways to report problems or remove material, and clear description of what happens to repeat copyright violation offenders. This page is *baffling* for new users. I suspect it's also baffling for new admins too. Yet, after BLP it's possibly one of the important parts of policy. NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 15:57, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

This procedure is baffling

See the page at Rohde_&_Schwarz. Then do a web search for "This brief journey through seven and a half decades is now nearing an end" (or many other phrases in the article) and you see that the article appears to be mostly copyvio. Thought you'd like to know. NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 16:02, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Done, thanks. In future, all that is needed to mark a page is to add {{subst:copyvio|URL}} (where "URL" is replaced with the website) and to follow the instructions given on that template to add the page to the current list. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:27, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Question about some images

There are 90-some images from a site which has been judged to be unreliable. The links were also seen as promotional and have been removed. Unfortunately, it appears that the site is also a copyright violating site, specifically with respect to images. For example, the image File:Ubuntu_on_Windows_-_Firefox_vs_Firefox.png is from this site, so has to have a source link to the site. But if you click through that source link, the site claims to have released a Windows screenshot into the public domain, something they are not entitled to do. I believe that by having a derived image and linking to the site, Wikipedia is aiding and abetting this copyright violation. What I'm not sure about is, do all images from this site need to be removed, or just the problematic ones? (i.e. ones that depict non-free software but don't acknowledge the software vendors interest in the image). Yworo (talk) 18:58, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Problem with Copyviocore, temp articlles, and fair-use images

{{copyviocore}} instructs use Talk:ArticleTitle/Temp if one wants to create a non-infringing version of the article. If that article contains a non-free fair use image (like a logo) then an officious bot comes along and deletes the image, because non-free images aren't allowed in the Talk: namespace. Could the temp article not be at just ArticleTitle/Temp?

Also, why does it take so long for simple copyright problems to get resolved? It looks bad when articles that have non-copyvio revisions and non-copyvio sections sit blanked with the huge warning for a week when very little work is needed from an administrator to resolve the issue. - htonl (talk) 09:30, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

The process is designed to take a week and a day, since sometimes contributors will write for copyright permission, and this takes time. Administrators don't usually even look at the listing until it moves into the "old" list, when they're supposed to evaluate and close them. (Occasionally, I peak ahead. :)) The temporary page has to be in the talk temporary space because subpages are not supported in article space (see Wikipedia:Subpages. This is a bit of a pain with the non-free images. You might want to make a note at the article talk page what images they are and where they go so that contributors will remember to replace them. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:04, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Ah, that makes sense. In the meantime, is it OK for me to move text that is not copyvio (because I wrote it myself) to rescue it from the blanking, so that the article is at least slightly useful? In this case, the copyvio was just pasted in below the article's previous text, so there's no "mingling" issue.

Keeping track of the non-free image in this case isn't really a problem because the bot just replaced the inclusion of the image with a link to the image's page, which is easy enough to fix. - htonl (talk) 12:18, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Glad the images will sort easily. :) I've followed your contributions just to see which specific article we're talking about, and there's no reason to delay it. I don't have a strong expectation that the contributor who placed it will come back to give permission. I'll go ahead and process it. Ordinarily, if the material copied is limited to one section and you are not yourself the contributor who placed the copyrighted text (not that I imagine you would; you didn't here. I'm just noting the general principal), I think it would be fine for you to limit the blanking just to the text that is pasted. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:37, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! :-) - htonl (talk) 13:22, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

James Temple

I have been looking at what I consider to be a copyleft problem with a page called James Temple which is currently under review as a GA article. Unfortunately the page was initially seeded, with a copy of copyleft text, which I think is not compatible with the Wikipedia licence.

British Civil War-->licence says:

Under the following conditions:

• Attribution — You must give the original author credit.

...

• Non-Commercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
• Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a licence identical to this one.

Non-Commercial is clearly a restriction that Wikipedia does not have. But I think in this case the killer is Share Alike, because as the article was seeded with this copyleft licence, all edits after that incrementally "alter, transform, or build upon this work" so unlike copyright information where removal of the copyright violation would fix the problem, deletion is the only solution, unless the Author David Plant agrees to allow Wikipedia to licence the text under its licence (with attribution for his original work) -- move to do this have been initiated.

