Wikipedia talk:Copyrights

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by NatusRoma (talk | contribs) at 02:43, 10 December 2005 (Question about Gary Barnett and rewriting copyright violations). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

See also:

I would like to use the Cross Triumphant logo of the United Church of Christ on the UCC article. The UCC website [1] says that it is trademarked. I know next to nothing about copyright and trademark legislation. Please advise: will I have to write to ask for permission, or will it fall under fair use?

Thanks very much aliceinlampyland 14:44, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You could probably use it under the 
tag (fair use). --βjweþþ (talk) 14:12, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

State government works not necessarily PD!!

I noticed that the DYK template now has a drawing of some grunion made by the California Department of Fish and Game. The drawing has a template claiming that works of the California government enter the public domain. IANYAL, but I assure you that states do have the right to protect works of their government employees by copyright. Someone, preferably a California lawyer, needs to check whether the California state government claims copyright on works of its employees. Dale Arnett 17:09, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

As I pointed out to Dale Arnett: The images were clearly tagged with Template:PD-CAGov, and the image descriptions gave the URLs for where they came from. From there, it is not too hard to find their copyright status [2]. ALL text on the Cal. F&G website is in the public domain (just as almost every bit of written information from the State of California). The photos on their website may not be, but the drawings I used appear to be produced specifically for the Cal. F&G and therefore should also be PD. BlankVerse ∅ 03:12, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

how can I protect myself?

I have several poems on my user page, and I would like reassurance that they cannot be stolen and discredited. They are not published in any way other than privet viewings by my close friends and reletives. I wish to share them, but not lose credit for them.

Although this page is mostly about copyright issues on the Wikipedia, I'll answer this question anyway. IANAL Your work is now automatically copyrighted once you've put your poems down in some tangible form (like writing them in your journal) unless you explicitly give up some or all of your rights. Still, when you "publish" them (on your website or elsewhere) there are still reasons to add a copywrite notice (usually © name date). There is no way, however, to be absolutely assured that your work will not be stolen. On the other hand, if you can show prior publication and ownership of the copyright, there are remedies available to you.
Stealing poems is fairly rare, but it does happen. I write haiku, and every once in awhile there will be a poem published, or a contest won, with a misappropriated poem. Invariably the person will be caught, and a retraction published or a prize withdrawn. Right now there is a bit of a fuss because someone has posted a number of haiku on some of the free poetry websites on the net claiming they were his, but in fact they were really those of a very well-known haiku poet. The poetry thief's postings have all been removed, and he will probably end up persona non grata on every free poetry website on the internet, and in every print and internet haiku journal. BlankVerse ∅ 07:56, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Status of a cartoon from a 1925 London Newspaper

Hi, I've written a number of tennis articles plus other stuff for Wikipedia. I want to write another one about an old-time American tennis player named Ray Casey who was a Wimbledon doubles finalist in 1925. I have in my possession a photograph (made by me around 1982) of a pen-and-ink cartoon about Casey that appeared in the (London) Daily Mail in June of 1925. I'd like to include this cartoon in the article if possible. I've read as much as I can try to understand about English copyright law, which isn't much. It seems very confusing. But it *does* seem to me as if the basic rights for something such as this expire after only *50* years. Therefore this cartoon *could* be used here. Can anyone give me a definitive, or at least a near-definitive, answer on this? I realize that this whole copyright business is an enormous can of worms, with answers in many cases that are far from definitive.... But thanks in any case for your help. Hayford Peirce 18:20, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The cartoonist must have died 70 years ago --134.130.68.65 16:21, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No. There is no reason to presume that he died only a decade after draeing the cartoon.
Can someone clarify whether US or UK law would be the issue here? IANAL. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:30, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

From what I know, it's either 75 years from creation or 50 years from publication.

Also I think it will also depend on where the copyright is held at. Judging from what you said, I think the UK law will apply. If anything, ask The Daily Mail if you can have permission. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tidus4Yuna (talk • contribs) 8 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Please add link to Ukrainian Wiki

[[uk:Wikipedia:Авторське право]]

Rh 19:22, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Copyvios and page histories

<Jun-Dai 04:54, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)>

I'm sure this question has been asked before, but I can't find it hereabouts: if we remove a copyright violation, but the copyvio remains in the page's history, is the Wikipedia actually cleared of the violation, or not? Consider Fat Blue. It was deemed that the article was a copyvio, the appropriate tag was set, and then the copy rewritten. Yet the alleged copyvio is still accessible on Wikipedia via a direct link: [3]. Does that not constitute a copyright violation?

