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.

Pleiades Club

A question related to #copyvio vs. db-copyvio above: when there are no issues to be investigated ... I know that the material is all copyvio, but it seems like a notable and interesting article and I suspect I can get the creator to re-write it ... and I add a {{copyvio}} tag and prod the page to put a deadline on the rewrite, do you guys also want me to report it here? I don't mind keeping an eye on it myself, and helping with the rewrite when necessary. - Dank (push to talk) 03:17, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Even if you don't, DumbBot will. :) If you use the copyvio tag, it automatically sets a deadline for rewrite, so you might find it more expeditious to just tag it so and list it here with a note that you're listing a blatant vio in the hopes that the creator will rewrite it. Could save you some time on the PROD. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 10:53, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. There are two things I like about adding the prod in these cases ... a number of wikiprojects are checking the prod section of their article alerts, so the prod sometimes pulls in some people who know more about the subject than I do, and the prod lets me put something like this in bold at the top of the page: "This is an apparent copyright violation, but the subject is notable and interesting, so instead of a "speedy" deletion, I'm going to obscure the page. The text is still all there when you hit the "edit" button; please rewrite the whole thing so that it's not a copyright infringement before the 7-day deletion discussion runs out." That lets everyone (article creator, tagger who might wonder why I'm declining, other admins, visitors from the wikiproject tagged on the talk page) know what I'm trying to accomplish with that article. Suggestions? - Dank (push to talk) 11:22, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Articles that are tagged with copyvio are also supposed to be listed for wikiprojects in article alerts, but I'm never sure if something like that works. (It seems to have done with one, at least; I coincidentally noticed that it was listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Albums#Work_to_be_done the other day and wondered just how long it's going to stay listed.) But there's no problem with doubling up the tags. If you think that the PROD message is more clear, why not? PROD expires more quickly than copyvio (unless they did change that recently), but I certainly don't mind since that just means one less on my list. :) If the article is a G12, you're only giving extra time as a courtesy, so you aren't cutting down the generally allotted time. The only time you might actually be doing a disservice to the article is if it isn't a G12 and PROD is still five days long, since copyvio allows 7 + 1. So, for G12s, I'd say go for it. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:34, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Cydebot and the policy pages have been changed to a 7-day period for almost a week now, so I believe the change is going through. - Dank (push to talk) 18:53, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

File:Drew Peterson mugshot.jpg

This copyright doesn't seem correct. Isn't this the work of a state government, not federal? I don't think that necessarily means its free, does it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.227.168.34 (talk) 14:33, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I think I'm asking in the wrong spot. I'll ask at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. 98.227.168.34 (talk) 20:40, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

At History of the Jews in Poland

This article contains at least a dozen instances where text has been copied and pasted - some entire paragraphs. See its talk page; they're from several different sources. Tag it? If so, how? Novickas (talk) 14:01, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

If the copying is that extensive, blank the article with {{subst:copyvio|url=}} (put in a sample url or two) and follow the directions that the template generates to list it at WP:CP. After noticing your ongoing concerns, I listed the article at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup#Problem article. But if problems are that severe, we shouldn't publish the text until it is cleaned up. Temporary space serves for that. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:05, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

It's such a strong step! wanted to get an outside opinion first. OK, will do the template (presumably multiple urls are separated by commas?) Let me know here if steps were followed correctly or not. Thx, Novickas (talk) 14:23, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

It is, but legally necessary. :/ Blanking will allow us time to address it, rather than immediately removing it. You've done excellent work tracking down duplication of text. I'll notify the various projects with an interest in the article and see if they can help with the clean-up. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:33, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

In an article that is almost 100kb long, 10 or 20 sentences which add up to what - 2% of the article? - hardly merit a copyvio template. That said, Novickas did a great job - I am in the process of removing/rewriting&attributing his finds, should be done soon. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 15:40, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

This is the second time problems have been identified in this article. We need to find out who put the text here and make sure that there aren't other problems. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:42, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Out 100 list

I don't understand why Out magazine's Out 100 was deleted. It says it is "unambiguous copyright infringement"? How is it different from Time Magazine's Person of the Year or any other list of honorees? None of the content from the magazine articles were included. Just the names of the recipients. Could you please undelete this article? Queerudite (talk) 23:31, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

That's a very good question; I think the answer is that there's been so much commentary on Time's Person of the Year that we can take the commentary as our sources. When similar lists have been reproduced, for example, List of America's 100 greatest golf courses, they've been either deleted, redirected, or shortened considerably out of copyright concerns. I'll copy this conversation over at WT:CP. - Dank (push to talk) 23:42, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I believe it makes it harder to get past the copyright problems that they aren't using measurable criteria; this is a completely subjective assessment of who's cool and out. - Dank (push to talk) 23:52, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

That would be the core issue as I understand it. If the selection criteria are creative, then the list is copyrightable. "most interesting and influential" is definitely a subjective, hence creative, list. Time's "Person of the Year" is also subjective, but what's being reported in that article is simply the winners who have been chosen and published year after year. We can report on People Magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" winners (and do here), but could not reproduce the entire list of "100 Most Beautiful People" or "25 Hottest Bachelors." (I have to admit that creative lists are not an area of copyright with which I've had much personal experience. It mystifies me that Billboard can copyright some of its charts, but it certainly does: "Use of a Billboard chart on any Internet Web site is EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED without prior written consent from VNU eMedia, Inc." Are they blowing hot air? I don't know. I haven't put a lot of time into it, but I've looked a time or two for a test case or DMCA take-down, but I haven't found one yet.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:10, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying, but in practice, I don't think Wikipedia uses "creativity" as the core criterion for excluding award lists. See for example most any of the lists in Category:Award winners and its subcategories. All of the examples of "acceptable" content mentioned so far (Person of the Year, Sexiest Man, etc.) are "creative". I mean, I'm no lawyer, but if creativity is the primary criterion, we have a lot more deleting to do. Queerudite (talk) 00:58, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

