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Fair Use covers

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I saw that in the article The Vendor of Sweets, the book cover used is a copyrighted one, and is used under 'fair use'.

Is there any workaround to this? If I have the book, can I upload its picture under CC-BY-SA?

I'm slightly confused about this. Kingsacrificer (talk) 19:17, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Even if you own the book, the copyright to the cover image still belongs to the original artist, according to whatever the copyright term is from where it was first made. It looks like it's from 1967, so there could be some edge cases here. If it was first published in the US in without an explicit copyright notice, it's public domain now and you can upload the image -- you can check the inner flap of the book and the copyright page to look for a notice. If there is a copyright notice, it won't become public domain until 2062 (meaning we can only use a "fair use" low-resolution image until then). This chart has the details for figuring out other US books' status. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 19:59, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are there any special restrictions on where to get the 'fair use' pictures from? Because they aren't always seen on the publisher's website. Kingsacrificer (talk) 20:06, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not that I'm aware of. I believe any source for the image is OK, though it's important to upload fair use files to the English Wikipedia directly, not the Wikimedia Commons. The Wikipedia:File upload wizard will steer you in the right direction. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 21:46, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I have been using it and have added cover images for 3 books. Will continue to work on the backlog. Kingsacrificer (talk) 08:45, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you @Kingsacrificer! I do this all the time, and have actually uploaded thousands of images like this, but would appreciate help in adding more such as this. Please join me. I used a combination of sources, from Goodreads, to Archive.org, to Amazon or Abebooks, or other places when available. Glad to see another lover of adding book cover images. The list (as I write this) is around 1803 listed books deep, but I think with some concerted work, we could get the list down to 900 or below and keep it there! Iljhgtn (talk) 07:16, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The list is now in the 1700s in total count. I think we can get it down from there if we work together on this. Iljhgtn (talk) 18:35, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm on it. Doing a few every week. Kingsacrificer (talk) 19:11, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is super. Iljhgtn (talk) 06:27, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Kingsacrificer The list is 1,743 deep as of this writing. That might be the lowest that it has ever been. If you @LEvalyn are able to contribute to this list, that would also help, I think we can get below 1,500 before the end of this month if we all work together! Iljhgtn (talk) 01:16, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder how many I have done already. I was on a break, will continue to do it again. Kingsacrificer (talk) 19:18, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Iljhgtn
Is there a script that you guys are using for being efficient?
It is extremely tiresome to fill in the same information again and again, and perform the same steps again and again, only for different files and articles. Can there not be a way to do this quicker? Kingsacrificer (talk) 19:39, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
With my OCD I could literally do this for weeks straight without any sense of boredom at all. I would just go and go and go. I use no script; I just do it all manually in extreme volume. Sorry, I wish I had a better answer for you. Iljhgtn (talk) 03:11, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It sure would help if others *wink* *wink* would join in and help us out @Kingsacrificer. ;) Iljhgtn (talk) 07:38, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a way for us to request scripts? Kingsacrificer (talk) 10:44, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would start at the WP:Teahouse. I ask all kinds of questions in TH and they are all usually very helpful people. Iljhgtn (talk) 17:34, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I went directly to the User scripts request page. Have tagged you, too. Kingsacrificer (talk) 17:39, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh you did? That is cool. I did not even know that existed. I had some help with some scripts that I used to use, but I more recently turned some off related to edit summaries. That said, its been years since I created any or had help in creating any. I hope you get a solution. If so, I'd love to have it. Iljhgtn (talk) 17:49, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, here. Did you not get the notification? Kingsacrificer (talk) 18:47, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Draft:Chronicon ex chronicis, and specifically, the Genealogia Lindisfarorum

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Per a user talk page request, I have broken out Draft:Chronicon ex chronicis, one of the oldest English works, and I am specifically looking for information on the Genealogia Lindisfarorum, a genealogy reproduced as part of the book. This is outside my expertise, and I would appreciate any help with this effort. BD2412 T 01:19, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Book cover with competing editions, which to choose?

