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Wikipedia:Copyright problems

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This page is for listing and discussing possible copyright problems involving text on Wikipedia, including pages which are suspected to be copyright violations. Listings typically remain for at least five days before review and closure by a copyright problems clerk or administrator. During this time, interested contributors are invited to offer feedback about the problem at the relevant talk page, to propose revisions to the material, or to request copyright permission. After the listing period, a copyright problems board clerk or administrator will review the listing and take what further action may be necessary.

Pages listed for copyright review appear in the bottom section of the page. The top includes information for people who have copyright concerns about pages or images, for those whose pages have been tagged for concerns, for community volunteers who'd like to help resolve concerns and for the clerks and administrators who volunteer here.

If you believe a Wikipedia page has infringed on your copyright, please see special note below.
If a page you created has been marked as a copyright problem and you own copyright in the original publication (or have permission from the owner), please see this section.

Contents

Handling previously published text on Wikipedia

For more details on this topic, see Wikipedia:Copy-paste.

Under the United States law that governs Wikipedia, copyright is automatically assumed as soon as any content (text or other media) is created in a physical form. An author does not need to apply for or even claim copyright, for a copyright to exist.

Only one of the following allows works to be reused in Wikimedia projects:

A) Explicit Statement. An explicit statement (by the author, or by the holder of the rights to the work) that the material is either:

B) Public Domain. If the work is inherently in the public domain, due to its age, source or lack of originality (such as Copyright-free logos); or

C) Fair Use. United States law allows for fair use of copyrighted content, and (within limits) Wikipedia does as well. Under guidelines for non-free content, brief selections of copyrighted text may be used, but only if clearly marked and with full attribution.

Even if a source is public domain or compatibly licensed, material should be properly attributed in accordance with Wikipedia:Plagiarism. This is not only a matter of respecting local custom. When content is under a license that is compatible with Wikipedia's license, proper attribution may be required. If the terms of the compatible license are not met, use of the content can constitute a violation of copyright even if the license is compatible.

Repeated copyright violations

Contributors who repeatedly post copyrighted material (text or images) may be subject to contributor copyright investigations, to help ensure the removal from the project of all copyrighted material posted in contravention of policy. Contributors who repeatedly post copyrighted material after appropriate warnings will be blocked from editing, to protect the project; see 17 United States Code § 512.

Backwards copying: when Wikipedia had (or may have had) it first

In some instances, it is clear that two pieces of text (one on Wikipedia, and one elsewhere) are copies of each other, but not clear which piece is the original and which is the copy. "Compliant" sites that copy Wikipedia text note that they have done so, but not all of our re-users are compliant.

If you've found such a case, you might first check the discussion page to see if a note has been added to the top of the talk page to allay people's concerns. If not, you can look for clues. Do other pages in the other website copy other Wikipedia articles? Did the content show up on Wikipedia all in once piece, placed by a single editor? If you don't see good evidence that Wikipedia had it first, it's a good idea to bring it up for investigation. You might follow the Instructions for listing below or tag the article {{copy-paste|url=possible source}} so that others can evaluate. If you confirm definitely that the content was on Wikipedia first, please consider adding {{backwardscopy}} to the article's talk page with an explanation of how you know.

If you see an article somewhere else which was copied from Wikipedia without attribution, you might visit the CC-BY-SA compliance page or Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks.

Instructions for listing text-based copyright concerns

Shortcut:
Copyright owners: If you believe Wikipedia is infringing your copyright, you may request immediate removal of the copyright violation. Alternatively, you may contact Wikipedia's designated agent under the terms of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act. You are also welcome to follow the procedures here. See the copyright policy for more information.

Blatant infringement

Pages exhibiting blatant copyright infringements may be speedily deleted if:

  • Content was copied from a source which does not have a license compatible with Wikipedia, and the content was copied from that source to Wikipedia and not the other way around (Wikipedia has numerous mirrors);
  • The page can neither be restored to a previous revision without infringing content, nor would the page be viable if the infringing content were removed.
  • There is no credible assertion of public domain, fair use, or a free license.

To nominate an article for speedy deletion for copyright concerns, add one of these to the page:

Both of these templates will generate a notice that you should give the contributor of the content. This is important to help ensure that they do not continue to add copyrighted content to Wikipedia. An administrator will examine the article and decide whether to delete it or not. You should not blank the page in this instance.