But those are annual winners, not a full list. For example of a previous conversation, see this archived conversation from 2004: a couple of quotes, "Compliation copyright occurs when the compliation has a sufficient creative element in it to recognize authorship in the list."; "In general, in US law, a list isn't copyrightable unless what is on the list has been creatively selected (a significant subset of all possible entries) or is in some other way either fictional or creative." Here's another archived thread from 2007. There are other threads. I've just added a search function to WT:C, if that might help. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:15, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Moonriddengirl. I have a follow up question. Creativity and volume appear to be the limiting factors. For example, I noticed that the Time 100 doesn't list all the winners, whereas they do for Time Person of the Year. My question is does that mean that individual articles shouldn't be tagged in a category that's part of a large creative list? Is it a copy vio to tag people as Category:Time 100 honorees or Category:Out 100 honorees? Apologies if that is a dumb question. Queerudite (talk) 05:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Possible copyvio on Robert Hartshorne

This page, Robert Hartshorne, recently edited by User:Peter Hartshorne, states at the bottom:

For information please do not hesitate to contact ECG Studios where one of our team will be delighted to answer any questions that you may have. Copyright © 2000-2009 ECG

This user, who recently removed several tags from the article, is listed in the article as "Musical Director/Head of ICT and Communications: Peter Hartshorne." Little seems to be directly copied from this site, except perhaps lists from this page and here.

I've warned the user about COI but I don't know what else to do. Dan D. Ric (talk) 03:49, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Note also that I have added new tags to replace those removed. The article has many problems. Dan D. Ric (talk) 03:52, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Moving this to the project page. Dan D. Ric (talk) 06:29, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Question about copyright status: historical marker text

There's a question about the copyright status of text on historical markers. Please weigh in if you have interest at that thread. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:03, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Website of the Holy See

I would like a clarification about the copyright status for writings on website for the Holy See. I reported a few articles which were direct copy-pastes from the Holy See's website. The contributor stated the copy-pastes were legitimate because writings on a Vatican (.va) url were public domain, since the Vatican is a state government. However, the website seems to retain an exclusive copyright to writings of the Holy See. It might be an issue between the separation of the Vatican State and the Holy See. I'm sorry if this has been previously decided. If it has, please point me in the right direction. Otherwise, could someone give me the heads up or the lowdown on this issue? — CactusWriter | ^needles 13:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I have not yet found any indication that Vatican material is public domain. Instead, all indications I see are to the contrary. I am blanking the articles again and leaving a note requesting verification at Talk:Institutions connected with the Holy See. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:31, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay. And thanks for the (very speedy) response. — CactusWriter | ^needles 13:39, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for keeping an eye out for copyright problems. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:40, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

List of works

Would it be a copyright problem to take a list of works by an author, artist, composer etc. from a book, reference it, and place it in a Wikipedia article? Iceblock (talk) 14:26, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

It depends. If the list reflects creative selection (best of, for example), then the answer may be yes. If the list is inclusive or the selection criteria is obvious (works since 2000, example), then probably not. So long as the details about these are straightforward and such that you might find at any source, it should not be an infringement to duplicate lists of works. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:56, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

uddeIM (Joomla)

Would someone please look at my comment here and the comment to which I am replying, and advise on how to proceed? Is this situation salvageable? I am dealing with a relatively new user, who seems to be a SPA, but who is apparently working in good faith. LadyofShalott 17:04, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Providing feedback there. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:23, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, MoonRG! LadyofShalott 17:27, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Copyright violation policy revision

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) 12:14, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Question regarding fair use

A reviewer of an article about a magazine I have nominated as a Good Article has asked if it would be possible to have additional covers in the article. I know that per our fair use guideline, it is ok to have a cover of a magazine to illustrate an article about that magazine - but I am not sure about having more than one such cover. NoCal100 (talk) 03:41, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Addendum: I've seen a number of articles where more than one cover appears , e.g.: Unknown (magazine) - but I'd like to have some clear, explicit directives, rather than rely on WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS NoCal100 (talk) 03:50, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I can understand that the guidelines seem a bit unclear. The use of any non-free cover art is often debated and sometimes resolved on a case-by-case basis. In general practice, though, it is severely restricted -- most commonly to a single use (in the infobox) as needed to illustrate the critical commentary of the subject. Multiple images are sometimes allowed in an article in which that particular cover illustration is specifically discussed in the prose. FA articles like Imagination (magazine) and Batman are examples where multiple covers are used and the captions refer to some specific commentary in the text. The example of the Unknown (magazine) article you've cited actually fails the guideline because the second cover shot serves no purpose. Good luck with your article review. — CactusWriter | ^needles 06:37, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Individual creation or a direct derivative?

I made this image in Inkscape about a year ago, taking a picture in my pharmacology book (Rang, H. P. (2003). Pharmacology. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone. Page 223) as a source. The colors, arrows, cell morphologies and box formats are all different, and frankly the original source looks much better, since I was pretty new to Inkscape at the time. Still, the overall layout is basically the same, so could this be regarded as a copyvio, and what could the general consensus here be regarding having it in the project? After all, it does much good to the world of free knowledge. Mikael Häggström (talk) 13:43, 5 June 2009 (UTC)