Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems

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

See also: m:copyright, m:Do fair use images violate the GFDL?, m:GFDL, m:GFDL Workshop, and m:non-free content

Discussion on copyright status of biography.jrank.org

There is a discussion on the copyright status of biography.jrank.org, which appears to republish text from various Gale publications. If you're interested, please participate at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § https://biography.jrank.org. — Newslinger talk 17:30, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Can I be promoted to a CCI clerk?

As some may know, I've been active in this area and have been cleaning up reports. I even finished two, Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/BigButterfly and Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/BeeCeePhoto. However, I can only mark them as completed and am unable to archive them due only clerks being able to do so, and only one clerk (Lazygas) is currently active, and they seem to be busy with other stuff. Thus, I am asking the regulars here if they believe I meet the qualifications to become a clerk. I do not have any sort of past with copyright issues, and I believe I am knowledgeable enough in the field of copyvio to be qualified for the tools. Moved from the CCI talk page to here because it seems far more active.💵Money💵emoji💵^💸 20:24, 4 May 2019 (UTC) Note: (Pinging @Sphilbrick:, @Diannaa:, and @Justlettersandnumbers:)💵Money💵emoji💵^💸 13:39, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Since there's been no response to your inquiry, I've gone ahead and archived the 4 completed cases for you. Wizardman used to look after the clerking, but he's now retired or semi-retired from Wikipedia. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 16:21, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

P.S. Thank you very much for your work at CCI. Appreciated — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 16:23, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

large wave of presumptive deletions

As a heads up, I'm going to be nominating and tossing down articles from Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20110727 over the next few months, as many have fatal offline copyvios. 💵Money💵emoji💵^💸 21:38, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Circumstantial evidence and Copyvio

I have two questions: a general one about circumstantial evidence and CV, and a specific one regarding the application of such evidence in a particular case. I searched the archives here and at COPYVIO for circumstantial and nothing came up, so posting here.

The general question is: if you have circumstantial evidence that points to a possible copyvio, but hard evidence is difficult or impossible to come by, what should one do?

This question was prompted by a specific case, which appears to straddle the boundary between a possible CWW copy-paste (which I know how to deal with, and don't need a response about), a content dispute, and a possible plagiarism from an external site for which only circumstantial evidence exists. Unsure where to raise that case, I started an Rfd. I'd appreciate feedback about this specific case at this Rfd, or about the general question, below. Ping, please. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 19:28, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia page "later" published in scientific paper: copyvio?

The article Exome sequencing was created by User:SarahKusala (contribs).

As can be seen on the article's talk page, User:Moonriddengirl has tagged the article as a possible copyvio of a scientific paper "Pussegoda KA. Exome sequencing: locating causative genes in rare disorders. Clin Genet. 2010 Jul;78(1):32-3."

Without going into further details about the real-life identity of this user, it is clear that both the Wikipedia page, as well as this scientific paper, are written by the same person/author.

The section Exome_sequencing#Case_studies still contains about 11 sentences that are literally identical between the Wikipedia page and the 2010 publication.

The Wikipedia page was started on March 4, 2010. The scientific paper was published online June 7, 2010. So basically, the same author released the content on Wikipedia first. However, we do not currently know exactly when the scientific paper was submitted.

I think this is a very unusual situation and so I am posting it here as well as on several other pages to let the copyright experts give their opinions on how to resolve this issue.

Most obviously I think a rewrite of the Exome_sequencing#Case_studies would, in any case, be warranted since it is not such a good section anyway. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:56, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahKusala/Exome_Sequencing That is a fake article. QuackGuru (talk) 20:05, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

@User:QuackGuru if you mean that it is like a review paper that the author wrote and turned into a Wikipedia page, yes then I think you are right. Proves how things went. But this was at the time original work not published yet elsewhere, prepared in a user Sandbox. Question is, how do we deal with this situation? --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 20:08, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

See WP:FAKEARTICLE. The first step is to nominate this page for deletion or request an admin to delete it. QuackGuru (talk) 20:12, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

@User:QuackGuru I do not fully agree that this is your typical "fake article". The author is a genuine researcher who created an article on an important topic which was missing at that time. You are referring to a sandbox sub-page of a user page, which is allowed. The Exome sequencing article itself is clearly a long-standing, well developed article of which only a few sentences in a minor subsection, have been copied in a scientific paper published after they were first published on WP. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 20:18, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Abandoned drafts that are similar to the original article are most likely a fake article. The copyright content in the article can be tagged like this. QuackGuru (talk) 20:46, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Has anyone emailed Kusala Pussegoda to ask? They are contactable via the Ottawa Methods Centre, so I'm happy to contact them in case they can shed any light. If the text really was written in the sandbox before it was published in a journal, then my understanding is that the CC BY-SA license takes precedent (and technically the journal is in copyvio, though it'd probably not be worth their while to do anything about it). T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 23:36, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

An author can publish their same work as many times as they wish – under a CC-BY-SA licence or not. None of them are copyright violations. It simply doesn't matter which was published first; as long as the author remains the copyright holder, they retain the right to copy the material and to grant others a licence to copy it. --RexxS (talk) 01:46, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Publishing in a journal will normally involve some sharing of copyright with the journal, unless it is a fully open one. But if the WP publication preceded that publication it is not a copyvio -or possibly, depending what contract was agreed with the journal and when, the author violated her contract with the journal. Either way, WP is ok. Quack, please stop quacking nonsense. The userspace draft is not a fake article nor an abandoned draft. It is just a draft (that was soon moved to article space) & I know of no policy against keeping those. Johnbod (talk) 04:06, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

If they published it here first and in the journal second, then it is under a CC BY SA license as they stilled owned the content when the published it. Whatever deal they have with the journal is not our problem. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:49, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Full ref

Pussegoda, KA (July 2010). "Exome sequencing: locating causative genes in rare disorders". Clinical genetics. 78 (1): 32–3. doi:10.1111/j.1399-0004.2010.01414_1.x. PMID 20597920.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:51, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

@T.Shafee(Evo&Evo) ^{Yes I have... --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:37, 21 July 2019 (UTC)}