Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems/Archive 7

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Images from Crimson Skies Universe

Hello, I am new and would like to know how I go about finding out if I can use images from Crimson Skies Universe. Much of this material is available in a downloadable "Fansite Kit".

~ E. Todd Quigley 03:10, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Since all this material is © Microsoft, there is zero chance they will be released under a free license. The only way to use the material is under a fair use claim, and for that, you don't need Microsoft's permission. You should read the requirements at Wikipedia:Fair use criteria, and make sure that each use follows these guidelines. If it does, you can upload appropriate images, tag them correctly, add a valid fair use rationalle for each, and everything should be fine. If you have specific questions, feel free to ask me. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 04:03, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Image:Triforce.svg

Could do with some advice on the copyright status of Image:Triforce.svg. I created it using a text editor as a replacement for Image:Three Triangles.svg and use in {{User Zelda}}. I originally released it under {{PD-self}} but this has since been removed by Durin who subsequently then removed it from several templates it is being used in. I don't personally think it is copyrightable because it is a basic Sierpinski triangle and not a Nintendo image but I could do with expert opinions. — Ian Moody (talk) 16:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

  • The logo features prominently in the upper left of http://www.zelda.com/universe/ and is the avatar they use for their website. That it happens to be a mathematical construct does not prevent them from asserting copyright. Similarly, the the logo for Mitsubishi is also a mathematical construct. Nintendo retains copyrights to the logo and derivative works. Image:Triforce.svg is clearly a derivative work. Further indicative of this is that people would like to use this image on articles, templates, and etc. relating to Zelda. Obviously it is something people associate with Zelda; because Nintendo has marketed it as such. Wikipedia is conservative in its estimation of situations as this; the potential loss from infringing on Nintendo's copyright is in no way reasonable when considering any possible gain we could have by using this logo in userboxes and other templates. The proper path forward here is to make a request of Nintendo regarding their stance on the logo, and whether it is available under a free license. Note that if they do not respond (as is often the case when making such requests of companies) it does not mean it is free of copyright. Doing this provides an affirmative position from which we can say with certainty that the image is free of copyright, not supposedly so based on it happening to be a mathematical construct. --Durin 13:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Leeds Town Hall

I have found a copyright violation in the article on Leeds Town Hall--most of the article is copied directly from a website which is copyright of Leeds City Council. The article does acknowledge that this is the case, and the person who has been involved in editing the article has quoted an email from the original author of the text (note: not Leeds City Council) saying that it's OK for her text to be used in Wikipedia. This, however, doesn't amount to a GFDL licence, and I've told the editor so.

Should the article be reverted until he can get proper permission? I'm still fairly new to Wikipedia so am not all that confident that I know the right proceedure to follow. MLilburne 14:17, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

You should revert the article to the pre-copyvio version (as I have done), or if the article started as a copyvio list it as a copyvio. If we do have propper permission then the page can always be restored. --Peta 23:30, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

We may need to remove the backlog quickly...

There seem to be a problem on Wikipedia:Copyright problems: {{Wikipedia:Copyright problems/NewListings}} is not transcluded anymore. I have looked for what could be the cause of the problem, and the only thing I found is that it may be related to the number of transcluded pages in the article (pages may not get transcluded if there are too many of them). Anyone know anything about this ? One easy way to improve the situation would be to sort out the backlog, but there is not much I can do (admins needed !). Schutz 22:35, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems to be a feature: see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 142#New template limits.2C Special:ExpandTemplates. Schutz 22:47, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I created a new page about this at Wikipedia:Template limits and moved the relevant discussion section from "Village pump (technical)" to the talk of that new page. --Ligulem 12:03, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Military bio copyright?

I came across an article that appears to be a copyvio. The article is here: Jeremy Michael Boorda and the page a majority of the text comes from is here: http://www.defenselink.mil/photos/May1996/940421-A-0000D-001.html. I know that images that come from government sources are PD but I did not know if that applied to biographical text. The bio is on a military site but I still think that the article is a copyvio but I wanted to check here before I blanked the page.--NMajdan•talk 15:39, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

The text is also ineligible for copyright, and is therefore PD. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 18:36, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia have a Copyright Judicial Process?

I am rather pissed-off today. On this article John Tavares, I have been the originator and primary editor. On that article, I had an image and, as required by Wikipedia, I explained the origin of the image. Months later, I was flagged as a potential copyright violation, but was given the chance to explain further. I seriously perused Wikipedia's Fair Use policy. After some serious consideration, I felt use of the image was, in fact, valid fair use. Today, I learned that some person from Norway deleted my image with this statement "removing image with invald fair use claim". Furthermore, with that deletion, was the deletion of my fair use claim, so now no one can even review what I wrote.

My question is this:

Considering that I strongly suspect this person is not a member of the American Bar Association nor a lawyer I challenge 1) his authority to delete, and 2) his competency in American copyright law for passing judgment that the image should have been deleted. I wish to have my fair use claim re-examined. So, the bottom line question for me is this: What, if any, is Wikipedia's process for resolving such disputes? If one exists, what is the next step?

I submit to the authorities and administrators of Wikipedia. I value the service and recognize its importance. Furthermore, I realize and accept that, do to the open nature of the project, problems may arise such as sabotaging articles or distributing false information.

Still, there needs to be some formal process in a matter such as this. Again, I submit and if there is a consensus that my use of the image was not a valid fair use instance, then I accept that. I would accept it because several experienced people gave it thought, not a single judge whose judgment is suspect.

I love Wikipedia - I really do and I plug it every day - but if it claims to abide by the laws of the United States of America, I would hope that Wikipedia reviews American History, government, and dispute resolution processes.

Thank you for any assistance.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Vincent Ree (talk • contribs)

Hi. It is strongly recommended that you do not get invested in any unfree content that you upload to Wikipedia servers. Wikipedia attempts to be maximally reusable, and unfree content is a compromise on that goal. Even more so than appropriately licensed contributions, material that is not freely licensed is subject to the editing process, which very much includes removing material that is not absolutely necessary. No legal standing is required to assess whether particular unfree material is essential enough to compromise our goals for. Thanks for understanding. Jkelly 02:16, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Vin here. I'm afraid I don't understand.

The bottom line is not how the material is put up or even what it is (for the moment), but who decides what is a copyright violation or not. I see no authority granted to nor qualifications for the person who did the deletion. I understand the universality of the ability to delete, but deletion on those grounds is serious. Frankly, Wikipedia should have one person who actually is a copyright lawyer review material which is flagged as a potential copyright violation. If such a person said I violated copyright, then I'd feel alot better and accept judgment. However, the person who deleted my image isn't a copyright lawyer - or a lawyer - or even an American. For that reason, I question his qualifications for understanding American copyright law. At the very minimum, I see no evidence whatsoever that he is more qualified to judge a copyright violation than me.

Given that, in principle, I should be able to re-upload my image and have it re-assessed by somebody who has some credentials in the copyright field. Would I be penalized if I re-uploaded the image? Would a continous vicious circle of deletion and re-upload ensue? Would that eventually lead to me being banned?

If so, then that would imply that the people who admin Wikipedia are just a hypocritcal clique. I say that because the evidence would indicate that, despite having no actual authority, qualifications, nor creditials indicating their superiority, they de facto are solely by being "members of the club", so to speak. The Wikipedia organization being a clique would sadden me greatly and tarnish the reputation of Wikipedia as an organization dedicated to fairness and freedom of information for all. The new perception of Wikipedia might instead be that the Wikipedians are just the 21st Century's "Audio Visual Squad". I refuse to believe that that is so.

To alleviate your fears, I will not re-upload the image. Nonetheless, I would like to have my image re-evaluated by another person as to whether the image is used in a Fair Use fashion. I have reread the critical aspects of this from both Wikipedia's Fair Use article and the Deletor's article on Copyright (the bulk of which conveniently was copied from Wiki's Fair Use article - hmmmm.... and no credit was given....). Once again, if English is your first language, it should be readily clear that my image is covered under the Fair Use.

Please forgive my sarcasm, but I have not been this pissed-off in years. I have been thoroughly supportive of Wikipedia, its ideals, policies, and objectives, and am constantly plugging it. Right now I feel that I was bitch-slapped by somebody who, despite their intentions, is no better than me at judging my actions.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Vincent Ree (talk • contribs)

When commenting on talk pages, please add your signature. You can do this automatically by typing four tildes ~~~~. I'll go take a look at the image and see if it is obvious why it was deleted. Jkelly 05:22, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for both looking and teaching me about the tildes! I did not know that. God bless you for at least taking the time to listen. Vincent Ree 05:25, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It looks like it was deleted because the fair use template was {{web-screenshot}}, while the image seemed to be a photograph of an athlete. The web screenshot template is for images which are screen captures of website design; perhaps you thought it was appropriate because you found the image on a website? In any case, that kind of disconnect is enough for an image to be deleted during image cleanup. Best practice would not be to just upload the image again, but to attempt to find a freely licensed photograph. I assume that we have Wikipedians in Mississauga Ontario who might be willing to photograph him. He should be easy to find if he teaches mathematics at a secondary school. Jkelly 05:32, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict)It looks like Wikipedia:Deletion review is what you need. Since images can now be undeleted, everyone is encouraged to less cautous about deletions than in the past. If a mistake is made by an admin it can be easily corrected. I would suggest you approach this open to the possibility that your understanding may be incorrect, however please pursue this as whomever misunderstands Fair Use does need to learn exactly why or mistakes will continue to be made. I would also suggest you accept the fact that authority at Wikipedia comes through consensus not law degrees, and to argue that non-lawyers should not make deletions will not help your case. I can understand why you are upset about this, but remember that everyone is doing what they believe is right to make the encyclopedia better. When these things happen try to keep in mind that the decisions are not binding and calmly make your argument. Don't forget this is a giant collaboration, it is impossible that your toes will not be stepped on at some point, but aren't the results worth it?--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 05:53, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

New template limits

I replaced some transclusions with links to cut down on template transclusion load for this page. See Wikipedia:Template limits for the relevant discussions, especially Wikipedia talk:Template limits#Limit increased, links added. --Ligulem 12:25, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Copyright violation off a book

What happends if there is a copyright violation but the source is a book, not a URL. --Deenoe 23:00, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

My bad, double checked I'm an idiot :) --Deenoe 23:16, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Spider-Man 3

This page is bloody rifed with copyright violations. I counted a total of 11 images to illustrate an article that's not even that long. I need help in deciding which ones would fall under fair use and which ones would not, and whether those could safely go on other pages, or if they shoudl be deleted outright. Hbdragon88 18:21, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