User:Rjm at sleepers has done a lot of work on this article, and as (s)he pointed out on my talk page "I've looked at all the edits made by editors other than myself since 4th February 2007. As far as I can see, none of them makes substantive changes to the text. They are corrections of grammar, spelling and format, changes to wiki links or categories. None of the edits I made used material from David Plant's site. I'm no lawyer, but if all material that is subject to the unnaceptable license is removed, I don't see how there can be a claim against what remains."

What do others think? --PBS (talk) 08:30, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I have now had an opportunity to look in more detail at the original "seed". It differs slightly from the current text on David Plant's site, but I suspect this is due to subsequent changes in that site. It appears that the seed text was taken verbatim from David Plant. David Plant acknowledges as his source the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Virtualy everything on his site is also in the ODNB entry. In a few cases, there is identical wording between the 2 sites. The crucial question is what can David Plant claim as copyright. There are clearly some parts of the current article that are directly derived from the original seed and should be removed because the copyright belongs to him (or the ODNB). Most of the current article is not at all related to the original seed. IMO, David Plant cannot claim any rights over unrelated material that does not infringe his copyright simply because of the form of license he has choosen to use for material for which he does have the copyright. For example, I have added material to the current article about James Temple's residence in Chadwell-St-Mary. This does not appear on either David Plant's site or on the ODNB entry. I don't see how this can be subject to the Creative Commons license. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 09:36, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Ack. It's so disheartening when that happens. :( From a licensing standpoint, I think that anything that builds off of the original text from Plant's website should probably be removed as a derivative work covered by the CC-By-NC-SA license. However, new material, even if placed alongside older stuff, should be okay. For example, the original says, "However, he was sentenced to life imprisonment on Jersey, where he died around 1674." This is incorporated in our article. If somebody had modified that to read, "However, he was sentence to imprisonment for life on Jersey, where he died of a very bad cold around 1674", I would delete that as a derivative of the original. If somebody had added a sentence, "Long after his death, his spirit was seen to be loitering in corridors of the Cleveland Astrodome" I would regard that as ours, fair and square.

Looking at actual examples, the article says, "With the establishment of the Commonwealth, he served on various parliamentary committees, but came under suspicion of corruption, which led to his dismissal from the governorship of Tilbury in September 1650." That's verbatim and needs to go (unless it's taken from an older, public domain source). "He attempted to escape to Ireland, traveling under his first wife's maiden name of Busbridge, but was arrested in Warwickshire and was held in the Tower of London before being brought to trial as a regicide." is a derivative of the source's "Temple attempted to escape to Ireland at the Restoration in 1660, but was arrested in Warwickshire and brought to trial as a regicide" and, in my opinion, should also go. It is the basis of a derivative work. "A few years later, he was accused of improperly benefiting from administering the estate of a prominent Sussex catholic - Sir John Shelley - whose heir was a minor" seems to be entirely our own. (I'm not saying those are the only passages that would need to go; those are simply examples.)

This, in any event, is my opinion. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:13, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

The trouble is the licence that was accepted when the initial copy was made included "If you ... build upon this work", and the normal meaning of that phrase includes expansion of the work. If the article had already existed I could under stand the argument that we could simply delete the paragraphs that were specific to the added text, but in this case we are talking about all the text in the initial article and that is a different issue as all the current article is built upon the original work, therefor all the work in it is still under that copyleft. The same issue came up with Military occupation. I decided that the work no longer had one sentence in it that came from the Wikinfo article and deleted the attribution in February 2007, but in March that year Fred Bauder re-added it with the comment "Required by GFDL" and on reflection I agree with him. I think this article is the same. Unless David Plant is willing to licence it under a licence compatible with Wikipedia, I think it will have to be deleted and rewritten. That is not such a trauma as it might have been as there is text already written that can be used (Wikisource:User:Philip Baird Shearer/Sand Box) and the additional information can be added to that seedbed. Rjm at sleepers have you tried to contact David Plant, to see if he will jump through hoops for us? --PBS (talk) 20:26, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

PBS asked whether I have tried to contact David Plant on this issue - I have not. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 07:58, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I would agree with you if additions to the work were released under CC-By-NC-SA, but contributors to Wikipedia have always agreed to license material under Wikipedia's terms (GFDL and, now, CC-By-SA). Good faith contributors to this article added their text under those licenses. In my opinion, the original article is a copyright violation because it was never compatibly licensed for use on Wikipedia. All of the original text and any derivative works utilizing it should be removed. But new, creative content is not under that original license (which was never acceptable here), but our own. However, we may want to get additional opinions on this. WT:CP doesn't get that broad a viewership, so I'll ask at WT:C and WT:COPYCLEAN. (Eta: have done. Here's hoping for good response. :))