Suspected or complicated infringement

If infringement is not blatant or the speedy deletion criteria do not apply:

  • Remove the infringing text or revert the page to a non-copyrighted version if you can.
    The infringing text will remain in the page history for archival reasons unless the copyright holder asks the Wikimedia Foundation to remove it (unless it is tagged for {{copyvio-revdel}}. Please note the reason for removal in the edit summary and at the article's talk page (you may wish to use {{subst:cclean}}). When possible, please identify and alert the contributor of the material to the problem. The template {{Uw-copyright}} may be used for this purpose.
  • However, if all revisions have copyright problems, the removal of the copyright problem is contested, or reversion/removal is otherwise complicated:
  • Replace the text with one of the following:

    {{subst:copyvio|url=insert URL here}}

    {{subst:copyvio|identify non-web source here}}

  • Go to today's section and add

    * {{subst:article-cv|PageName}} from [insert URL or identify non-web source here] ~~~~

    to the bottom of the list. Put the page's name in place of "PageName". If you do not have a URL, enter a description of the source. (This text can be copied from the top of the template after substituting it and the page name and url will be filled for you.) If there is not already a page for the day, as yours would be the first listing, please add {{subst:cppage}} to the top.
  • Advise the contributor of the material at their talk page. The template on the now blanked page supplies a notice you may use for that purpose.

Instructions for special cases

  • Probable copyvios without a known source: If you suspect that a page contains a copyright violation, but you cannot find a source for the violation (so you can't be sure that it's a violation), do not list it here. Instead, place {{cv-unsure|~~~|2=FULL_URL}} on the page's talk page, but replace FULL_URL with the full URL of the page version that you believe contains a violation. (To determine the URL, click on "Permanent link" in the toolbox area, and copy the URL.)
  • Instances where one contributor has verifiably introduced copyright problems into multiple pages or files and assistance is needed in further review: See Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations.

Instructions for handling image copyright concerns

For more details on this topic, see Wikipedia:Guide to image deletion.

Image copyright concerns are not handled on this board. For images that are clear copyright violations, follow the procedure for speedy deletion; list images that are suspected to be copyright violations at possibly unfree images and images with disputed fair use rationales at Non-free content review. To request assistance with contributors who have infringed copyright in multiple articles or files, see Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations.

Responding to articles listed for copyright investigation

Copyright owners and people editing on their behalf or with their permission, please see below.

Any contributor is welcome to help investigate articles listed for copyright concerns, although only administrators, copyright problems board clerks, and OTRS team members should remove {{copyvio}} tags and mark listings resolved.

Assistance might include supplying evidence of non-infringement (or, conversely, of infringement) or obtaining and verifying permission of license. You might also help by rewriting problematic articles.

Supplying evidence of non-infringement

Articles are listed for copyright investigation because contributors have reason to suspect they constitute a copyright concern, but not every article listed here is actually a copyright problem. Sometimes, the content was on Wikipedia first. Sometimes, the article is public domain or compatibly licensed and can be easily fixed by supplying attribution (e.g. through a dummy edit). Sometimes, the person who placed it here is the copyright owner of freely-licensed material and this simply needs to be verified.

If you can provide information to prove license or public domain status of the article, please do. It doesn't matter if you do it under the listing for the article on the copyright problems board or on the talk page of the article; a link or a clear explanation can be very helpful when a clerk or administrator evaluates the matter. (As listings are not immediately addressed on the board, it may take a few days after you make your note before a response is provided.)

If the article is tagged for {{copyvio}}, you should allow an administrator or copyright problems clerk to remove the tag. If the article is tagged for {{copy-paste}} or {{close paraphrasing}}, you may remove the tag from the article when the problem is addressed (or disproven), but please do not close the listing on the copyright problems board itself.

Obtaining/verifying permission

Sometimes material was placed on Wikipedia with the permission of the copyright owner. Sometimes copyright owners are willing to give permission (and proper license!) even if it was not.