It is a good rule of thumb that no article should have more than three fair use images, unless there's a particularly good reason to do so. There isn't in this case. My personal opinion would be to keep Image:Spidey3promopic.jpg as the main image, and then also keep either Image:Topher Brock.jpg, Image:Sm3 wp2 1280x1024.jpg, or Image:GG2.jpg as well. Two images are certainly enough to illustrate the article. One would do, in fact, but I can see two. Three is too many, and nine (which is what's there now) is clearly a violation. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 18:33, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I needed some other opinions as the Talk page appeared to not be very helpful. Hbdragon88 19:23, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Talk notice when source is public domain or GFDL

I have been putting messages on Talk pages where some text in an article has been copied from somewhere but it turns out the text is actually in the public domain or under the GFDL, e.g. [1], [2]. I think the idea is good, perhaps there is a template that already does this or one should be made, or a message put on the main article as was done for Britannica 1911 and similar things? —Centrx→talk • 04:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

w:Image:Jarrell TX tornado.gif

I have an issue with the copyright status of this image. The tag says that it is in public domain as a work of the United States Government, but the image itself claims copyright by someone else. The image itself also states that permission has been given to use, but I suspect this permission was only for the source website, which is not listed in the image description. What should I do? -Runningonbrains 02:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Does NOAA employ storm chasers? The image page doesn't say where the user obtained the image, which should always be given. You should ask the user for a URL where they obtained the image. I agree with you that this seems suspect. "Used with permission" makes it sound like not from NOAA (or any government group) since they wouldn't need to give permission. But asking the user directly for the URL should be the first step. If they fail to respond (and are active in Wikipedia) then just submit for delete. MECU≈talk 14:34, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, talked with user, got the url. The government does not employ storm chasers, definately not storm chasers who copyright their pictures (federal employees are not allowed to copyright materials created during official duties). It is my opinion that this image is not public domain, however, I think a fair use rationale may apply. In all honesty, Im not sure how that works, I was hoping someone here could make sure this is (1) okay and keep it the way it is or (2) not okay so I can work on getting an acceptable image for the article. -Runningonbrains 02:06, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
That link makes it sound like NOAA is using the image with permission from the photographer that's in the image. It's not a work of NOAA, thus the tag applied is incorrect. Fair use could apply, but you should search for another image that is free. MECU≈talk 02:43, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Sri Lankan Medal Articles

Hi, having a few problems. User:Lahiru k has been creating articles on Sri Lankan Military Medals, but has been taking text (and possibly images) from the Sri Lankan Navy website [3]. He's asserting that as a member of the navy he has permission to use the text. I'm not familiar enough with copyright policy to determine whether that is enough, and there is also a language barrier. Please see User talk:Lahiru k, User talk:Djbrianuk, Desha Putra Sammanaya, Weerodara Vibhushanaya and Parama Weera Vibhushanaya vs the navy website link above. exolon 19:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Trailer on Life on Mars (TV series)

A user recently added a link to a trailer for this show on YouTube. I removed it as I didn't think we should be linking to non-copyright use of BBC material, but the user has reinstated the link saying that a trailer is acceptable fair use and not a copyright infringement. What's the Wikipedia position on trailers hosted on third party sites like this? Angmering 06:28, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Is there a trailer available on the BBC website? Fair use doesn't apply since it's not hosted on Wikipedia servers. It's just a link in an article. The real issue seems to be whether the trailer is legally allowed to be distributed through the Internet. I believe that since the trailer is advertisement for the show, the BBC shouldn't mind if it's distributed since it would increase the publicity for the show, as long as it remains in tact in its original version. I think this link is fine, but many links to many trailers should be discouraged, such as links to actual TV shows or links in general to any illegal items. (I am not a lawyer) MECU≈talk 14:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Reproduce a Trademark/Coprighted Image ok?

I stumbled accross Image:Myoregonsymbol.png. The author states explicitly "I created this to avoid copyright infringement - it is close, but my own design." It is apparent they they copied the exact Oregon Ducks logo Image:Nikeized logo.jpg. Just because they created it themselves and it's not an exact replication, it gets the point accross that the image is supposed to represent the University of Oregon Ducks sports teams. It's mainly (only?) used in this template {{User:Z4ns4tsu/Userboxes/NCAA-Ducks}}. Is this a simple copyvio and should be speedy deleted? Or is this okay since the image is actually the work of the author? Any help is appreciated. My gut feeling is this is wrong. MECU≈talk 14:21, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it's a copyvio, just like your own drawing of Mickey Mouse is a violation of Disney's copyright. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 03:22, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

User:TournamentKing14

I noticed that this user had been given several warnings (see User talk:TournamentKing14) for uploading images with the incorrect tags. He's now taken to uploading images like Image:ImaginationIsland.jpg with Self-published work, Cc-by-sa-2.5,2.0,1.0 and GFDL. Yet these look like fair use images at best. They look like copies of VHS covers, screenshots, etc. They have been at this for a while upload log. Not sure what the correct procedure is here, do I delete the images or just change the tags? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 15:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

You should convert them to Fair Use. Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair_use {{Video tape cover}} which these seem to apply for. You should ask the user (good luck on a response) for a URL where they found the image. You should at least educate them on the proper use of the tags and put a link to the copyright tags that I just gave you as well, maybe it will help. MECU≈talk 16:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Can translations of works be used without violating copyright?

The Thai Wikipedia, in an article called Wikipedia:How to contribute without violating copyright states (in Thai, my translation) that "translating article content from another language will not create copyright problems. It is like putting our own words into the article. However, using machine translation is a violation of copyright because it is word by word copying, and in addition, the results are hard to read and unreadable." The article doesn't seem to have any english language equivalent, or any equivalent in any other languages. It strikes me quite strange that translations would not violate Wikipedia copyright policies - would I really be able to translate a Thai encyclopedia into English and use that in a en.wikipedia article? Or is this guideline specific to Thailand? Patiwat 20:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

The Thai guideline is correct. At least if they mean translating from one wikipedia to another. See also Wikipedia:Translation into English. You do have to state in the edit summary or talk/article the source from the translation. The fact that a machine translation is unreadable might be a reason not to translate it (or ask someone to translate it for you) Garion96 (talk) 20:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Under US copyright law, if the original work was copyrighted, then the translated work will be subject to the original owner's copyright as a derivative work. However, if the original text was not subject to copyright (for example, the text of Hamlet) or was subject to a copyright that permits creation of derivative works for publication on th.wikipedia (for example, an article from en.wikipedia), then creation of a derivative translation is ok. So if you translate an article from th.wikipedia and submit it to en.wikipedia, you're ok, because th.wikipedia permits redistribution subject to the GDFL license, but if you translate a copyrighted Thai encyclopedia, you're out of luck.
I have no faith in my opinon on the copyright status of machine translation, which makes my head hurt. If the software claims to have a copyright in the output, I would think twice before using it. TheronJ 20:46, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Update: Quadell is totally right, and I've edited my advice above to take the GDFL into account. He/she is also right that you can take the core facts from anything and write a new article. (Which is, after all, what WP:V is all about). TheronJ 13:23, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

There are a few misconceptions here. First off, materials submitted to Wikipedia are still copyrighted. They are just released under the GFDL, so it isn't a violation to copy and paste them into another GFDL project. Second, a translation of a work is almost always a derivative work, so we can't put our own translations of non-free text into Wikipedia (though translations of free text are fine). This is true of machine translations as well as manual translations. But sometimes it may not be a derivative work, if you're careful. I'll explain.

If I write a poem and you translate it, that's definitely a derivitive work (and it's a copyright violation if I don't authorize the translation). But if I write out some facts, like "Billy is exactly six feet tall, and he was born in 1975.", then I don't own the copyright to the facts, only the presentation of those facts. If you rewrote it in your own words, like "Bill (b. 1975) is 6'0" tall.", then you aren't violating my copyright. You have to be very careful that no trace of my own original presentation remains, though. Many encyclopedia articles are like this: a list of facts, organized into paragraphs. So if you translate an article, and rewrite it in your own words, and reorganize it as needed, then it's not a copyvio. There's a lot of gray area here, but that's the basic idea. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 01:19, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you cannot simply translate a work to produce something that says the same things in the same order and distribute that work without permission of the copyright holder of the original work. In fact, paraphrasing of the original work ("putting it in your own words") is also often a derivative work - you have to considerably alter the presentation before it is no longer derivative. The best way to do this is to read and understand the work as a whole, then write it from scratch (whether or not in a different language), being careful that you do not accidentally emulate the original presentation structures. Deco 01:46, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch, guys and gals! That really cleared things up. The sentences in question on th.wikipedia have been fixed accordingly. Patiwat 01:00, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Antisemitism image

Would another editor kindly review the removal of my copyvio report on Image:AntiWarRallyFeb162003.jpg? This image is indeed a copyvio as the artist (whose name Wikipedia actually knows) is not being attributed as Fair use policy #10 specifies. Thanks. (→Netscott) 02:50, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Netscott has been trolling several boards now, trying to get this image deleted on all sorts of different grounds. Most recently he's been claiming the image is a violation of WP:BLP because it had the creator of the poster's name on it, and linked it to Anti-Semitism; yet it was Netscott himself who insisted on claiming the image was anti-Semitic! Even worse, when the name of the creator of the poster was removed, Netscott restored it, then tried to have the image deleted based on CopyVio. He's been playing this game for almost a week now; it's quite disruptive, arguably dangerous, and needs to stop. Jayjg (talk) 02:53, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
What is dangerous is that this artist's work is the lead image (thereby implying that it is anti-Semitic) on the new anti-Semitism article. Nowhere in the article is it specified who's saying what about the image other than some link references to newsource blogs. Wikipedia is not a soapbox and per "no original research" is not in the making statements business. (→Netscott) 02:57, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Nonsense; what is dangerous is that you keep posting the artist's name, and insisting that his image is anti-Semitic, when Wikipedia is doing its best to avoid exactly that. Jayjg (talk) 03:23, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I actually formulated a guide to illustrate this. (→Netscott) 02:58, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes, indeed you did. You insisted that this image was covered under the WP:NPOV policy (among others), but refused to quote the relevant sections. You then wrote a whole new policy to cover something you insisted was already covered by policy. These are simply more examples of your trolling regarding this. Jayjg (talk) 03:23, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I just reviewed the removal. Since the author is attributed, I think Jayjg was correct in removing the listing from WP:CP. Whether it's a violation of BLP is irrelevant here, but since the image is not used in any biographies, I would say it's not a violation. But this should be debated on WP:BLP. Regardless, it's obviously not a copyvio. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 13:43, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

User:Netscott had relisted it. I will discuss this where it was added. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 14:40, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Possible plagiarism

This article on Rodney Ansell seems to include some plagiarism, as some of the information is almost word-for-word identical to this article on the BBC website [4].--H-ko 23:30, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

What if somebody wants to take legal procedings against Wikipedia

I am not sure if this belongs here. If not, please move it appropriate location. I am still a novice on wikipedia.