I have not tried to contact David Plant (don't know if Rjm at sleepers), but I must have misunderstood your note that "move to do this have been initiated", because I thought you meant it was already being done? Who has initiated movement in that direction? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:05, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

See User talk:Digweed, I've left a message there, but I have not used the form at British Civil Wars to notify him directly. --PBS (talk)

Ah, I see. I hope he'll give permission, which seems like it would simplify things considerably. :) There's been one response at WT:COPYCLEAN that agrees with your take. I've asked him to bring it here so we can keep it together, but I thought I'd let you know. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 22:19, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

This is a difficult one. I'd like to say that anything entirely new added by contributors would be usable, but I don't think that's the case - I think that the original text with an inappropriate license essentially fouled all the further development regardless of the fact that later contributers wouldn't have known the work would be licensed as such. It would be different if someone had dropped the text in later but if all versions include the CC text we've essentially built-on and the derivative works clause comes into play. Hopefully a different release by the original contributor will make all this moot. Shell ^babelfish 22:34, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

As MRG suggests, we apply the license both to the work as a whole and to user contributions individually. In the presense of historically mislicensed versions, one should be able to retain any user contributed content that isn't directly derived from the mislicensed text, since those individual contributions are considered to be licensed on their own. It will depend on the details of the individual case to determine what is derivative and what reasonably stands on its own. In general, we usually treat the addition of new sections and paragraphs as independent. The logical test here might be to consider whether the user's contributions would make sense if the copyright infringing text had been replaced by a legitimate passages expressing the same ideas. In other words could the user have made the same contribution under copyright compliant conditions. Whether or not what remains after stripping the bad content is worth keeping will vary from case to case. Dragons flight (talk) 22:39, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I unfortunately have to concur with MRG and others' reading of the situation. Looking at the early development history, we have an article which has grown organically upon the initial contribution, and thus constitutes a derivative work. The addition of new material is often intertwined with rearranged and later refactored elements from the source. In accordance with the precautionary principle, I'd advocate, regretfully, starting over. MLauba (talk) 08:17, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

<unindent> My take is as follows. The CC license permits the use of copyright material under the conditions stated in the license. It cannot give the the licensor (in this case David Plant) copyright over material for which the copyright belongs to someone else. To quote the examples given above by Moonriddengirl, the sentence about Temple fleeing contains material for which David Plant holds the copyright and must clearly be removed from the article. The sentence about Sir John Shelley's estate does not contain any material for which David Plant holds the copyright and is therefore not covered by the CC license. Whatever the details, the current article does contain improper material and this needs to be dealt with. The suggestion by PBS (and others) that we delete everything and start again would undoubtedly solve the problem. However, I do not believe it is necessary to be as drastic as that. (Obviously I have a personal and emotional interest in not seeing a lot of my work deleted.) I am willing to go through the current article and delete everything that is in the original "seed" material that came from David Plant's site. After I've done this, it would probably be appropriate for someone else to check. The resulting text would probably require some copy editing to ensure readability which I would also be willing to do. This could all be done in a sandbox (or similar) and once we have an acceptable text with no copyright violations this could replace the current text. I would then set out to replace the lost text with material from acceptable sources in a way that did not infringe copyright. I hope this suggestion is acceptable to everyone. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 09:59, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think removing the original text solves the problem, as this remain an article built (by incremental changes) upon the original. Have you sent a webtext message to David Plant via his BCW website asking him to look at his Wikipedia account? -- PBS (talk) 13:33, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

No, I have had no contact with David Plant on this issue. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 16:18, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I have sent David Plant an email. Lets now give it a couple of days to give him a chance to reply. --PBS (talk) 12:00, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations to Rjm on the expanded article on James Temple and thanks for the additional information. I do not claim to "own" any of the information therein and, as previously stated, I have no objection to anything that originates from the British Civil Wars site remaining on Wikipedia. PBS has my e-mail address if formal relicensing notification is required, or I can be reached via the contact form on the BCW site. HTH. digweed (talk) 14:21, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to Digweed for the above. I presume this means that we do not need to delete anything from the existing article (although there may be a need to provide an alternative source for some of the material in order to satisfy the concerns of the reviewer). I'm happy with this response, but I assume if someone wants something more formal, they will pursue it themselves. Rjm at sleepers (talk) 15:58, 4 August 2009 (UTC)