</Jun-Dai>

I'm going to take a stab at this and say NO. The page's history, while accessible, is not being used for publication purposes. Now, I'm certain that this can be argued the other way, however, any organization which would want to sue for copyright infringement because of a history page would wind up spending more money than they could ever hope to collect on the highly unlikely chance this website would be found libel. Spending good money for no money. Usually with Copyright law, there's an opportunity for the infringor to make repairs, i.e. removing the violation. I'm sure if Wikipedia were contacted by someone who has absolutly nothing better to do than search for violations in page history, one of our programmers would find a way to remove it altogether. Now, I'm not a lawyer...but I've tried a thing or two... [[User:Bastique|
ℬastique]]

▼talk 02:52, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

<Jun-Dai 23:20, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)> I guess this raises a question: how much of the Wikipedia's policy towards copyrights is based on theoretical considerations, and how much of it is based on practical considerations? </Jun-Dai>

Template:Cv

Under the section "If you find a copyright infringement" on the project page, can we add a mention of Template:Cv? It's a template for user talk pages, similar to Template:Test1, Template:Test2, etc.. except for dealing with people that post copyrighted material. TheCoffee 12:08, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Government of the Republic of Ireland Copyrights

I found the subject law here: Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000. Can someone help me to figure out what it means and what sort of Irish government images are useable? [[User:Bastique| ℬastique]]

▼talk 02:44, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You're looking for section 191:
Government copyright.
Chapter 19 - Government and Oireachtas Copyright
191.—(1) Where a work is made by an officer or employee of the Government or of the State, in the course of his or her duties, the work qualifies for copyright protection notwithstanding the provisions relating to the requirements as to qualification for copyright protection specified in section 182.
(2) The Government shall be the first owner of the copyright in a work to which subsection (1) applies.
(3) The copyright in a work to which subsection (1) applies shall be known and in this Act referred to as ‘‘Government copyright’’, notwithstanding that the copyright may be, or may have been, assigned to another person.
(4) Government copyright in a work shall expire 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was made.
This means Irish government commissioned works hold copyright for 50 years, if no one else has a recognised legal interest in it. --Diderot 17:12, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is GFDL incompatible

1. The Wikipedia:Copyright page states that Wikipedia is governed by a modified version of the GFDL license that makes an exception not requiring invariant sections nor front/back-cover texts.

This makes it only compatible one-way. People can combine Wikipedia works with GFDL'ed works, but GFDL'ed works can't be integrated into Wikipedia works unless said GFDL work it explicitly states the same exact exception.

2. Wikipedia has implicitly modified the attribution sections of the GFDL, because the method for attribution given by Wikipedia is to credit Wikipedia itself and not the authors as required by the GFDL. That would only be valid if Wikipedia is the copyright holder, but it's not. There's also the fact that you wouldn't even know who to credit to begin with given the number of contributors.

3. This is not a legal incopamptibility, but a pragmatic one. Because of the attribution and other requirements, it means inserting a whole bunch of extra text into a Wikipedia article for every piece of GFDL text added. Of course, the very specific requirements of the GFDL would make the so-called encyclopedic articles look very messy and unprofessional. You're supposed to list up to 5 authors, include various sections and whatnot, that results in an ugly mess in an article.

...

Honestly, they really should have thought this through better before doing all of this. The only possible way to salvage the content now is switch to a much more relaxed license that specifically addresses atribution issues on a Wiki. This means getting the consent of many people to put their works into the public domain or something close to it. I believe the author of rambot is making an effort to do that, with some success.