While asking for permission to use some material for wikipedia under GFDL, I was replied a "No" and was also informed about possible legal action against Wikipedia for other (possible) copyright violations. I am not sure what I should do in this case. Somebody please take appropriate steps for this (or guide me).

Here is the email I sent (email addresses removed):

"

From: E Square To: susuhanan Date: Sep 2, 2006 6:19 PM Subject: Permission to use the image of coat of arms - Bhavnagar state

Hi,

I am editing an entry of Bhavnagar on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhavnagar).

I was doing research on Bhavnagar history, and came to know your wonderful site The Royal Ark at http://4dw.net/royalark/.

I wanted to use one of the images from your website (the image of coat of arms of Bhavnagar at http://www.4dw.net/royalark/India/bhavnaga.htm). Would it be possible to use it for Wikipedia website under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GFDL)?

Thank you for your time. I look forward to your response.

- Square

"

Please note that I have not used any material so far from this website before or after this email exchange, and hence I think the person is referring to other possible violation.


And here is the response:

"

From: Christopher Buyers <susuhanan> To: Square Date: Sep 3, 2006 1:32 AM Subject: RE: Permission to use the image of coat of arms - Bhavnagar state WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dear Mr Square,

Thank you for your e-mail.

I regret that I have a general ban on the use of any materials from my Royal Ark website on wikipedia and related websites.

We are consulting our legal advisers on taking our legal procedings against that website for the unauthrised use of our materials.

With best wishes, Christopher Buyers The Royal Ark

"

-- Square 14:03, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Question concerning verbatim copying vs. copyvios

I have come across an editor who uses phrases and sentences verbatim from sources, mixed in with paraphrasing and a bit of original wording. I asked them to watch out for copyright violations in a very civil manner (although we have a bit of an uncomfortable history), and they responded by claiming I didn't know what I was talking about and how their edits are perfectly fine. I would like a second opinion so I am posting here.

Take Carol Downer. This is the diff and this is the source. The following phrases are verbatim copied with no quotes or inline citation:

  • Abortion Task Force of NOW with Lana Phelan, author of The Abortion Handbook, who became her mentor,
  • Downer and other women observed abortion procedures at an illegal abortion clinic. They then called a meeting on April 7, 1971 to educate women about abortion and their bodies.
  • meeting of the Self-Help Clinic was the development of the concept of menstrual extraction and the invention of the Del-Em kit by Lorraine Rothman.
  • Later that year, Downer ... [was] arrested and charged with "practicing medicine without a license"
  • yogurt to treat a woman's vaginal yeast infection.
  • She was acquitted after a trial that was dubbed "The Great Yogurt Conspiracy Trial"
  • Since then, she has practiced law, mostly in the area of disabilities rights.

And this isn't a freak occurance. The same sort of verbatim copying appears with Alice Wolfson and [[5]], Barbara Seaman and [6], and probably more. So is this sort of verbatim copying allowed? Read the user's comments on my talk page and see whether a) the comments were civil and b) whether its an acceptable justification for this verbatim copying. Thanks for considering this topic. --Andrew c 22:01, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Also, while we are at it, could I get a comment on National Women's Health Network and whether we need quotes around the verbatim mission statement (look at the last edit).--Andrew c 22:03, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
One thing to keep in mind is that copyright is concerned with creative effort. "John Doe is six feet tall" can be reproduced with out violating copyright. Now I didn't read this whole article, but some of the above examples, like "yogurt to treat a woman's vaginal yeast infection," are equal to my John Doe example. Others are a less clearcut, it depends on how much of the WP article contains this stuff. You have to judge if the writing style of the original source is being copied as well as the information, which is really hard. The simplest thing to do here is simply rewrite the section yourself. Show the other editor what you did and explain you were concerned that some things bordered on copyright violations. Be aware others may think you are being overly sensitive, but that is OK. If it makes you feel better to rewrite it, do it. --Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 23:09, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
A statistical analysis may help, out of 159 words added by this user, 120 are verbatim from the source, roughly 75% of the material. I understand completely that facts and simply concepts can only be expressed in certain words, but I feel that the copying is too extensive to be excused. But like you said, I may be over sensitive with this matter, which is why I asked for review here. I'm not sure what to do. When I tried to rewrite a section and put quotes around a verbatim part, the editor reverted the addition of quotes. We sort of have a hostile history, and I am trying my hardest to avoid conflict, so I don't think I have the guts to mess with these articles, which is why I came here to receive confirmation or denial of my copyvio fears.--Andrew c 23:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
It is really not so much the words (although word choice can certainly be creative) as the formatting and style. Rather than put things in quotes, which I also find unappealing, try retelling the information in your words. The best way to avoid an edit war is to use the talk page. Post your proposed wording there aski for input first. --Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 00:56, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Images of the Atomium in Brussels under fair use?

Can images of the Atomium in Brussels be used under fair use in the English-language Wikipedia? --84.61.33.80 10:47, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Who created these images? Who has the copyright to them? If you are the copyright holder, why not just release them under GFDL? -- Lost(talk) 13:49, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Mass TV show copying?

User:Zone46 has made page after page of That 70's Show episodes. The plot is a complete copy and paste job from what I can tell. Join Together (That '70s Show episode) is a recent example of what Zone did: copied the text from the That 70's Central website. Is this a copyright violation or no? I checked the website and didn't see anything that said you needed permission or not... but I somehow think it could be. Direct copy and paste is just wrong in itself, and shows laziness in my opinion. What does everyone else think? RobJ1981 01:55, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it would be a copyvio. That is strictly not allowed on wikipedia. Please compare it to the 70's Central website and if the text is copied verbatim from there then explain the copyright issues to him or guide him here and mark the articles with {{copyvio}} tag. -- Lost(talk) 02:23, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I marked several with the tag. Should I just report the user somewhere else? I really don't want to have to mark each and every page the user has done. RobJ1981 04:34, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I have deleted them, hopefully all of them, and left the user a message about not posting copyrighted material. If they begin again, inform the user on their talk page that they will be blocked if they do not stop, and post a message on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents referring to this section of this talk page asking another administrator to deal with it. —Centrx→talk • 06:59, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

48 hr rule?

I don't understand the rule that we can only attach speedy delete tags to blatant copy violations on pages created in the last 48 hours. What about blatant copy violations on older pages - they're even more damaging to wikipedia by sticking around a long time? Why the strange distinction? It seems illogical/counterproductive Bwithh 17:03, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Not sure but the reason may be that with older articles, there is a chance that the other site copied wikipedia rather than us copying them. This would need to be ascertained before deleting content here -- Lost(talk) 17:16, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
The 48-hour rule is to ensure the site did not in fact copy it from Wikipedia, and apparently also overwrites copyright infringements on mirrors when they update, where otherwise they would not update/delete the now-deleted article. It also helps in making sure the article is not in fact salvageable or that there was a non-infringing article in the page history, but that could be accomplished with a longer time period like a week. —Centrx→talk • 22:54, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the answers, but what about images which are clearly taken from a commercial photo database where it is explicitly stated that the free use of the copyrighted image is not allowed? Images aren't affected by what the mirror issue, are they? In my case, I'm talking about this image of Tyrus Thomas which was wrongly uploaded with a GFDL tag when its really the property of Getty Images. Is there an appropriate tag for speedy image deletion here? Bwithh 20:50, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Just orphan it, tag it with {{imagevio}} and let it be deleted normally. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 23:07, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
I understand that making sure they didn't copy US is a concern, but aside from that, are there any other reasons for the 48 hour loophole here? Copyright problems are a major issue, and knowingly allowing them to exist for even a second after they are exposed as such would seem to expose us to legal liability. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 09:49, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
See above. Apparently it overwrites the copyright infringement on some mirrors. And making sure they didn't copy from us is a real concern.
—Centrx→talk • 05:59, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
Actually the question of our legal liability is a somewhat complicated one: Wikipedia is an 'Online Service Provider' under the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act which gives us certain protections. It seems to be the belief of the Foundation's lawyers that our current processes (WP:CV and the more immediate Wikipedia:Request for immediate removal of copyright violation via OTRS or our designated agent) are adequate.
--ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 10:16, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
Presumably the infringing page can be converted to a copyvio notice, without deleting it!
--Jerzy•t 04:18, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Gasotransmitters

The article Gasotransmitters has many of the hallmarks of copyright infringement.

  • Long academic references for short article
  • Almost no wikification - just 3 token links on the first line
  • Edit page(i.e. clear text) looks far better than wiki rendered version
  • Author is registered but this is his only edit ever.

However I cannot find a source on the internet for it. I would appreciate feedback on wether this is likely to be copyright infringement or not. It doesn't seem to talk much about Gasotransmitters themselves, only discoveries relating to them, and in my opinion should be expanded, moved or deleted, but I daresay that is what the cleanup tag is there for! JPilborough 15:34, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it looks like one, but I can't find it either. It's possible that the submitter copied his own work (e.g. a section of a paper he wrote in college), and that would explain the hallmarks above, but it's more likely it was copied from a medical dictionary on CD-ROM or something. I'd recommend you tag it with {{cv-unsure}}. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 16:59, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, Done. Thanks JPilborough 20:18, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

CBS affiliate used Wikipedia text on their site, with copyright notice

Channel 31 in San Francisco, a new CW affiliate, has copied and pasted Wikipedia's article on The CW into their site. While it would normally be a little flattering to see a professional company use Wikipedia's text, the site includes a copyright notice which strongly implies they consider all the content on their site to be copywritten. See this copyright notice, specifically this phrase: "CBS has a long-standing company policy that does not allow CBS to accept or consider creative ideas, suggestions or materials other than those CBS has specifically requested." and this one: "The Site contains material which is derived in whole or in part from material supplied by CBS and other sources, and is protected by international copyright and trademark laws. No material (including but not limited to the text, images, audio and/or video) and no software (including but not limited to any images or files incorporated in or generated by the software or data accompanying such software) (individually and collectively the "Materials") may be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, or distributed in any way..." here is the page in question. Compare with our page on The CW, here. Firsfron of Ronchester 00:14, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

So do we just send them the Wikipedia:Standard GFDL violation letter or does wikimedia foundation have a policy to deal with such violations? I am asking because I guided another user to the letter earlier today. If there is a way to report to the foundation, please let me know. I will correct my response on the other page as well -- Lost(talk) 10:45, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
I've written to the station with the standard violation letter. I'll let you know what their response is. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 11:14, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Someone on the article talk page sent an e-mail, but I'm not certain it was the standard letter. They said they didn't receive any response, and the page is still up. I appreciate your attention. Firsfron of Ronchester 18:15, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
It appears the letter worked. From what I can tell, the page has been removed. Firsfron of Ronchester 03:28, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I had a quick response from their webmaster promising to 'change the article to reflect this policy': as Firsfron notes, the page is currently inaccessible. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 09:50, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