Any contributor can write to the owner of copyright and check whether they gave or will give permission (or maybe they in fact posted it here!). See Wikipedia:Example requests for permission. In either case, unless a statement authorizing the material under compatible license is placed online at the point of original publication, permission will need to be confirmed through e-mail to the Wikimedia Foundation. See Wikipedia:Confirmation of permission. If a compatible license is placed online at the point of original publication, please provide a link to that under the listing for the article on the copyright problems board or on the talk page of the article.

Please note that it may take a few days for letters to clear once they are sent. Do not worry if the content is deleted prematurely; it can be restored at any point usable permission is logged.

Rewriting content

Any contributor may rewrite articles that are or seem to be copyight problems to exclude duplicated or closely paraphrased text. When articles or sections of articles are blanked as copyright problems, this is done on a temporary page at Draft:PAGENAME so that the new material can be copied over the old. (The template blanking the article will link to the specific temporary page.)

Please do not copy over the version of the article that is a copyright problem as your base. All copied content, or material derived from it, should be removed first. Other content from the article can be used, if there is no reason to believe that it may be a copyright issue as well. It is often a good idea - and essential when the content is copied from an inaccessible source such as a book - to locate the point where the material entered the article and eliminate all text added by that contributor. This will help avoid inadvertently continuing the copyright issues in your rewrite. If you use any text at all from the earlier version of the article, please leave a note at the talk page of the article to alert the administrator or clerk who addresses the listing. The history of the old article will then have to be retained. (If the original turns out to be non-infringing, the two versions of the article can be merged.)

Rewrites can be done directly in articles that have been tagged for {{close paraphrasing}} and {{copy-paste}}, with those tags removed after the rewrite is complete.

Please review Wikipedia:Copy-paste and the linked guidelines and policies within it if necessary to review Wikipedia's practices for handling non-free text. Reviewing Wikipedia:Plagiarism is also helpful, particularly where content is compatibly licensed or public domain. Repairing these issues can sometimes be as simple as supplying proper attribution.

Copyright owners who submitted their own work to Wikipedia (or people editing on their behalf)

Policy shortcut:

If you submitted work to Wikipedia which you had previously published and your submission was marked as a potential infringement of copyright, then stating on the article's talk page that you are the copyright holder of the work (or acting as his or her agent), while not likely to prevent deletion, helps. To completely resolve copyright concerns, it is sufficient to either:

See also Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials.

Please note that it may take a bit of time for letters and e-mails to clear once they are sent. Do not worry if the content is deleted prematurely; it can be restored at any point usable permission is logged. Your e-mail will receive a response whether the permission is usable or not. If you have not received a response to your letter within two weeks, it is a good idea to follow up.

One other factor you should consider, however, is that content that has been previously published elsewhere may not meet Wikipedia's specific guidelines and policies. If you are not familiar with these policies and guidelines, please review especially the core policies that govern the project. This may help prepare you to deal with any other issues with the text that may arise.

Should you choose to rewrite the content rather than release it under the requisite license, please see above.

Information about the people who process copyright problems listed on the board

Copyright problems board clerks

For a more complete description of clerks and their duties, as well as a list of active clerks, please see Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Clerks.

Copyright problems board clerks are experienced editors on Wikipedia who have demonstrated familiarity with Wikipedia's approach to non-free text and its processes for dealing with them. They are trusted to evaluate and close listings, although their closures may sometimes require completion by administrators, when use of administrative tools is required. Clerks are periodically reviewed by the administrators who work in copyright areas on Wikipedia.

Copyright problems board administrators

For a more complete description of administrators on Wikipedia, please see Wikipedia:Administrators.

Any administrator may work the copyright problems board. Working the copyright problems board may involve evaluating listings personally or using tools as necessary to complete closures by clerks. Clerks have been evaluated in their work, and their recommendations may be implemented without double-checking, although any administrator is welcome to review recommendations and discuss them with the clerks in question.

Closing listings

Pages should stay listed for a minimum of 5 days before they are checked and processed by copyright problems board clerks, 7 days before they are checked or processed by administrators, who close the daily listings. OTRS agents who verify images may close listings at any time.

For advice for resolving listings, see:

The templates collected at Template:CPC may be useful for administrators, clerks and OTRS agents noting resolution.

Listings of possible copyright problems

Very old issues

Older than 7 days

Below are articles that have been listed here for longer than 7 days. At this point, they may be processed by any administrator (see WP:CPAA). When every ticket on a day is clear, the day may be removed.