Nathan J. Yoder 22:58, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

GFDL doesn't require cover texts, so not including them is not a modification. I disagree that changing the license for the entire pedia is the "only possible way to salvage" it. Lunkwill 23:29, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The GFDL requires that front-cover, back-cover and invariant sections be reproduced with every version. It even has very specific, restrictive rules about how you're allowed to modify them. Read the addenum at the end of the GFDL where it says How to use this License for your documents. That section instructs the person to add a copyright statement requiring reproduction of those sections if they exist. Nathan J. Yoder 03:17, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The statement here on Wikipedia:Copyrights is not intended to be an amendment to the GFDL. It is merely a statement that Wikipedia does not have any front cover texts or back cover texts. The matter of attribution is unclear. Most republishers merely credit the Wikipedia. One or two credit the five most prolific authors for the encyclopedia as a whole. Perhaps a few credit everyone for each article. Also see my user page for an alternate view on this issue. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 28 June 2005 16:56 (UTC)

Yes, but if someone uses another GFDL'ed document with one of those viral sections in a Wikipedia article, it makes that statement of copyright invalid. So in other words, Wikipedia can only use another GFDL'ed source if it doesn't have any viral sections either OR if the Wikipedia copyright statement is changed.
The attribution thing only works for now since no one has cared to file a lawsuit (or DMCA notification at least) over it YET, but you shouldn't rely on things continuing the way they are now. For wiki type documents, the GFDL is just an accident waiting to happen and unfortunately those in charge of Wikipedia don't really see it as a big deal and would really rather not admit that they made a mistake in using the GFDL.
Your statements about copyright on your user page aren't accurate. While you do own the copyright to the individual parts that you alone authored, any parts that have been jointly-authored can only be licensed under a license specified by the person who wrote the first version since they are the ones who needed to authorize you to modify it in the first place. In this case, all jointly-authored works are released under the GFDL unless all the authors of said work have specified that have multi-licensed it under other licenses as well. Nathan J. Yoder 28 June 2005 19:48 (UTC)

Contributing to and from the Attribution-ShareAlike

I was wondering if one could copy wikipedia articles to a wiki that has the Attribution-ShareAlike license or vice versa. My guessing is that this is not possible in both cases, unless you are the author of the article, but I wanted to ask to be sure.

I'm asking because this wiki has quite good articles for some japanese musicians that are missing on Wikipedia. --xDCDx 3 July 2005 14:46 (UTC)

Heading typo

The "Algeria" heading is one level too high. "Edit" button isn't available, so hopefully with someone will higher privs will catch that. Cate8 July 9, 2005 04:49 (UTC)

Making life easier for new users

As this page is linked from the bottom of every article, I suggest that we lead with a short list of other reasons someone might have come here, rather than burying it at the bottom. For example:

This page describes the licence under which the contents of Wikipedia can be reused.

See here for a new user's difficulty in finding Wikipedia:Copyright problems.

Bovlb 02:51:27, 2005-07-12 (UTC)

Printed copies of Wikimedia content

I'm trying to prepare a copy of a book at Wikibooks for print publication. I intend to actually publish this information in a dead tree format and give it to a couple of local schools and libraries. (It is only about 70 pages long right now).

As a result of doing this, I'd also like to apply for formal copyright registration of this Wikibook, which is going to give me a whole bunch of problems, including primarily author attribution (the information found on user pages is totally inadequate for filling this out), and determining exactly who "owns" the content covered in the book. The book I'm going to publish is the Wikijunior Solar System. I have a PDF file on there right now with the layout in the format I wish to actually publish and take down to a local printing company.

The wikibooks:Wikibooks:Copyrights page is woefully inadequate to cover this concept, and IMHO very out of date as well in a number of areas. If there is somebody who really knows copyright law, I would appreciate some help in this circumstance. It is also possible that a major change of policy with the Wikimedia Foundation may have to take place if we need to accurately determine the country of origin and residence for each contributor, to keep with registration laws under United States code. I would also like input from users in other countries as to what specific requirements are involved if you formally register copyright in your country and what information your government is asking that you provide with copyright.

The relevant information for copyright registration (under U.S. law, and what I intend to file) can be found here:

http://www.copyright.gov/register/literary.html

Some discussion on this can also be found at the Staff Lounge on Wikibooks. It is from that discussion that I am trying to get input here. --Robert Horning 02:19, 26 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Memory Alpha

At Conspiracy (Star Trek), I put in some text from Memory Alpha.org, which uses Creative Commons. The author of the article specifically said that the text was derived from the Wikipedia article. Is that text not necessarily GFDL and is it not okay to reintegrate it into Wikipedia? James 02:58, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

Using individual Wikipedia articles on otherwise copyrighted site

In short, what do I need to do to use individual Wikipedia articles on my site without jeopardizing the legal status of my otherwise copyrighted site? The long version of this question follows:

I have read and re-read the GFDL and other articles here and still find myself wondering what I can and cannot do with individual Wikipedia articles. I have a site that already contains many articles which are copyrighted. I wish to fill in the "knowledge holes" in my site by using Wikipedia articles. I also wish to make it very clear to anyone who sees them that they come from Wikipedia. And lastly, I wish to be able to incorporate the WP articles without alterting the copyright status of the rest of my site. Sounds simple enough. But is it? It seems that About.com and others have managed, but I'm unsure of their standing in this community after reading the section on GFDL compliance [4].