A book violating Wikipedia and others copyrights

Because of some recent disputes over the Armia Krajowa article, and increasing number of citations requested templates and unformatted citations, I decided to add few references. As two of them looked relativly easy (numbers), I went to my favourite fack-checking source, Google Print - and promtly discovered one source which gave not only those numbers, but, virtually word for word, contained the entire section of the article. My first assumption was that we have a copyvio section, and we need to remove it or rewrite from our article. However I have been working on that article for years now, and I remembered that this section was there for some time - while the book has the copyright stamp (all rights reserved, btw) from 2006 (Google Print front cover with a date). The book, btw, is Sorcha Faal, The Partisans Handbook, Long Trail Acres Publishing, 2006, ISBN 0975322850 (Google Books about page). The section from Armia Krajowa article is the 'Weapons and equipment' section - which dates to May 1, 2005 (see the original entry by User:Balcer). See the following pages for similarities (they are very obvious, the paras were virtually not changed at all: 35, 36, 37, [7]). Our entry from 2005, book copyrighted from 2006? Uh-oh. But wait, it gets even better (or worse). The page 33 which begins the description of AK has text taken straight from the old 'Origins' section of the article (now expanded into the History section), has text taken straight from the very first edit to our page on 2002. And for a final touch, it is not just Wikipedia that seems to be plagariazed in the book. Page 6 and several which follow has text lifted straight from World War II -- 60 Years After: Legacy Still Casts Shadow Across Belarus Radio Free Europe article by Jeffrey Donovan, dated to May 4th, 2005 (Google Cache link - sorry, page is offline and seems not to be in Internet Archieve). At that point I decided to stop searching for other hits and to bring this case to you, as I am not sure if we should write a Wikipedia:Standard GFDL violation letter to the publisher or somebody's else. Plus I expect it may become something big (book plagiarizes Wikipedia...), and make a good WP:POST story.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  15:45, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

It's possible that both Wikipedia and Sorcha Faal copied text from a public domain source, in which case there would be no violation. We should check to make sure. (I can't find the text anywhere else, though.) – Quadell (talk) (random) 17:27, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Although Quadell's scenario is possible, I find it unlikely. Several different things smell funny here. I can't find anything on "Long Trail Acres Publishing". Although "Long Trail Acres Farm"[8] at the same address given for the "publisher" apparently does computer and other business equipment repair [9] Also the info page a Google print claims "by Sorcha Faal (English Translation)" as if it was originally written in another language. I think Google Print must have very low bar for what they accept. We probaly should exclude books found at Google Print from being reliable sources unless the ISBN checks out with a major catalog. I could not get any hits on the ISBN through any of the links I tried.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 17:45, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Found this: Sorcha Faal. I thought you should know everyone has found out that this person is actually the resurfaced David Booth of Planet X fame. This is verifiable: Details follow; this is from the bottom of [10]--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 17:59, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
For the record, I created this edit myself and did not take it from public domain. The information was obtained from a book not in the public domain. To put my two cents in here, it seems the book is so obscure and marginal that trying to make a copyright case against it is a rather pointless exercise. It is not even clear if this book exists in hardcopy. Balcer 05:02, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
There's a principle at stake here: we should issue the standard violation letter to both the publisher of the book and to Google Print. I am happy to do this, unless anyone more closely involved with our article would prefer to? --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 09:53, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I have no experience in this, so if you do, please go right ahead. I don't think Google Print is at fault, but the publisher should certainly be held responsible (although comments from more legally minded people would be appreciated). Still, I think Balcer is right it is likely a self-published book (although I'd expect some copies were printed), so this is more of a matter of a principle - but an important one: we are watching others, too.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  17:46, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
When looking in Google Books, notice that above "About this book" are two page thumbnails. The first is the front cover. The second is the back cover, which contains a list of References. Wikipedia is listed as the only source for Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. I did not find a GFDL in the front, back, nor before nor after Chapter 2 (didn't look at Chapter 3). (SEWilco 18:04, 15 September 2006 (UTC))

Unlisted copyvios

Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Unlisted is a bot-generated list of articles that are tagged {{copyvio}} but are not listed here. This bot was approved (for a trial run, at the moment), under the condition that the list of these articles is posted on a separate page rather than included with the others:Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DumbBOT. This list could however be linked from this page, as far as I can say. Any idea as to the best place for this link? (Liberatore, 2006). 11:31, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Why wasn't it fully approved? This is not a mass change, and it was done before by a manual script anyway. —Centrx→talk • 15:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
I was wondering the same thing. – Quadell (talk) (random) 19:40, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
The people in the bot approval group who considered this request believed that adding unlisted articles to this page would have increased the backlog of copyvios (apparently, unlisted copyvios are not considered part of the backlog). If there is sufficient consensus here for making the additions directly, I could ask them to reconsider. (Liberatore, 2006). 15:11, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
I thought that was only xaosflux and that peculiar argument was thoroughly trounced? —Centrx→talk • 17:36, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Two other members of the approvals group considered the issue afterwards, and believed that a separate list is more manageable (discussion was moved here), possible because more smaller lists might be easier to deal with than less larger list. The trial run was approved only under the condition of adding articles to a separate list, but I can ask to reconsider that decision if the people doing the deletion here agree that a separate list is actually harder to manage. (Liberatore, 2006). 12:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Having a second list is definitely harder to manage. – Quadell (talk) (random) 18:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Andrews & Kurth, L.L.P.

The article Andrews & Kurth, L.L.P. is virtuallly completely copied from their website at [11]. History is copied from that page, then the Areas of Practices and Industries are copied from the menus. The only revision not a copyvio is the very first one - [12]. However this is barely even a stub. Do you think I should flag the article for deletion or revert it to this version?

I started to wikify this article before I noticed...oops! JPilborough 14:08, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I've tagged it as a copyvio and listed it on Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2006 September 16/Articles. Some of the earlier revisions may be ok because they essentially present raw facts. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 15:57, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Db copyvio question

I tagged this article with {{Db-copyvio}}, as it was created on 17th with the original text all copied from the source given there. Since then, it underwent some modifications and came to its present condition, though except for the lead, the entire article still remains copied. My question is, have I used the right template? Or since the article underwent some modifications, I should be using a {{copyvio}} tag instead? -- Lost(talk) 19:09, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Blank it and list it in the normal way.--Peta 23:35, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Umm.. thanks. It got deleted before I could do that -- Lost(talk) 09:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Prosopon

Prosopon's opening paragraph matches that of what is in Britannica according to [13]. I do not have a copy of Britannica, could someone verify this isn't an exact copy (it isn't of their online concise edition [14]. Computerjoe's talk 19:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the opening sentence does seem to be verbatim from EB. (I have access to EB online.) The rest of the article does not come from EB, I don't think. I checked the articles on Nestorius, Prosopon, and Theodore of Mopsuestia. So if the intro sentence could be rewritten, I think the whole thing could be fixed. – Quadell (talk) (random) 18:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Especially in light of the original version [15] I would have some concerns. There is a link to a book as well and there article is rather poorly formatted. Potentially this was from an essay the author wrote sourcing EB and the book but I would be fairly concerned about whether this essay didn't violate our copyvios. Perhaps someone should contact the editor and/or try and finmd someone with the book? Nil Einne 16:46, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Edited TV screenshot

I've run into a animated TV screenshot that was edited by a Wikipeida user (cropped to show a specific character.) That editor applied the tag template:PD-self, but its my understanding that this is not correct, since screenshots of the show would remain property of the show's owners. Would it be proper, than, to simply replace the tag with Template:tv-screenshot?--Fyre2387 (talk • contribs) 19:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Both copyrights exist, and both must be dealt with. The user's edits are PD-self, but the work is also a derivative work of an unlicensed image that we must claim fair use for. I think it would be best to use both tags. – Quadell (talk) (random) 19:53, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

image of a newspaper ad

I came across Image:Salvi Roskam Maher.png, which is scanned from a newspaper ad and alleges fair use. It is used in the article about one of the attorneys in the ad, who is also a political candidate (Peter Roskam) to illustrate that he is a personal injury attorney. I have two questions:

  1. Is this use allowed under fair use?
  2. Is the copyright holder the newspaper or the entity (in this case the law firm) placing the ad?

Thanks --rogerd 23:37, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The creator usually holds the copyright, so this ad would be © Salvai-Roskam-and-Maher. At this resolution, 600 x 800, it doesn't fall within our criteria. We'll need the shrink it, and perhaps it would also be best to crop it to just the image and enough surrounding text that you can tell it's an ad. In that case, yes, I think it would be a valid fair use. – Quadell (talk) (random) 17:43, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
(I did this, so it should be okay now.) – Quadell (talk) (random) 17:57, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah

Hi, I'm havin trouble deciding what licensing should be used on the pictures of Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah. Their copyright holder, Yasmine S. Ahmed, has given me permission to upload and use them on Wikipedia, but not for third parties. So I put "with permission", but it says you need another type of licensing too. Please help ASAP.--Le Grey Intellectual 15:26, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, just having permission to use the picture on Wikipedia isn't enough. Wikipedia is completely free (libre), and is licensed under the GFDL, so all material we use has to be available under a free license (like the GFDL or a creative commons license). If Ahmed is willing to license the images under the GFDL, then we can use them, but if not, then we won't be able to, even if he gives us his permission. If you want to ask him, you might want to use one of our sample requests for permission. All the best, – Quadell (talk) (random) 17:38, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
I think Creative Commons sounds the best. Now, what would that actually entail for her and the copyirght of the pictures?--Le Grey Intellectual 18:10, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
It depends on which license she chooses -- there are different Creative Commons licenses that reserve more or less rights. The only licenses acceptable for Wikipedia are cc-by ('Attribution') and cc-by-sa ('Attribution ShareAlike'). cc-by allows anyone to copy, distribute or display the image, or to make derivative works, for any purpose, as long as the copyright holder is attributed. cc-by-sa is the same, with the extra proviso that any derivative work must be released under an identical license. (You can read full details of this at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/.) --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 18:30, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The cc-by-sa-2.0 license (the best creative commons licence we can use) would allow anyone else to use the image without the artist's permission -- so long as the resultant product is also licensed under cc-by-sa-2.0. So a website that copies Wikipedia content (and there are many) could copy this image and use it on their site without asking Ahmed's permission. (These sites already freely license the entire site anyway, since they have to to use Wikipedia content.) It also means if someone wanted to use the images for their own flyer or whatever, they could do so without asking Ahmed's permission, so long as the flyer (or whatever) is released under a free license. Most big companies won't use material this way, since their business model depends on keeping tight reins on their copyright. Ahmed would still own the copyright, and if another publisher wanted to use her pictures in a book or magazine or whatever, they could purchase the copyright from her, or she could license them specifically to be able to use it for a fee, and then they wouldn't have to license the whole magazine or book under a free license.
Here is the license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
I know this is all complicated, and unfortunately copyright is a complicated matter. The bottom line is this: if she doesn't want anybody except Wikipedia to be able to use it without her permission, then we can't use the images. But if she doesn't mind anyone reusing it -- she just wants to make sure that if TIME Magazine or some big company uses the images, they'll pay her -- then the cc-by-sa-2.0 license should be fine.
All the best, – Quadell (talk) (random) 19:08, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, that sounds great. What's the coding for that license, tho? Just cc-by-sa-2.0?--Le Grey Intellectual 09:28, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what you're asking. The license itself is linked to above. To tag an image with this license, use {{cc-by-sa-2.0}}. – Quadell (talk) (random) 15:00, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

possible copyvio in Definition

This edit pasted an entire journal article into Definition and it is still basically intact. There is a URL at the end to the original pdf file, which has a permissions statement at the bottom of the first page. --Jtir 22:47, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