7 August 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)
  • Note, this was tagged in February but never listed here (or got removed), so fast-track would be nice if possible. As it stands the 2 sentences objected to in the report are still there, but there may be close paraphrase issues remaining, given a cursory EWbot search, so I'm not sure that just cleaning those 2 sentences is sufficient. CrowCaw 20:19, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
  • The author has made some tweaks, and I've done a couple as well. These are on the temp page: Talk:Timothy Dwight Hobart/Temp. Note also, this is part of a larger CCI (Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20110727), so additional eyes would be welcomed. CrowCaw 19:58, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
  • So much for the fast track, Crow! I looked at this, and found it worrying. My thinking: the initial version of the page is so very closely paraphrased from the source as to risk being considered a derivative work; and much of the content from that version seems to be in the rewrite. Given that this a CCI, I wonder if stubbing the page might not be a better choice here? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:20, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Crow, I may be right off track here, but that is the version I looked at. My concern is still that some of the unacceptably close paraphrasing of the initial version has been carried over into the rewrite, and thus has not been completely removed. I'm also concerned that by keeping much of the original content, albeit in a slightly modified form, we risk putting a "seal of approval" on material that is in fact unacceptable. In this case, there appears to be substantial copying from this page too. Isn't the best approach in a CCI to presumptively remove any and all material that cannot definitely be confirmed to be acceptable? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 08:56, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
  • That's why I brought it here, yes, as I'm admittedly not well versed in the chronic (CCI) side of things yet. (Also your above post confused me when you linked the Earwig from the initial version... I got it now though! :) ). CrowCaw 21:34, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
  • So, Crow, I've gone ahead and stubbed the page, as I still feel that the rewrite is not useable; I'm open to discussion or correction on that. However, there seems to be a more serious problem: the editor is still active, but does not, I believe, understand what constitutes copying, despite his CCI. He had placed a version of the article, complete with copyvios, on its own talk page, with a note "there is no copyright problem". I've just blanked and listed Susan Pamerleau, created 2 days ago, where there are passages lifted verbatim from at least three sources. Mary Booze was flagged by CSB; the initial version shows unacceptable close-paraphrasing, though later edits seem to have smoothed that out (the copyvio was never removed, of course, just fudged on the spot). I'm far from convinced that this user should be free to edit here. Pinging Moonriddengirl and Diannaa for their opinion(s). Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:16, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
  • What we did with a similar recent case (Epeefleche) is added to the case once we were sure that the problems were still ongoing and had 5 examples, same as the threshold we use for opening a new case. The user received a final warning that any further copyright violations would result in an indef block. The material is still on the user's talk page, here. Epeefleche has ceased editing, and I am monitoring for his return. -- Diannaa (talk) 23:39, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────Well, Moonriddengirl, that isn't an easy question; nevertheless, as I see it, there's only one possible answer: you do whatever it takes. Because otherwise it just makes a mockery of everything the rest of us, including particularly you, try to do here. The user shows not a glimmering of understanding (1, 2, 3) of what the problem is, and should not be free to edit. Just a random thought: could it be of any help if you put your other hat on to think about this? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:53, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