I'd like some direction from those of you who are passionate about this. From what I have read, I can copy an article from Wikipedia and put it on my site, so long as I include a disclaimer like this: 

"This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License."
"It uses material from this Wikipedia article, which is probably more up to date than ours."

(The "this Wikipedia article" part would be linked to the original article here and the latter is because I do not have the technical expertise to automatically update these articles.)

I am aware that by so doing, I am granting others the right to use this version of the article under the same terms it was "licensed" to me. I just want to make sure that this "viral" thing I've heard about in the media doesn't mean that I've just essentially licensed my whole site via the GFDL (which I don't actually have the right to do in any case as a good portion are from other contributors). I want to do this "the right way" and not upset folks here. I appreciate the nature of the work that has been done. Thanks for reading and for any advice!

I've been thinking the smae thing and I am not sure. I think that the rest of your site is not affected, but I don't know. What I am more interested by is if you could make a paper encyclopedia with certain articles copied from Wikipedia and under the GFDL but others completely copyright. --βjweþþ (talk) 16:32, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Section 7 of the GFDL says "When the Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to the other works in the aggregate which are not themselves derivative works of the Document." A website would be imo, an aggregate work. note IANAL. Matt 05:16, 3 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that info, User:MattKingston, I needed to confirm this, as my site [5] uses a couple of Wikipedia articles, modified to fit into the site. I use a template called "Template:Wikipedia" to mark the pages as Wikipedia-derived, and GFDL-only. The rest of the site is dual GFDL/CC-BY-SA-2.5. Your comments will help me to rest a bit easier in thinking that I'm not tainting my whole site as GFDL-only. -Harmil 14:33, 16 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Transparent copies

This was just added: "any of a number of formats available from us, including the wiki text, the html web pages, xml feed, etc."

From the GFDL: "[...]standard-conforming simple HTML, PostScript or PDF designed for human modification.[...]Opaque formats include proprietary formats that can be read and edited only by proprietary word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/or processing tools are not generally available, and the machine-generated HTML, PostScript or PDF produced by some word processors for output purposes only."

The HTML web pages here are designed for output purposes only. If you read through the HTML pages, not only do they contain a ton of garbage, they're difficult for a human to sort through and modify, especially if they want to change the formatting. The WikiText undoubtedly makes changes much easier for a human, which was why it was created--human modification of the raw html would be too arduous. The XML export includes the WikiText itself, so it's redudant to mention. Nathan J. Yoder 11:58, 7 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'll remove this addition in a month if no one bothers to contest it. It was originally added as a political move on the part of Wikipedia's owner to defend Wikipedia's auto-blocking policy anyway, not one motivated by anything else. Nathan J. Yoder 11:53, 18 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Since I can't actually remove this, will someone else? It actually contradicts the latter part other part of the section that comes after it too, which suggests that providing a link back may be necessary for the transparent source requirement, which wouldn't be stated if the HTML provided by a third party constituted a transparent copy. Nathan J. Yoder 19:11, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Are xray images copyrightable?

Hello,

I have some medical xrays of my recent spinal fusion, which I'd like to use to illustrate the (currently nonexisting) spinal fusion article. One of these is at Image:spinal fusion fixation devices.jpg. Are these images acceptable for use, since they don't really involve any creative expression? Or was the process of finding a good angle for the xrays enough to make them copyrighted by the radiologist? I'd be happy to remove the images if they're not free. -- Creidieki 21:00, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that it's going to depend on the country they were taken in. The xrays are copyrightable, but who owns the copyright? I would suggest that it's either a) you, as the subject and the one who paid for them (If you paid for them), b) your physician who commissioned for them to be done, or c) the institution (hospital or laboratory) where they were done. Matt 15:41, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I found the following document relevant to the UK [6] which says "If the image forms part of the patient's medical record it, along with the rest of the record, is owned by the patient's doctor or treating hospital. Attempts to argue that the patient owns the information contained in his or her record, though not the record itself, have failed." Matt 16:16, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Those of you in the United States may be surprised to learn that the photographer, and not you, owns the copyright to your school photographs. Just try to get one of them enlarged and Wal-Mart and see what happens. I am assuming that the same principle applies to X-Rays - at least here in the states.
It's no different than if someone had taken a picture of your back with a regular camera. The copyright is held by the photographer, even if the image is of you or of your insides. X-rays are just another form of media. (If you think having images of your insides copyrighted by others is creepy, check out Moore v. UC Regents -- they can take patents out on stuff they find in your fluids). --Fastfission 21:40, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