The permissions statement at the bottom isn't sufficient for us to include any material from the paper verbatim, as it limits use to non-commerical purposes only. (Clarifying: we could use a short extract as a quotation, but an entire section copied verbatim from a GFDL-incompatible source will be trouble.)--ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 18:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Fair use images in user pages

I am not sure where this should be, but User:Bobabobabo has a mass of copyrighted images. I have removed them twice, only to be reverted by some anon. Can I please have someone with a better footing with this explain to the anon that the use of copyrighted images in user pages expressely isn't allowed? Interrobamf 18:51, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I have semi-protected the page so that IPs cannot edit it. It is likely that very user, in which case they should get the message and it will tie their actions to their username. I will continue to watch it. —Centrx→talk • 19:09, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
I would like bring User:Bobabobabo/works to your attention. The user has clearly copied and pasted the copyrighted images to this page to get around the restriction. Interrobamf 20:11, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Fair use image question

After tagging an image with {{fair use disputed}}, do I need to list it anywhere? Secondly, is there a readymade template to inform the uploader that I tagged the image as above? -- Lost(talk) 17:39, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

No, the template adds the page to Category:Disputed fair use images which is sufficient: if no suitable rationale is provided in the next few days you can list the image for deletion. There's no notification template that I'm aware of. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 18:05, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks -- Lost(talk) 18:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

lost in the gears

I am attempting to look into a copyvio template posting at Peter Medawar from a couple of weeks ago. The result is evidently that the copyvio was found to have been over billed, but... There are a few references to archives of the copyright problem page, but I've looked around the backstage machinery and have had no sightings. Can some kind guide point out the hidden pot at the end of the copyvio rainbow? Where, oh where, is a stage hand when one needs one?! Thanks. ww 18:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd help if I had any clue what you were actually asking. Can you be a bit clearer? --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 18:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Dixmont state hospital

I've put this on the list as all but the very first uplaod are copyvio of the url I linked to, but I've reverted to the original upload rather than delete it and replace it with the copyvio tag, but I'm not sure if that's what I should have done. To be honest I probably hadn't got the patience to check I did everything right because I'd just spent ages putting in a few changes to make it a better article and only found out the problem when I was sorting out the links at the bottom. Terri G 14:16, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We need to make sure that copyright violations are removed from the article history, too, so reverting isn't sufficient. I've tagged the article as a copyvio (incidentally, I've also moved it to Dixmont State Hospital so it has the proper capitalisation) and begun a new stub at Talk:Dixmont State Hospital/Temp. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 14:45, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for sorting it out, I should have realised the history needed to be removed as well. Terri G 16:22, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Do we always need to do that with a copyvio? According to this page (not the talk), reverting is good enough and only the infringing text needs to be removed from the history if the copyright holder asks for it. It would be more work if every time you need to contact an admin instead of just rewriting or reverting. Garion96 (talk) 16:27, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
In the long run it's almost always easier to get them out of the history so there's no chance of people reintegrating any text from it into the article. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 16:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Considering the amount of copyvio's posted. I think it's easier just to revert or rewrite. See also Kjkolb message on the section below. Garion96 (talk) 17:05, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
This doesn't always follow. A non-trivial proportion of reported copyvios turn out to be text we can use: perhaps we contact the copyright holder and they're happy for their text to be GFDL licensed. There's a chance of this happening if the copyvio is reported through WP:CP, but none at all if the change is just reverted. Getting permission for content we wouldn't otherwise have done is one of the purposes of WP:CP, not just getting rid of them. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 17:31, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
The chance is still there if you message the editor who uploaded the text with {{Nothanks-web}} or your own words. Then if it turns out to be free content the text can always be reinstated. Garion96 (talk) 23:03, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
How often does this happen if editors 'just revert', though? --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 09:21, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
With 'just reverting' I meant doing a revert and giving the editor that message. The point was (originally) that it doesn't seem necessary to remove the copyvio from the history (unless asked by the copyright holder) and that a report on WP:CP is not always necessary either. Garion96 (talk) 12:18, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
I think it's probably wiser to make sure the revisions are deleted in almost all cases. While I agree that we don't need to particularly worry about penalties under copyright law unless we wilfully fail to remove a copyright violation after the copyright holder has notified us, it is worth noting that, if nothing else, it compromises our licensing model if non-GFDL text remains in page histories. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 18:28, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
If that's the way to go, than the instructions on the project page should be changed. It also would mean a whole lot of extra work for the admins involved on this page. It happens so often that you see a copyvio and revert it back to a non-copyvio version. Garion96 (talk) 19:11, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
It might be worth having a discussion about that. Our protection as a service provider under OCILLA applies only if we do 'not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing' (DMCA §512(c)(1)(A)(1)) and are 'not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent' (DMCA §512(c)(1)(A)(2)) and it might be argued that leaving copyright infringements in the page history but not removing them breaches these conditions, so we'd need the input of the Foundation's lawyers (although they do seem to be happy with our current arrangements, so presumably they've looked at this question already). My concern is more that leaving copyrighted material in the page history makes a mockery of our licensing. We say prominently on every Wikipedia page that all text is available under the GFDL, and it should be. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 08:29, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Copyvio in history: nasty tangle

Got a bit of a problem at the article Friends of Real Lancashire. The initial article was a copy--and-paste of a webpage (see Talk:Friends of Real Lancashire). The article has since been incrementally edited so that it no longer contains any prose from that website, but this was done gradually so that purging the copyvio from the history will be tricky. Would anyone like to suggest what could be done about this? Morwen - Talk 15:01, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

This has come up before and it was decided that it is unnecessary to remove copyright violations from the history of an article unless the copyright holder complains. Usually, it is a complete start over or the article was rewritten in someone's own words over one or two edits. I am concerned about the editing of the article to non-copyvio status by incremental edits, as some things may have been missed. I think that the article should be carefully checked and anything that is copied be rewritten or removed. If information from the copyvio source is still in the article in rewritten form, the source should be listed as a reference. -- Kjkolb 16:30, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Imagevio that are non-commercial only with 'promotional' fair use rationale

What do we do with imagevios that are non-commercial use only but have been tagged as fair use promotional material rationale? Do we imagevio them and add them here without non-commercial categorying them? Do we imagevio them and add them here and also non-commercial categorise them? Do we remove the fair use rationale (since it doesn't apply) and just add them to the non-commercial category them? Do we not remove the fair use rationale but do add them to the non-commercial category? The last one sounds a bit risky since when someone may later get confused and think the fair use rationale is justified without properly checking and therefore remove them from the non-commercial category and they may not be deleted (since we appear to be very slow at deleting images in the non-commercial category even those that were added after 2005) Nil Einne 16:34, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you have a particular example in mind? It's fine for images under a non-free license to be used if an appropiate fair use rationale can be given. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 18:30, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Copying With Replacement

Is it a copyright infringement to slightly rewrite every sentence of a paragraph and then use it is as an article on Wikipedia? The source is clearly marked as copyrighted material, and no one would doubt that the article came from that source. What's the Wikipedia rule on this? KP Botany 20:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, copyvio. The rewrite is then a derivative work. Which article? Lupo 20:47, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
There are numerous articles on Wikipedia, mostly stubs, about Hindu mythological characters that are simply clever rewrites or mild expansions, with a change of 'a' here to a change of 'the' there, of John Dowson's Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History and Literature. Possibly Anna Dallapiccola's Dictionary of Lore and Legend has been similarly used. I'm not really certain that this is plagiarism or copyright violation, but I wonder if John Dowson might consider it so, because Wikipedia seems to have used a lot of his information. Maybe his information is in the public domain and his work is just a compilation of other sources? He is listed as the primary reference, and the only one, in these articles, though. And maybe it was unintentional, or a language error, except that, again, there seems to be a lot of his book on Wikipedia., for a source that claims to be copyrighted. However, if his book is in the public domain, shouldn't it still be noted that it comes directly from his work, rather than seeming to be the contribution and words of the article's editors? His book appears to be fully copyrighted. KP Botany 22:39, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Here are a couple of examples,
From Dowson: "Adhiratha. A charioteer. The foster-father of Karna, according to some he was king of Anga, and according to others the charioteer of King Dhritarashtra; perhaps he was both."
From Wikipedia:
"Adhiratha According to the Mahabharata, Adhiratha was a charioteer, and was the foster father of Karna. According to some studies, he was king of Anga, currently the regions around Bhagalpur, Bihar, India; whereas according to others, a charioteer of King Dhritarashtra. It is widely believed that he was both."
Notice it seems to be simply a cleverly stuffed version of Dowson's, taking out the filler from the Wikiversion: Adhiratha Adhiratha … a charioteer, … the foster father of Karna. According to some … he was king of Anga … according to others, … charioteer of King Dhritarashtra. [perhaps] he was both
From Dowson: Aghasura (Agha the Asura) An Asura who was Kansa's general. He assumed the form of a vast serpent, and Krishna's companions, the cowherds, entered its mouth, mistaking it for a mountain cavern: but Krishna rescued them.
From Wikipedia: Aghasura, that is, Agha the asura, was an asura, and one of the generals of Kamsa. A legend states that he assumed the form of a huge serpent, and Krishna’s childhood friends (Gopas and Gopis) entered his mouth, mistaking it for a mountain cavern . However, Krishna understood the problem, and rescued them.
Destuff the Wikiversion: Aghasura, … Agha the asura, was … one of the generals of Kamsa. … he assumed the form of a [vast] serpent, and Krishna’s [companions, the cowherds] entered his mouth, mistaking it for a mountain cavern . … [but], Krishna … rescued them