It might, Justlettersandnumbers, but aside from processing emergencies my other hat is not always an avenue to immediate solutions to now problems. :/ For structural notes, we are a small team primarily focused on three core workflows related to supporting volunteers (especially community functionary groups like OTRS admins, ombudsman commission, checkusers, stewards), supporting staff (in areas related to community engagement; one of us is in Tokyo with ED Lila right now) and trust & safety (liaising with the FBI on threats of violence, overseeing child safety issues related to imaging, etc.) We also handle correspondence to the WMF (snail mail, email, including business proposals). We have room for a couple of major projects, generally, and one of those right now is our harassment research & upcoming consultation. (We'll be running a survey in November.) We're also trying to find a way to make wmf:answers expand to better serve community (it's mostly used by readers and outside entities), refining our policies & processes related to handling child pornography, and bringing in a large group of stewards for a meeting this month on improving steward workflows. This context is because I want you guys of all people to understand that "We will not be fast" does not mean "We do not care." :) Beyond that, we are not a tech team, and where solutions to problems are techy, we have to get fixes on the joblist of a team that is (perhaps the rather new mw:Community Tech team), which means working with whatever priorities they assign or have had assigned to them. We may also have to coordinate with grants or learning & evaluation or some other team, if it proves to dovetail with their existing work or focuses.
All that said, all of our priorities are guided by the WMF overall strategy, which is set by the Board. (this year's.) One of our goals is to "Identify community health metrics and test projects to improve them." And "how to handle the unblockable" strikes me as a massive community health issue. So I think this conversation is doable.
I suspect that getting something like this on the radar would require:
  • (a) metrics to help define and demonstrate the scale of the problem.
  • (b) a showing of community support for putting WMF resources (time, money) to address it, and
  • (c) ideally some preliminary ideas for what addressing it might look like.
(c) is not really a requirement, just a "nice to have," but it's a really "nice to have." How do you block a long-term harasser from India, for instance, where there are 35 people for each IP address? Or from North Korea where there are 24,000 people for each IP address? (cool stats) Or when a US vandal just moves from library to library in a major metropolitan area? Or when she understands how to exploit unidentified open proxies? Of course, it's not an all or nothing solution. If we can find ways to even improve current practices through tool or cultural changes, then all to the good. :) But this particular problem is a hard one, I think, and people tend to shy away from making a major investment when they aren't sure if it will lead to anything constructive.
When community helps scope out projects, it can be a lot easier to get them considered. If community doesn't help, I can put stuff together myself or ask one of the other CAs to help put something together, but it's going to be assigned a lower priority than our quarterly and annual commitments, which means it will certainly not happen quickly, because we are hustling to meet our quarterly commitments.
I imagine that a good place to start with a project like this is talking to the community most likely to be able to help with (a) - CUs and SPI clerks, admins and users who have dealt with long-term vandals - and getting some handle on scale and support. With that, it'll probably be pretty easy to reach out to the global community of stewards and ask their input.
I guess the question now is degree of interest in looking into this and if you have any degree of interest in involvement in this, Justlettersandnumbers. :) If you don't, but you'd like me to explore it, I will put it on my list of things to discuss with the CA team at our next meeting. I know my team pretty well; we all know this is a problem, and it's one we'd love to see solved. There's a person on my team who could be ideal at exploring this. But it probably won't be fast. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:16, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
  • @Justlettersandnumbers and Moonriddengirl: Hi all, back from travel so I can turn my focus back here. A suggestion regarding the above and associated beans (I like that essay btw... have to remember that one). Rather than play sock-hunt, perhaps if CSB tags his submissions we just summarily G12 them until the message is received? At some point there would hopefully be a "hey, why are these all being G12'ed)... Also to JLAN, no problem on stubbing off the rewrite. You've got an excellent sense for close paraphrases, and I'm not the best re-writer on topics I have no knowledge on. Crow Caw 16:33, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Hi, Crow, welcome back (and thanks for that undeserved compliment)! I've rather rudely not replied to Maggie/MRG's careful and detailed response here because … well, I just don't know what to say. My thoughts, such as they are, are roughly:
  • if someone has an open CCI, is still infringing copyrights and is still steadfastly refusing to acknowledge that there's even a problem, that person should not be able to edit here
  • if there's going to be collateral damage from that (extra work for admins and checkusers, possible copyvios by undiscovered socks, whatever), we have to accept that as the cost
  • there should probably be a LTA record for this user (how does that happen, I don't know?)
  • if the Wikimedia legal or technical teams could find ways of limiting the capacity of long-term abusers to access or to damage the project, that would be brilliant
  • I'm not clever enough (nor, to be perfectly honest, dedicated enough) to play any significant part in making that happen – I'd rather write a stub article on some obscure topic
  • But unless MRG or Amalthea (who hasn't edited here since July) advise against it, I might take this to ANI to see what the community thinks
  • I take your point about zapping anything tagged by CSB, but CSB didn't pick up Susan Pamerleau; the copying there is not very extensive, but I don't think it's negligible
  • along the same line of thought, it might be an idea to prioritise the CCI …
None of that leads me to any firm conclusion; the only thing I'm sure of is that we shouldn't be unblocking bad eggs for pragmatic reasons. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 17:50, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Maggie, I'm very concerned about the rationale for this unblock--I think Justlettersandnumbers's analysis very much to the point. Agreed that our tools are limited, and from what I understand there may be very great difficulty in devising effective ones, but that is to reason to stop using what we do have as best we can. (and in this particular case the articles are easily identified by style) I do not want to take any direct action myself, because I have a long-standing dispute with the editor concerned over his contributions in general. going back to my first year on WP. DGG ( talk ) 05:12, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
DGG, the decision was neither proposed nor made by me. I have a lot of respect for the admin who made it, and I understand his thinking there, but it's not the call I would have made, either. Still, I don't think it's the best choice for me to take direct action myself. I was quite dedicated to WP:RBI before the unblock, and I would not want to give the appearance that this is personal. I would not feel comfortable taking action myself without being able to demonstrate egregious ongoing concerns. With that, I could act and stand my ground. Without that, I feel better taking a support role. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:08, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
in which case, this needs either AN/I with respect to the individual block, or ANB as a policy matter in general. Personally, I think it would be fairer to have a discussion in general about what to do in these circumstances. DGG ( talk ) 20:31, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Pictogram voting keep.svg Article cleaned by investigator or others. No remaining infringement. Speedy deletion requested. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:42, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