predicament of actual rights vs. ethical rights

I came across Ashton Calvert and was surprised by the copyright notice on the bottom. Apparently the Australian gov't had released his bio information for "for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation". I'm not sure if "use within your organisation" includes Wikipedia. i have an ethical issue with this as well. Please see associated Talk:Ashton_Calvert. The author has also started other articles in the same vein. -- Bubbachuck 05:30, 12 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

perhaps you should elaborate on what ethical issues you have. I've listed it as a copyvio since the text is not licensed under the GFDL. I'll do the same with the others. Matt 03:24, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I just read at Wikipedia:Public domain resources that no US government material is copyrightable and is thus public domain. I'm not sure how Australia's copyright laws work (i can't find any mention on wikipedia), but if its the same as US, then technically someone could legally copy and paste an article from a government site onto Wikipedia, right? if a work is public domain, it does not have to be under GFDL right? clarification would be most appreciated. the ethical issues i have would be whether copy and pasting a webpage by the government just because they allow it for "non-commercial use" on Wikipedia is "right" considering that there exists an exact copy of the work on a government site already and there was not proper credit given to the government (not for the Calvert article but for others). -- Bubbachuck 04:13, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Unless you know for sure that Australia works the same way, don't assume it. I believe Australia has Crown Copyright which is quite different than the U.S. policy against copyrighted works of the federal government. "Use within your organisation" most likely only means "for internal use only", which is not what anything posted on Wikipedia generally is (as it is "published" to the entire world). Even if they release it for non-commercial use, that is not compatible with the GFDL (GFDL allows for commercial use). --Fastfission 21:46, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Please fix (Portuguese wikipedia)

Where it is: 

[[pt:Copyrights]]

it should be: 

[[pt:Wikipedia:Direitos de autor]]

--Juliano (T) 20:12, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Lyrics

Is it generally forbidden to add lyrics (which may be copyrighted) to descriptions of new songs?NightBeAsT 00:20, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Small portions can be quoted under fair use. You can even put the entire text in if it's interspersed with analysis as far as US copyright law is concerned because fair use protects such scholarly examination. Some Simpsons script sites use this technique. Copies can also be made for educational and classroom use, IIRC, but as with so many aspects of the Internet, how this would apply to an encyclopedia is unclear. Lunkwill 06:58, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure that's 100% correct. Even with scholarly examination, quoting the entire body of a copyright work would seem to go pretty far towards violating the substantiality clause. Anyway -- the answer for Wikipedia's case is NO, don't post song lyrics from copyrighted songs. You may have some brief quotes from such lyrics as is relevant to the article, but that's it. --Fastfission 21:44, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

USAID images

United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an agency of the federal government, and as such images produced by a USAID employee during the course of their work are public domain. The copyright notics on the USAID website states this explicitly:

Unless a copyright is indicated, information on this Web site is in the public domain and may be reproduced, published or otherwise used without USAID's permission. We request that USAID be cited as the source of the information and that any photo credits or bylines be similarly credited to the photographer or author or USAID, as appropriate. If a copyright is indicated on a photo, graphic, or any other material, permission to copy these materials must be obtained from the original source. This copyright notice does not pertain to information at Web sites other than this Web site. [7]

The photolibrary on the USAID website enables users to download medium resolution images. All of the images I have seen in this library do not specify a copyright and are therefore (see above) public domain. It is possible to request high resolution copies of these images via a form. However, this form states:

By submitting this form you agree to comply with the following terms of use:
    • Photos are intended for non-commercial use only.
    • Photos may not be stored or redistributed for any purposes without prior permission.
    • Photos should be used in a context that properly reflects the nature of the subject(s), situation, and location depicted.
    • When requesting high resolution photos, users are asked to provide information on how and where photos will be used.[8]