So, I found some more information about the book. It was originally published in 1894. I don't know when the author died, so it's not necessarily out of copyright. However, let's assume it is in the public domain. In which case, shouldn't Wikipedia articles that simply take its text inform the reader of the source, not just as a reference, as if the article's editor had researched the topic using the source then used his own words, but the actual source of the text, like the articles that mosly come from the public domain encyclopedia? A disclaimer at the bottom stating, this is from John Dowson's 1894 book, which came into the public domain in 1973 or whatever? KP Botany 20:19, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Dowson lived 1820 - 1881 [16], so his original book (published in 1879, see [17]) would be PD since 1952 in countries where the copyright lasts until 70 years after the death of the author, and PD in the U.S., too (published before 1923). It has seen lots of re-editions; a sixth edition appeared in 1928; and there were many later ones. If the text is from Dowson's original book, it'd be ok with a statement indicating the source as such. Without source indication, it's bad style and plagiarism. Only if the book had been revised and extended later (I don't know if that happened) and the text was taken from such later additions, then we might have a copyright problem. Also note that there are some modern editions that have modernized the typography to include modern diacritical marks; I don't know if that would be sufficient to grant such a modern edition a separate copyright in Commonwealth countries. Lupo 20:46, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikimapia and copyright

I wish to know if images from wikimapia used in illustrating wikipedia article is violation of US copyright laws? The terms of use is explicitly as nonexclusive, non-transferable license for use only by you http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/help/terms_local.html Can the use be defended as fair use? Legaleagle86 11:34, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Maps that are copyright Google may not be used on Wikipedia, even under a "fair use" claim. – Quadell (talk) (random) 20:46, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Why not? zen apprentice T 05:59, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Although I don't know for sure, I suspect it's because Wikipedia policy is to disallow the use of nonfree works under fair use where free alternatives are available. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 15:13, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
The Wikipedia policy/preference for free works is a separate consideration than whether something falls under "fair use" and you seem to (errantly?) assume there are always free map alternatives available. zen apprentice T 16:20, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Between sources like NASA satelite images, CIA world factbook and Wikipedian "mapmakers" there are actualy few cases where there are no alternative but to use a unfree map. Also per our policy we should not use fair use material if a free licensed alternative exist or can be created, so that tends to rule out most unfree maps (unless it's rely rely rely critical for the article to have a extreme close up areal photo of something with Google watermarks all over it for whatever unlikely reason). --Sherool (talk) 16:48, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Ok, thanks for the perspective though practicality and preference considerations are a separate consideration than whether something such as a google map image is "fair use" or not. I think "fair use" is determined on a case by case basis irrespective of preference and/or practicality issues so Quadell's statement above that google maps images absolutely can not be used on Wikipedia is inaccurate or incomplete. I think it would be better to say simply that Wikipedia prefers free images. zen apprentice T 17:34, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
You seem to have misunderstood what I wrote almost completely: at least your reply suggests so, since I didn't claim that Wikipedia image use policy and fair use law were the same thing. Since we're talking about Wikipedia here, though, our fair use policy is relevant, and our fair use policy (for a variety of excellent reasons) is that copyrighted material should not be used under fair use on Wikipedia if a 'free equivalent is available or could be created that would adequately give the same information' (emphasis mine). Anyone can draw a map.
Our policy on nonfree material is hardly as lightweight as a mere 'preference'. Free content is at the absolute core of what Wikipedia is. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 22:27, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Zen, you seem to enjoy arguing. Unfortunately, we have a Wikipedia policy, and specific statements from Jimbo Wales (who owns Wikipedia), saying you're wrong. As Nick said, regardless of what we can "legally" do, Wikipedia does not permit copyrighted content used under a fair use rationale unless all the criteria at WP:FUC are satisfied. – Quadell (talk) (random) 22:37, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Google images can be used under a "fair use" claim if all the WP:FUC criteria are met? If so your sentence at the top of this section that states in absolute terms that they can never be used is incorrect. zen apprentice T 01:40, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Quadell's statement is perfectly correct. WP:FUC can never be met for images from Google maps because it is always possible to create a free alternative. Please stop wasting our time. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 08:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Quadell's statement is incorrect because google maps images are able to be used given the context of "fair use" by itself, however, as you rightly note google maps images are not used here because Wikipedia has a separate policy preferring free image alternatives, I think that distinction is noteworthy. zen apprentice T 16:55, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Quadell writes that 'maps that are copyright Google may not be used on Wikipedia, even under a "fair use" claim' (emphasis added on a part of his statement you seem to have ignored). This is perfectly correct. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 23:09, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Please explain how it is impossible for google maps images to be used on Wikipedia? The primary context of this section centers around "fair use" not wikipedia preferences. Quadell's statement is incorrect because as others have also noted on this discussion page it is possible (though unlikely) that a google maps image could meet the WP:FUC criteria, though that policy page really should itself make a distinction between "fair use" claims and the wikipedia policy of encouraging free content alternatives, two different things. I give everyone permission to make a fair use claim. zen apprentice T 04:39, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Because, as has already been explained to you many times, we do not allow images to be used on Wikipedia under fair use if a free alternative is available or could be created. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 10:58, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
It is more than conceivable that in a certain context no free alternative map image would be available so using needlessly absolute language to "ban" google maps images is incorrect. zen apprentice T 16:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
As has also been pointed out to you many times, the languages is that fair use images are only usable here 'if a free alternative is available or could be created' (emphasis mine). How much longer are you going to argue in circles? --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 16:44, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
You are missing the point that it is conceivable a free alternative might not be available or might be contextually incomplete in some situations. zen apprentice T 16:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
You seem to be not understanding that you could take a pen and a piece of paper and draw a map of the place yourself, using the information found in various sources, then release it into the public domain. That means without a doubt that a free alternative for a Google map is always available for a map under every single circumstance whatsoever.
This doesn't apply to other images used under fair use. You could not draw, for instance, a photograph of the Hindenberg exploding because the photograph itself is an important historical document, and its importance means that it may be fair use to use a copy of one, at least in a low resolution. Maps are different since they're always drawn, and they can always be redrawn. Charlene.fic 01:35, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
In those situations a fair use image is allowed on Wikipedia. Maps are not one of those situations. Give me a Google maps URL and I can make you a free version in a drawing program in minutes. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 16:53, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Sorry to reopen this discussion after so long, but isn't Wikimapia itself in violation of Google's copyright, and therefore not to be linked to at all under WP:EL?

How about leaving a stub instead of completely obliterating?

I think at least some (all?) of the articles deleted through "copyright problems" should be left in stub form rather than being completely obliterated. Delete the copyrighted text but always leave a stub entry. In my interpretation this "copyright problems" policy shouldn't even have the power to obliterate/delete an article, that should be a separate consideration for AfD and other policies to decide. zen apprentice T 05:42, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

If you want to write stub entries in the temporary page, you or anyone else is free to. I, for one, am not going to spend my time writing a stub for every random copyvio that probably doesn't warrant an article anyway, and someone copying text off a website is not reason to compel anyone else to either; if they think an article is so important, the original uploaders can write one. —Centrx→talk • 05:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
The "copyright problems" policy is absolutely not what should be used to delete an article that in your opinion "probably doesn't warrant an article anyway". And leaving a stub prevents red wikilinks and would make availalbe to readers some basic information about the subject. zen apprentice T 05:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
On every page with a copyright violation, there is a link that says "If you plan to write a new article, please follow this link to a temporary subpage." Certainly, if you feel an copyvio article deserves a page, please create one. But it is not the responsibility of the deleting admin to do this. We have enough problems finding admins willing to do the repetitive and thankless work here without putting additional requirements on them. – Quadell (talk) (random) 12:37, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
But any alleged copyright problems should only result in the removal of copyrighted text, removing an article entry completely is a much bigger deal and is outside the scope of copyright. An author's copyright on some text absolutely does not restrict Wikipedia from having an article on that same subject. There are intentionally separate wikipedia deletion policies that help us determine whether an article should exist within Wikipedia at all, please use those policies. It's very easy to just leave a few sentence stub that gives some basic information about a subject, red wikilinks make Wikipedia look really bad. Outright obliteration of an article, which includes deleting history, is way too dangerous a thing to allow to happen because of mere "copyright problems". I think the current obliteration policy creates more problems and is more contentious than a simple removal of copyrighted text would be. zen apprentice T 16:52, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
It is not used to delete an article on a topic that in my opinion doesn't warrant an article anyway. It is used to delete the copyright infringement, but it does not compel me to write an article on a topic that in my opinion doesn't warrant an article anyway. —Centrx→talk • 16:31, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
You should voice your opinion that an article is unwarranted on the AfD, speedy deletion or similar policy page where such opinions belong. If an edit to Wikipedia obviously contains copyrighted text it should be removed immediately, no need to go through this policy even, but the complete obliteration of an entry from Wikipedia is a more serious issue and should be handled much more carefully by a deletion specific policy. zen apprentice T 16:52, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
You are missing the point, copyvios are only completely oblitereated if all the text is unfree or directly derived from it (if there was a legit article and someone inserted a copyvio at a later pont the legit revisions will be restored). Usualy there literaly is nothing to save though, so in order to leave a stub someone have to write it. Writing a stub to replace a copyvio is fine and dandy, but you can not require people to do it, so if I delete a copyvio on a subject I'm not interested in or feel don't deserve an article then I will naturaly not write a new article on it, stub or otherwise. That doesn't mean someone who is interested in the topic can't create a new article there, but you can't demand that admins do it as part of cleaning up the mess after people who couldn't be bothered to write the article themselves in the first place. --Sherool (talk) 17:29, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I understand that point quite clearly, but just because all the text in an article is copyrighted does not mean Wikipedia must completely obliterate the entry on that subject completely. It should be required that the complete obliteration of an article be handled only through deletion specific policies like AfD or speedy deletion. My point is that this "copyright problems" policy/procedure by itself is insufficient justification for the complete obliteration of an entry from wikipedia. If someone is vandalizing wikipedia by repeatedly recreating an unnoteworthy article with copyrighted text that situation should be handled by the vandalism or deletion specific policies not this "copyright problems" policy. And separately, Wikipedia should generally encourage stubs over the complete obliteration of entries. zen apprentice T 17:48, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
"complete obliteration of an entry"? Anyone is free to create an article on the same topic. —Centrx→talk • 20:15, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Your statement ignores the issues of red links being created and the fact that many entries on Wikipedia are being obliterated using the wrong policy/procedure. The history of an entry's creation, even if it contains copyrighted text, should be preserved unless the entry does not meet separate and distinct Wikipedia deletion policy critera. Obliteration of an article obliterates the discussion page too which is often additionally problematic. zen apprentice T 20:29, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
We can not keep unfree text, so voting over it is pointles, we either have permission to release it under the GFDL or we have to delete it. So copyvios have to go, no two ways about it. Feel free to fill in those redlinks though, deleting a copyvio says nothing about the "worthynes" of the subject, just that we have to get rid of text we can't legaly use. --Sherool (talk) 21:53, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Deletion of an article doesn't require deletion of its talk page. (Obviously if an article is a copyvio and all the talk page contains is discussion relating to its status as a copyvio, then there's no reason to keep it. Otherwise, the deleting admin makes a judgement call.) --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 22:52, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
You seem to be assuming that red links are bad. Red links are not bad. Red links are good articles waiting to happen. Copyvios, on the other hand, can never become good articles. We remove the copyvio, we leave any redlinks, and anybody is free to come along and start a good article there. --RobthTalk 22:56, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Zen, are you suggesting we leave a blank article after the text is removed? In such a case, we can simply delete the blank page under our speedy deletion criteria. Or are you suggesting that we leave the copyright infringement on Wikipedia? That's obviously against policy. – Quadell (talk) (random) 22:41, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