22 August 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)
  • Pictogram voting keep.svg Article cleaned by investigator or others. No remaining infringement. Revdelete request added for admin attention. User is blocked, CCI has been opened. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:06, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

30 August 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)
Note: copyvio template had been removed by an inexperienced editor; I've restored it, and suggest leaving this for a week or so to give time for a re-write if anyone wants to attempt one. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:31, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

5 September 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

12 September 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)
Pictogram voting comment.svg Comment: I've posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Microsoft to see if anyone want to rewrite this. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:27, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

19 September 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

20 September 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)
  • Had a stab at this one, and found additional copying. All of this is suspect. MER-C 15:38, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Source website now says the content is in the public domain. This is one crap article, though, and I am sorely tempted to delete it. MER-C 19:44, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

21 September 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

Young People's Theatre (history · last edit · rewrite) from http://www.youngpeoplestheatre.ca/. Secondarywaltz (talk) 19:17, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

22 September 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)
At the user's talk page I have noted that the temp page created in response still contains substantial copying from the above website.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:34, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

23 September 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

24 September 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)
  • I'll look into cleaning this over the next few days, but I'm bringing it here as this article's been deleted G12 multiple times. I've blocked one account and filed an SPI. —SpacemanSpiff 10:58, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

25 September 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)
Pictogram voting comment.svg Comment: CCI requested. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:02, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

26 September 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

27 September 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Murder,_She_Wrote_episodes there does seem like content has just been ripped and place on the page.

28 September 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)
The problem sas been solved - the whole text removed [5].Xx236 (talk) 10:03, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

29 September 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

30 September 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)
This page seems to have been written by more than one person, and many are inactive. Should I notify them all?Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:07, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
No, Jo-Jo Eumerus, there's no need for that; it's enough to notify whoever added the copyvio you've noticed (if you can work that out, which isn't always easy). In this case, based on a very quick glance, that seems to be Amirreza karimi, so that's who I'd notify. Thanks for bringing this here! Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:07, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
Notified them. Anyway, according to the Earwig tool the versions prior to his are not copyright violations. May be worth reverting back to the pre-edit version.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 22:28, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Pictogram voting keep.svg Article cleaned by investigator or others. No remaining infringement. --MER-C 14:20, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

1 October 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)
  • Pictogram voting keep.svg Article cleaned by investigator or others. No remaining infringement. --MER-C 14:50, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Varanasi (वाराणसी) (Hindustani pronunciation: [ʋaːˈraːɳəsi] ( listen)), also known as بنارس, Benares,[3] Banaras (Banāras [bəˈnaːrəs] ( listen)) or Kashi (Kāśī [ˈkaːʃi] ( listen)), is an Indian city on the banks of the Ganga in Uttar Pradesh, 320 kilometres (200 mi) south-east of the state capital, Lucknow. ..