How are the above conditions compatible with the public domain nature of the images? TreveXtalk 20:15, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I seem to recall that the high-resolution versions are hosted by a an external company that sells them for commercial use. But then again, it's been a while since I checked. -Harmil 22:47, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Editable version

I've made an editable version, at Wikipedia:Copyrights/e. This can be used to propose changes by non-admins. Of course, for the Wikipedia policies, you should still refer to the original version. --Ixfd64 21:58, 2005 August 29 (UTC)


Iran

The text in the article does not mention this important fact:

According to the Iranian "Law for Supporting Authors, Composers, and Artists" (قانون حمایت حقوق مؤلفان و مصنفان و هنرمندان), passed on 11 Dey 1348 (January 1, 1970) and published in the official newspaper number 7288 on 21 Bahman 1348 (February 1, 1970), for many images, including paintings, the work is in the public domain if all of its authors have died for at least 30 Iranian years (may be different from 30 gregorian days in a few days).

As special exceptions, if the work is cinematic or photographic or if the (economic) rights of a work have been transferred to a legal person, the work will become public domain after 30 Iranian years from its publication or offering.--Zereshk 20:26, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Fair use link

Is there some reason there's no link to Wikipedia:Fair use? --Howcheng 22:20, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Copyrighted lists

I recently got [9]. I will remove it but I believe that such a list is uncopyrightable under US law. of Wikipedia:Fellows of the Royal Society, basically a list like the following:

  • Abbot, Charles, 1st Baron Colchester Charles Abbot, 1st Baron Colchester 14 October 1757 - 08 May 1829 Fellow 14/02/1793

and so on for about 8000 fellows.

That I'd changed into wikilinks to see where they led. What about British law (under which they were origially copyrighted), and international copyright law? Dunc|☺ 00:18, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • This might be helpful wrt US law, at least: [10]. My understanding has also been that lists and databases are not copyrightable. Lunkwill 02:17, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

NGA data and images

The terms (yes, terms... sigh) of the National Geospacial Agency's data is the following:

In accordance with 10 U.S.C. 425[2], the use of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) (or predecessor organizations, National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) or Defense Mapping Agency (DMA)) name, seal or initials to imply or suggest approval or any commercial endorsement by NGA without written permission from the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence is prohibited. All non-Agency published products, information or data which include the NGA, NIMA or DMA name, seal or initials or otherwise express or imply any association with NGA, NIMA or DMA shall contain the following disclaimer:

"Disclaimer

This reproduction, partial or complete, of any National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) or Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) product, information or data is not approved, authorized or endorsed by the Secretary of Defense, the Director of Central Intelligence, the Director, NGA or any other element of the US Government. The US Government and NGA accept no liability for the accuracy or quality of this reproduction or the use of any NGA, NIMA or DMA products, information or data."

This disclaimer shall be displayed prominently on the cover and first page of any hardcopy publication, on any map or chart, on any media, video cassette, on the shrink wrap of any CD or DVD, on any DVD or CD-ROM, on the jewel case label and any insert in the jewel case. This disclaimer shall be displayed prominently in the start up or initial screen of any software product or program as well as in the "About" dialog window (usually accessible by the "Help" drop-down menu). In addition, any installation diskettes, CD-ROMS, or DVDs will contain the disclaimer in a separate text file located in the root directory and named "disclaimer.txt."

NGA will not be liable for the accuracy or quality of any user products, regardless of the amount or complexity of NGA information or data used in their production.

[11]

This would seem to require, at the very least, that we replicate the above disclaimer in Wikipedia:Copyrights, because we do use the seal and name at National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and we also use data from the agency in many places.

Have I missed something important that mitigates this concern? I mean, I know we're an encyclopedia, and so logically it makes sense for us to use the name and logo, but U.S. law seems to be contradicting logic, here. Perhaps just a disclaimer on National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (and perhaps on a PD template box for their images) saying that they don't endorse Wikipedia would be sufficient to get past the first conditional in the requirement? -Harmil 22:59, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Artwork from 1890s, artist died 1936 (corrected: 1932)