As I stated above copyrighted text should be removed immediately, no need to even post it here unless there is some doubt, however, removing text is very very very different than completely obliterating an article, its history, and its discussion page. I think a blank page or a quick and easy 1 to 2 sentence stub summary of a subject is vastly preferred over an obliterated article. For example, if an article has copyrighted text say from a biography of an athelete that entry absolutely shouldn't be obliterated, a quick paragraph of facts (facts aren't copyrighted) about the person and their sport etc is so much better than completely obliterating. Perhaps I am the only one that sees the extreme danger with obliterating all record of history for an article and its discussion page outside of normal wikipedia deletion policy/procedure. The full wikipedia community should be able to see and review all proposed deletions which is why they should be proposed on deletion or vandalism specific policy pages. It's also worth noting that page creation vandals are blocked regardless of whether the text they post is copyrighted or not. Wikipedia's copyright policy should only be justification for the removal of copyrighted text but anything beyond that should be outside its scope. zen apprentice T 02:04, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
If you feel compelled to preserve topics that start as a copvio; then get busy writing temp pages. There is nothing out of process about deleting articles that start as a copyvio, and you're not going to convince anyone otherwise.--Peta 02:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Each person will decide whether the "copyright problems" policy/procedure should involve the obliteration of an article, its history, and its discussion page for themself. This discussion can easily be obviated if a critical mass of editors simply stubify entries that contain mostly copyrighted text which is what I am trying to encourage and will do myself. zen apprentice T 04:27, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Simply reverting / stubifying copyvios are not helpfull since the copyvio will still be present in the history. I believe there are regularly complaints filed via OTRS about old versions of articles containing copyrighted text or libelous comments and what not, so as a precaution the policy is to delete all such "tainted" revisions from the history, so it can not be linked to or re-inserted in the "active" version of the article. By simply reverting you are just brushing the problem under the carpet rater than dealing with it. Trust me, if it was that easy we would not have invented this horrebly backlogged process that only a handfull of admins have the patience to work on. --Sherool (talk) 06:07, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, don't revert. If you want to create a new article, create it in the temporary subpage and put a note about it on the talk page and it will be moved when the copyvio is deleted. —Centrx→talk • 06:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The "Copyvio in history: nasty tangle" discussion section above claims that copyvios are only removed from history (presumably manually by a developer?) if the copyright holder specifically complains, is that accurate? Completely obliterating all trace of an article, its history and its discussion page is much much much worse that the problem of having some copyvio text available in history. zen apprentice T 07:18, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Current policy is that the only have to be removed from history (it can be done by any administrator, not just by developers) if the copyright holder complains, but in practice copyright violations are usually dealt with as they are noticed by other Wikipedians.
'Completely obliterating an article' that contains only material that infringes copyright is certainly not 'much much much worse that the problem of having some copyvio text available in history'. Our licensing model is that all text of all revisions is available under the GFDL. Knowingly leaving infringing material in Wikipedia is a failure of our duty both legally and academically. Legally it removes our safe harbour protection under OCILLA (arguably; this is untested legally in relation to Wikipedia) and turns our statement on every page that 'All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License' into a lie. Academically it is a gross dereliction of academic standards. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 08:48, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps there should be some way of removing specific copyrighted text from history? I still believe preserving the integrity of a public encyclopedia's change history is much more important than potential licensing issues, though this issue is pretty much because of limitations with the current wiki software. I think it's way too dangerous to allow the potential for someone to obfuscate or censor free speech by obliterating all history of an article if it contains some copyrighted text, someone could insert copyrighted text into an article for the purpose of getting that article obliterated, now do you see how it's much worse than licensing issues? zen apprentice T 17:02, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
As you've already been told at least once, when a copyvio is deleted any revisions of an article that don't contain infringing text are restored. You're arguing about a non-existent problem. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 17:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
The history of those revisions and its discussion page are restored too? So you're saying the article is obliterated then any non-infringing text is copied back into the entry? If so that does not preserve history which is exactly one of my points. How about simply not obliterating it in the first place, or only removing specific copyrighted text from history? zen apprentice T 17:51, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
That's exactly what happens, admins can see all the versions (aka revisions / history entries) of a deleted article, and then choose to selectively undelete only the ones that does not contain copyvio text (see Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Advice for admins). The problem is that more often than not the entire history is tainted leaving nothing to undelete ... As for the talk page that's more of a judgement call. Deleting the article does not delete the talk page automaticaly, but if there is nothing left of the article and nothing of real substance on the talk page it's usualy deleted too per speedy deletion criterea G8. --Sherool (talk) 18:19, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Deletion on Wikipedia is not a terminal act except for images: all article deletions can be undone by an administrator (see WP:DR for an example of this in action). So the article is deleted, and any revisions that don't contain copyright violations are fully restored. This does preserve the history of any revisions to the article that did not contain infringing text. So what we are doing is exactly what you want: only removing specific copyrighted text from the history. Once again: you're arguing about a non-existent problem. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 18:59, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Non-admins should be able to see the history of an article with "copyright problems". zen apprentice T 23:08, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
They can, unless you mean deleted articles. But then that would sort of defeat the purpose of deleting something if everyone can still see it. --Sherool (talk) 23:26, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Nonsense. As Sherool says, if that were the case there'd be no point deleting them in the first place. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 01:26, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Any alleged points in favor of deleting an article should be made on deletion specific policy/procedure pages where there hopefully is a critical mass of community members that will review each case. zen apprentice T 18:10, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
This is a deletion specific procedure page. Any members of the community who wish to are welcome to review the articles listed here to see if they are copyright violations. Administrators check articles to see if they are copyright infringements before they delete them. Copyright law requires that we delete certain material, and this page is our established procedure for doing so. --RobthTalk 19:15, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I understand what the current status quo is, I am advocating for a change such that this copyright problems policy/procedure should only be justification for the removal of copyrighted text, outright deletion of an article should be handled more formally and more publically within the Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion process/procedure. zen apprentice T 19:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
We seem to be arguing in circles here. Let's break it down. Unfree text needs to be removed. Blank articles are speedy deletion candidates. So just how do you propose we deal with articles that are 100% made up of unfree text? Write a new article maybe? Well the current process already support that, follow the link from the copyvio notice to the temp subpage and write away, but unless someone does write that new article an AFD process will be moot because there will be no content left to keep after the copyright infrinding text have been removed (I mean you often get AFD results like "keep but rewirite" and then 6 months down the road no one have done anyting except maybe fix a couple of typos). Leaving a redlink is actualy better than a blank page anyway IMHO as it alerts people that we currently don't have any content on the topic. I mean by all means in a perfect world admins would write a "perfect stub" to replace any cpyvio they delete, but realisticaly that's only going to happen if the admin happens to find the topic interesting. So whatever process you use you are left with the same problem, once the copyvio is dealth with there often is no article content left anyway, *someone* will have to write it from scratch and they can do that regardles (well unless your hypotetical AFD process decides the topic is not worth an article in any form that is). --Sherool (talk) 21:43, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
It is my hope that requiring admins and everyone to go through one central procedure for obliterating an article (that has existed for say more than a week or so) will encourage the mentality of rewriting rather than perpetuating the dangerous and current "delete and burn" mentality. Rewritting from scratch should not be a requirement, though I agree there is the problem of having copyrighted text available in history, that should be handled by a developer and/or with some tool that only specifically removes copyrighted text from historical versions but everything else in that article must be preserved pristinely. Text being copyrighted is a justification for deletion within the speedy deletion procedure, there really is no need to have this separate "copyright problems" policy (as far as complete deletion is concerned). zen apprentice T 22:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
No. 'Text being copyrighted' is explicitly not 'a justification for deletion within the speedy deletion procedure' except under very specific circumstances. This is for extremely good reasons, particularly that text which looks like a copyright violation turns out not to be in a non-trivial proportion of cases: it was added by the actual copyright holder, for instance, or by someone acting on their behalf and with their knowledge; it was added in violation of copyright but the copyright holder is actually happy to license it under the GFDL when asked; or, in some cases, the identified source is actually a Wikipedia mirror. That is why WP:CP is required. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 23:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I meant in the case proposed hypothetically above where a new article was obviously 100% copyrighted, in that case, speedy or a quick AfD process seems very warranted to me. But yes borderline cases should be handled on a case by case basis as always, and yes the authors should be asked, ideally nothing is deleted. Am I the only one that sees the danger in obliterating all history of an article (to non admins) using a process/procedure that does not have "delete" in its title? Judging from what I've seen take place on Wikipedia historically I consider it highly likely that someone will insert copyrighted text into an article for the duplicitous purpose of obliterating an alternative point of view from page history. zen apprentice T 04:53, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps I am misunderstanding you here. But all history of an article being obliterated only happens if all history is a copyright violation. So no, I don't see any danger there. Garion96 (talk) 05:02, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Just FYI since June 16 we have been eable to undelete images too, so image deletions are no more "terminal" than anyting else these days. --Sherool (talk) 23:26, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Excellent! I completely missed that this had happened. Thanks for the tip. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 01:26, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Responding to Garion96, the "possible" copyright problems template encourages people to recreate the tagged article temporarily as a sub article, that is effectively the same thing as obliteration. I seriously doubt all history (which means each and every word and letter submitted) for numerous articles with numerous edits are 100% copyvios. I think the potential for sneaky censorship is way too high using this policy, Wikipedia should err on the side of preserving history pristinely, not potential copyright problems. zen apprentice T 05:19, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