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As some of you already know, I spend a huge amount of my time updating and cleaning up the Category:Books with missing cover. I am always recruiting more people over to that by the way, with the goal being to get it eventually in the triple digits (<999) on an ongoing basis.

I was doing my normal book cover additions, when I found this book called Marble Hall Murders, a 2025 book which was released at the same time in both the UK as well as the USA. What do we do in these cases? Which book cover should we choose as the single choice of a non-free file for purposes of being used only to identify the book in the infobox? I chose the UK cover in this case because the author appears to have a UK background, but that might not be the right way to think about it. I'd appreciate any feedback on how to decide in cases like this.

When there is a clear case of competing book covers, but one is released before another, in those cases I just go with whichever came out earlier, but I am curious about what we would do when multiple might have been released around the same time or exactly the same time. Iljhgtn (talk) 23:31, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't run into anything like that, but I think your move, of the home country of the author's cover, is an alright solution when editions are released at the same time. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:33, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I will follow that guideline then unless anyone has a better idea or there is any MOS guidance on this. Iljhgtn (talk) 00:03, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:NOVELS in the “images” section says The image displayed at the top of the article should be the most significant cover historically for that book; often this is the first edition cover, but occasionally it is not, if a later edition is better known. I agree that if there are several simultaneous first edition covers we should use the one from the author’s “home” country. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:19, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ok sounds like a plan. Iljhgtn (talk) 01:28, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Related question, that by coincidence I have just encountered (on an article I am making that is not in mainspace yet):
If most editions of a book use one cover, but the original uses something else, which do we prefer? Does more editions equal "most significant"?
For example, the second, third, fourth, and fifth editions of the Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology (article in question) look like this: [1] [2] [3] [4] (pyramid with a big red moon)
While the first edition looks like this: [5] (eye of horus type thing)
I obviously haven't finished the article yet but I am curious how "most significant" intersects with that. If there was a different cover for every edition I would use the first but all but the first use the pyramid thing. PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:42, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the clearest image of the earliest prominent edition should be used, and then a caption should be provided beneath that in the infobox in order to further clarify which edition it is (3rd edition for example), and the year of its issue. I do this often, but I am receptive to feedback on how to improve that system if anyone has ideas or if there is better MOS guidance already in effect. Iljhgtn (talk) 02:33, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See, but which counts as "earliest prominent"? The first edition of this book is pretty rare, but it is the first. PARAKANYAA (talk) 03:23, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that there is a problem any time we cannot have a clear-cut shared consensus-based understanding. I like "earliest" in terms of verifiable simple publication dates. No disputing it then on those grounds. Do we have any examples of "earliest prominent" where the community chose an option other than strictly "earliest"? Iljhgtn (talk) 03:28, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The only one I'm aware of is And Then There Were None but there is, well, a rather obvious reason that was preferred. PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:03, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In practice, editors almost always prefer the first edition cover, even if a later cover is much better known, or had far larger print runs. Rarely, a well known later cover can also be included lower down the article - as in for example Testimonies (novel) - but unless there is something specific to be said about the later edition it’s likely to be challenged as improper fair use. That doesn’t apply of course if the second cover is out of copyright. MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:23, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think the only quasi exception is for cases where the first edition is not accessible, like at Elegiac Sonnets where I use the second edition because the first has not been digitized. But even then, the principle is basically “something is better than nothing”; I don’t prefer the second edition and if anyone did get access to the first edition they should put it in as a replacement. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 23:32, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
...so, use the first edition cover of the occultism encyclopedia then, is what I'm getting? PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:43, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think so, yeah. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 23:58, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed MichaelMaggs (talk) 07:57, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the first edition is nearly always preferable. Maybe even always, if available. Iljhgtn (talk) 15:43, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is this even a Book?

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Article Utrecht Atlas confuses me. Should it remain a part of this project? Kingsacrificer (talk) 19:32, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would say atlases are in scope, as it is a kind of reference work, and was bound like a book. PARAKANYAA (talk) 19:43, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
okay, thanks Kingsacrificer (talk) 19:37, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nominate for deletion?