note the "( listen)" and [3]. So it's unlikely that the Wikipedia page is copied from that website, but the last paragraph in the history section (the one originally tagged) does indeed look copied from http://www.ssvv.ac.in/webpages.php?tag=Brief-History But resolving it is just a matter of deleting that one paragraph. (Also clear because everything until that paragraph is in chronological order and ends with a citation, while the last paragraph one goes out of order and out of tone.) Shreevatsa (talk) 23:09, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Scope (project management) (history · last edit · rewrite) from http://baroo.com.au/Baroo%20BCM.html. G12 candidate as-is, unless there is a clean version somewhere in the history or we are dealing with a mirror, but I see no evidence of that.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:12, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
    Follow-up: I went through the history. Seems like there were copyright concerns already earlier considering that Moonriddengirl did delete some revisions from the page. The current content at issue of the page appears to go back to the two edits by 67.129.103.2. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:24, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
    Thanks for identifying the point of insertion, Jo-Jo Eumerus. :) The oldest archived version of that page is 2013, which is four years after the insertion of the text. Not definitive in itself, because pages can move or might not be archived for a number of reasons, but it suggests that if it's a backwards copyvio we may find evidence. Looking for that now. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:10, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
    Okay, so first minimal change is reflected in the external source. The lack of punctuation in the original is a concern in itself, though. It suggests somebody may have copied something without attention to such details. However, that this sentence added in 2012 shows up in the suspected external source is a very strong suggestion of backwards copying. This punctuation change is carried over, as well. Other changes carried over: a grammatical change, this major text removal. That is the last major change to the article reflected in the external site. However, it's enough for me to confirm backwards copying, since it's far less likely that we copied it wrong and then modified it incrementally over years to make it similar to the external site. I'll close this one out early. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:19, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Pictogram voting support.svg Backwardscopy. Tag and explanation placed at talk page. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:19, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

2 October 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

6 October 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)
I have deleted the three offending paragraphs which did look like a cut and paste job. Dormskirk (talk) 15:43, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

7 October 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

8 October 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)
  • Pictogram voting delete.svg Article deleted due to copyright concerns. --clpo13(talk) 09:26, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Pictogram voting delete.svg Article deleted due to copyright concerns. --clpo13(talk) 09:26, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
The copyright challenge is incorrect. The material is fully documented from the sources used. The material was rewritten: not copied directly from the sources. The material is scrambled. This article is really no different from any other Wikipedia article. All paragraphs will resemble their sources to some extent.Billy Hathorn (talk) 01:27, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Billy Hathorn, I can't agree with you. I've put some examples of what I consider to be unacceptable copying on the talk page of the article. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:23, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

9 October 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)
  • Pictogram voting keep.svg Article cleaned by investigator or others. No remaining infringement. --MER-C 16:20, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

10 October 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)
  • Pictogram voting delete.svg Article deleted due to copyright concerns. --The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:26, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
    The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:26, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

12 October 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

13 October 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

New listings

Notice:If the links below in this section are broken, it's because there are too many unresolved copyright problems, If enough issues are closed, they'll work again. (So help!)
(Above notice per MER-C.)
WARNING! It also means that some reported problems are not on this page!!!

New listings are not added directly to this page but are instead on daily reports. To add a new listing, please go to today's section. Instructions for adding new listings can be found at Instructions for listing text-based copyright concerns. Entries may not be reviewed and are not closed for at least 7 days to give the original authors of the article time to deal with the problem.

Older than 5 days

Below are articles that have been listed here for longer than 5 days. At this point, they may be processed by a copyright problems board clerk. After 7 days, they may be closed by an administrator.

15 October 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

16 October 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

Recent listings

Below are articles that have been listed here for 5 days or less. Anyone in the community may help clarify the copyright status on these. See the section on responding for more information.

17 October 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

18 October 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

19 October 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

20 October 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

21 October 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)
The original text looked as if it was simply copied-and-pasted from the source (the apostrophes used full-width spacing which is usually a dead giveaway). Section has been edited since it was tagged as a copyvio, but not sure if that's enough to fix the problem. - Marchjuly (talk) 13:01, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
I figured out how to revdel the appropriate edits, and am about to do that now. Sorry for the useless post here! /wia /tlk /cntrb 14:18, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

22 October 2015

Copyright investigations (manual article tagging)

Footer

Wikipedia's current date is 22 October 2015. Put new article listings in Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2015 October 22. Images should be handled by speedy deletion, possibly unfree files or Wikipedia:Non-free content review.