'Where a new article was obviously 100% copyrighted': quick semantic quibble: all Wikipedia articles are copyrighted to their respective contributors: they are licensed under the GFDL, but that doesn't mean they're not subject to copyright.
Secondly, what does 'obviously' mean? Consider the following case: I am the author and owner of a website dealing with peas. One day, I copy and paste some of the text of my website into Wikipedia to create a new article Pea. This text is 'obviously 100% copyrighted' and in your model would be speedily deleted. But as the copyright holder, it is perfectly legal for me to add my text to Wikipedia. Strike one for your new copyright regime.
Finally, yes, it appears that you are the only one who 'sees the danger in obliterating all history of an article (to non admins) using a process/procedure that does not have "delete" in its title'. The question of whether 'delete' should be in the title is irrelevant semantics. WP:CP is used to comply with Wikipedia's legal, moral and academic responsibilities concerning copyright, not as a means of 'sneaky censorship'. If I wanted to 'censor' your contributions, there are much simpler ways of doing it than faking up a copyright violation. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 10:31, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Are you intentionally misinterpreting? From the context of the discussion it should be clear that "100% copyrighted" means text 100% copy and pasted from an external site with the implication being potential copyright infringement. Mere title semantics problems are often indicative of much larger and more fundamental problems. Wikipedia's academic and moral responsibility to preserve history pristinely trumps potential copyright concerns in my interpretation. Separate question: google's answers.com doesn't seem to remove copyrighted text unless a copyright holder complains, why is Wikipedia being held to a much higher standard? zen apprentice T 16:22, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Google and Answers are not projects dedicated to creating free content that anyone can use. We however are. --Sherool (talk) 16:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
'"100% copyrighted" means text 100% copy and pasted from an external site with the implication being potential copyright infringement'. OK, this was the point of my example above, which I'll quote again:

Consider the following case: I am the author and owner of a website dealing with peas. One day, I copy and paste some of the text of my website into Wikipedia to create a new article Pea. This text is 'obviously 100% copyrighted' and in your model would be speedily deleted. But as the copyright holder, it is perfectly legal for me to add my text to Wikipedia.

It is not always as simple as '100% copyvio, must be instantly deleted'. And I still can't understand why you're continuing to argue about 'preseving history', as we've already pointed out to you many, many times that all parts of an article's history that don't contain copyright infringements are preserved when copyvios are deleted. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 16:48, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Answers.com uses wikipedia content which is precisely why I chose them as an example, why the double standard potential copyright infringement wise? In my "model" above I stated/agreed that authors should be asked so in your example the entry wouldn't be speedy deleted, I meant more in the case of obvious page creation vandalism. Are the actual history logs themselves preserved? Others have noted above that discussion pages have been deleted as a result of this "copyright problems" process, if that is true do you agree that is very bad? zen apprentice T 17:02, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
As I said above Answers.com is not on the free content creation business. They collect information from multiple sources, including Wikipedia, in order to provide a good service that bring lots of users to view theyr banners and make them lots of cash. As long as they use our content acording to our license we could care less how they deal with unfree material from other sources. We on the other hand is a not-for-profit foundation founded on "lofty" ideals of free content that anyone can use for any purpose, and keeping lots of unfree text is fundamentaly incompatable with that goal. Comparing Answers.com and Wikipedia is like comparing apples and coconuts, they are not even close to beeing the same thing. As for your other questions: Yes all edits of a deleted article are still there, viewable by admins. Talk pages I believe we have covered before. If there is usefull info there they should not be deleted, but that's more of a judgement call. Often it's better to let a new article start off with a "clean sheet", rater than leave a bunch of commeons that relate to the deleted content. --Sherool (talk) 17:59, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Just because answers.com is not in the freely distributable content business doesn't mean they aren't liable under copyright law for the (Wikipedia) content they host if it infringes someone's copyright. I compared answers.com and wikipedia only for the specific point that many articles with "copyright problems" removed from wikipedia remain for days or weeks on answers.com. Please explain how, under copyright law, having unfree content available to hundres of admins worldwide is not still infringing? Separately, I reject the policy of only allowing admins to see the full pristine original history for an article, that information should be available to all or Wikipedia is worthless (this is my pet "lofty" ideal). As far as being able to see and check the integrity of Wikipedia article histories is concerned there absolutely should not be any sort of heirarchy of priviledge between admins and non-admins. Wikipedia content when exported should have the full pristine original history log available as much as possible minus only specific unfree content text that has been removed. zen apprentice T 19:57, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
'Wikipedia content when exported should have the full pristine original history log available as much as possible minus only specific unfree content text that has been removed.' For about the fifteenth time, this is exactly what happens. Only revisions containing copyright infringements are deleted. All other revisions are left. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 21:54, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Discussion pages: there's no firm 'rule' on what to do with these, but in any case I think it's best left for the deleting admin to judge on a case-by-case basis rather than tying our hands with instruction creep. If the only content on the talk page relates to the copyright violation itself then there's no point in retaining it: otherwise, as Sherool says, it's more of a judgement call, but one that we should trust our admins to make correctly. If there is an example where you think a talk page has been deleted incorrectly then it can always be undeleted. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 18:26, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I completely disagree. Discussion pages should always be kept unless it is 100% vandalism. A discussion page consisting of nothing but "this article is a copyright violation of X" is a very noteworthy thing to keep, future authors of that article will be aware of any historical "copyright problems" with that entry and will be on the lookout. I think whenever an article is obliterated (that isn't vandalism) the deleting admin should make a note and list a reason for that action on the discussion page, e.g. "On Oct 10 2006 this article (XYZ) was deleted because it was copied verbatim without permission from www.xyz.com or magazine xyz" and that discussion page note should never be deleted. zen apprentice T 20:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
The deletion log achieves what you want here, I think. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 21:54, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Nope, the deletion log is incomplete and the deletion information should be stored where it's most likely to be beneficial to those interested in subject XYZ. Also, in the case of "copyright problems" the book/magazine title or URL to the site where the infringing content was from should be kept listed on the discussion page so it can potentially serve as a source for a future version of that article or so more people are aware and on lookout for future copyright infringement (deletion log changelog is insufficient). It's also worth noting that google indexes Wikipedia discussion pages but not history pages because they are dynamic, perhaps the people behind the curtain(s) don't want parts of Wikipedia easily searchable/indexable...? zen apprentice T 01:28, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Honestly! Not everything is a conspiracy. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 06:09, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Research and Analysis Wing

User:Legaleagle86 and I are reverting and discussing back and forth about the applicability of fair use to certain material in Research and Analysis Wing. This diff includes the material under consideration. It is taken from [18], which may quote another source at length. Please weigh in on the talk page. NatusRoma | Talk 06:23, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Some discussion/suggestion on the talk page will defenitely be helpful to sort out the issue Legaleagle86 14:57, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Feedback requested

I came across Wealthiest Americans (1957). I believe that it is normally a copyvio to put a list on Wikipedia from a magazine, for example, I've seen Lists of Top 100 Albums from Rolling Stone Magazine and similar things get removed. I also know that some copyrights expire after 70 years or something like that. I do not know if any of this applies in this case. I guess someone could argue that this list is factual and therefore not proprietary of the magazine, but I think that since the methodology for producing lists of "richest individuals" are often debated, that would mean that Fortune Magazine's list is unique thought. I figured that I could post a {{Cv-unsure}} on the talk page, but I don't really know the proper procedure to follow in a case like this, so I would appreciate some feedback before I take any action. --After Midnight 0001 13:15, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe it fails under the Wikipedia:Fair use provisions for using text and either needs to be removed or the information incorporated into the article as something other than a list. The article should definitely not begin with "This list"; I've made (or am in the process of making) some changes to the article that I believe will avoid any copyvio. Stay tuned.—Chidom talk  16:11, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
My edits are done. I believe the changes are substantial enough that it's a different list. Also, the business names on the list could be deleted and "(business)" substituted, which would make it even more generic. The article still needs references for the source of the list and the quotes; I tagged it with {{sources}}.—Chidom talk  18:35, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Copy-and-paste of NON-copyrighted material

International HapMap Project contains a large section of information that was apparently copied and pasted from a government website. This section takes up approximately 80% of the article. Although this is not a copyright violation, does this violate WP:WWIN (Wikipedia is not a mirror)? Thanks! -AED 15:56, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

If it's a notable topic and the text is a Work of the United States Government then there's no problem. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 16:22, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, you mean we're not committing a copyright violation. However, by republishing a work that is in the public domain and claiming it was licensed under the terms of the GFDL, we actually are committing copyfraud: claiming copyright over something that isn't copyrighted. At least include a note at the bottom stating from which public domain resource the text originally came from. Lupo 16:59, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. Why would this not be a violation of WP:WWIN (Wikipedia is not a mirror)? -AED 16:55, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

You can copy the content that was from the goverment website (although really you need to find the site or a mirror of it to prove it so), however if you use content which is from this 'article' which contants both goverment content (which is public domain) and their writings, then it would be a copyright violation (I am refering to UK law here, although copyright is pretty universal). Basically, you need to work out which bits came from the goverment, and you can use them. With regards to WP:WWIN it depends on how it would help the article, and it is extremely likely that you would need to in turn edit it to make it more suited. Note that any content in the public domain can be edited upon without credit, and for any purpose, but subsecuent edits are copyright to the person who wrote it (and only the new content they wrote), unless they choose to release some of those rights. The above advice is provided for your general information only. The information writen by myself should not be treated as a substitute for obtaining professional medical or legal advice. Ian¹³/t 17:20, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


Fair use where the source is intentionally obscure

I've asked what I think is an important question over at Wikipedia talk:Fair use#Fair use where the source is intentionally obscure, and I'd appreciate anyone's input. – Quadell (talk) (random) 17:10, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Wrong public domain reason

I've just found that an image (which I didn't add) on a page I recently edited has the wrong copyright attribution tag. The tag says, "This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired in the United States and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years or less."

The problem is that according to a reliable secondary source, Eaton and Haas's "Titanic: Triumph and Tragedy", the image was taken just under 100 years ago, in 1910. Therefore "life of the author plus 100 years" can't be the case. The photo was taken in the United States before 1923 so it should be in the public domain in the US. Can I be bold and change the public domain notice, and if I do which template should I use? Does it matter that Guggenheim lived mainly in France and not in the US?

The image is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BGuggenheim.jpg

Thanks! --Charlene.fic 01:19, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Replaceable fair use

There's a new tag in town: {{subst:Replaceable fair use}}. Details and discussion are here. – Quadell (talk) (random) 20:09, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission

The article has been pointed out for copyright infringement. The material that has been stated to be copyright violation comes from the official website of the organization, the article is being used to illustrate. Doesn't that come in the scope of fair use. The material is only being used for the description of the organization.Voldemortuet 09:28, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

In a word no.Geni 11:58, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
We can almost never use textual material under fair use (except short direct quotations, marked out as such) because it will inevitably fail WP:FUC #1. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 12:55, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Legally? Maybe, maybe not. But we have to follow our fair use policy, and not just the law. That's why we can't. – Quadell (talk) (random) 23:14, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
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