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I can't find anything notable about this book Fatima_and_the_Daughters_of_Muhammad

I would have nominated it for deletion but there has already been a discussion on its deletion in 2011. I don't know what to do. Kingsacrificer (talk) 19:37, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are a lot of contemporary reviews for the book on Persee.fr and elsewhere and the book has a lot of citations and discussions even in modern works (e.g. a google books search on either the french or english title). Some look like sigcov. For a book of its time (WP:OLDBOOK) I would say that is pretty notable, and you could build an article from it. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:39, 28 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Article in magazine?

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These essays Freedom to Dream and Freedom to Speak were published as articles in a magazine. Does it really belong with this project? Kingsacrificer (talk) 19:00, 28 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Was it published as a book? If yes, then yes. If no, it is not. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:38, 28 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't look like it was. It's also not a Wikipedia essay so not suitable for the "essays" WikiProject it was in; I did some re-classification. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 05:37, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why not nominate it for deletion? Doesn't seem notable at all. Kingsacrificer (talk) 10:43, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, you can, if you do a search and really think there’s nothing. But it already cites a journal article and the author is a Nobel laureate for literature so I’d expect more coverage to exist in pre-digital academic journals. Frankly, for Nobel laureates there’s a solid argument for WP:NBOOK#5. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 23:28, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. Kingsacrificer (talk) 19:26, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Untranslated books in foreign languages

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Book articles like In the Shadow of Your Wings confuse me. Should this even exist? I can't find a single mention of the English version of this book. The German one exists but does it really belong on the English Wikipedia? Kingsacrificer (talk) 19:22, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell, there is no English version of that book. However, not all English-titled Wiki articles for books correspond to an existing translation's title. These two links about article naming for books might interest you:
Should the article exist? If it meets WP:NBOOK, then yes. Articles are not redirected, merged or deleted as a result of their lack of sources published in English. Οἶδα (talk) 07:12, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think there's too many book articles that don't meet WP:NBOOK (the one I tagged above may or may not pass it).
Should I mark them as AfD in that case? Kingsacrificer (talk) 13:06, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Kingsacrificer Why would you nominate an article for deletion just because it didn't have English sources? Non-English sources are fine. PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:18, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I meant only the ones that don't meet the notability criteria. Kingsacrificer (talk) 19:08, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You should feel free to nominate for AfD any book if you’ve done a WP:BEFORE search and consider it unlikely that two in-depth, independent sources exist about the book. There are many articles that haven’t been properly looked at, and you’re likely to come across them while adding cover images. In the case of In the Shadow of Your Wings, though, the article cites three secondary sources so the first step of the BEFORE search would be determining that they don’t have significant coverage. Then, given the topic, I’d personally check German-language academic sources through a search somewhere like Google Scholar and Google Books. It may not be feasible to check digitized 1950s German newspapers but that’s the third place I’d expect coverage to exist, if there was any. For me, the book is the kind of thing I’d expect to be notable and so I wouldn’t choose to invest that time in it. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 17:55, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, this one seems notable based on my few searches. I should go through other ones though that are definitely not notable, but it slows down my momentum of the cover pages task so I kinda let it be. Kingsacrificer (talk) 19:09, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No need to do everything all at once, and your cover images are very helpful! You and Iljhgtn are doing wonderful work there. As a halfway measure you could consider tagging the questionable ones with {{Notability|Books}} so editors monitoring that maintenance category can find it for a closer look. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 20:01, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is a good suggestion, thank you. I will try to keep that in mind. Kingsacrificer (talk) 09:40, 6 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well said, LEvalyn. I see no reason for an AfD as the result will certainly be finding these same sources and likely more, and thus meeting WP:SIGCOV. Curiously, the article was created at the same time as its article on German Wikipedia, which I generally highly regard for its strictness and rigor. Though, it's worth mentioning that the article here had a WP:STARTOVER at the beginning of this year for alleged "incomprehensible material/original research". Οἶδα (talk) 23:06, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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