I'm trying to work out what images I might be able to add to Ramon Casas i Carbó if I flesh it out to more of an article. His active career was well under way in the 1890s; he died in 1936. Among his work were postcards, posters, and paintings. Much of this is reproduced on line elsewhere, but without clear statements about rights. There is a fair chance that something was published in the US before 1923, but it would be difficult to ascertain. Some of the postcards were clearly published in Spain as early as 1897. I'd particularly like to use this self-portrait (he is in front on the tandem bike, Pere Romeu is his stoker): it is an iconic image, painted for the main dining hall of Els Quatre Gats, a Barcelona bar/restaurant that was a center for the Catalan art movement known as modernisme, and which in a revived form is still a bit of an arts space today. Any suggestions on what we can and cannot reproduce? -- Jmabel | Talk 05:50, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hello? -- Jmabel | Talk 07:25, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Assuming it was first published in Spain, I would assume that the pre-1923 date won't do you much good. I've just started to try to figure out non-US publication. The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (of which Spain is a signatory) states
Countries under the older revisions of the treaty may choose to provide, and certain types of works (such as phonorecords and motion pictures) may be provided shorter terms, otherwise the current length of copyright in general is life of the author of the work (or last surviving author if there is more than one), plus 70 years, or, in the case of a work for hire or otherwise created by an entity other than an individual, 95 years from first publication.
Not exactly as clear as it might be, but it suggests that his work might have just come into the public domain this year (though our article on him gives his date of death as 1932). Seems to me that we need an article that really covers copyright in a significant range of countries. Anyone know of a source? -- Mwanner | Talk 17:07, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
OK, better answer. [12] has Spanish law as life+70. Though the discussion there falls a little short of the degree of clarity I'd like to find, it looks sound enough to go on for now. -- Mwanner | Talk 17:19, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
But is Spanish law what pertains? After all, we are publishing this in the US. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:41, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I was reading "The applicable law under the Berne Convention is by default the law of the signatory country where a copyright claim is made" (from our Berne Convention article) to mean that if a Spanish artist claims a copyright in Spain, then US publishers have to abide by it. Now that you raise the question directly, I realise it's not a slam-dunk that that's what it means, but I still lean in that direction. Notice, too, though, that (according to rumor) we have servers in Europe (France?). Soooo...
The more you look into this stuff, the more you wish you hadn't. -- Mwanner | Talk 18:54, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You'll have to wait until 1 January 2007, which isn't too far away (m:eventualism) Dunc|☺ 19:10, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If our article is right on his date of death (1932), his stuff is OK now. -- Mwanner | Talk 20:59, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you all. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:47, 30 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Correction: copyright is not forever

In section 4, the phrase "that material will remain under GFDL forever" should be "that material will remain under GFDL until its copyright expires". There may be other phrases like this that I haven't noticed. – gpvos (talk) 10:40, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

.gov and .mil images

Upon advice from Gmaxwell I changed the text about images from .gov and .mil sites being in the public domain "as a general rule". There's a lot of commercial stock photography on US gov't sites that is definitely not PD (from Getty Images, for exmaple, for several mistakenly uploaded in the past). Notice replaced with a caution to be careful and first email the webmaster to be sure. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 13:56, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Old Book Covers

Following up on Wikipedia talk:Image use policy/copyright#Pre-1923 Images from original sources: I noticed that the image of the cover of Ulysses was tagged fair use (Template:Book cover). However, I believe that since the book was published before 1923 (here, 1922), it falls into Public Domain in the US and since James Joyce died over 70 years ago, it falls into Public Domain in many other countries. This holds true for as well for Makers of American Silver and probably for many other books. Also, since the scan of a book cover can hardly be construed as "original" or "creative" (I think Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. applies here), these book cover should be tagged as Template:PD-old-70. I want to know if anyone agrees before I do this and also if anyone knows what to do for books that are published 1923 or later or authors who died less than 70 years ago. However, as the similar question I noted above has not yet been answered, after over a year(!), I'll just go and do it soon unless told otherwise. Telso 23:10, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a bit late, and my answer is certainly not authoritative, but I have been taking a similar approach with images published pre-1923, though I generally use PD-US. Note that your example with a James Joyce book cover may or may not work under PD-old-70, since it would be the date of death of the artist, not the author, that would apply. Under PD-US, all you need be sure of is the publication date. For images where the artist died before 1905, you can use PD-art. -- Mwanner | Talk 16:45, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Linking to copyrighted works

It is always bad to link to copyrighted works? What if the article is about such a work, and a version exists online? Even if the host is violating copyright, we're not, and it seems like fair use. User:Omegatron/sig 21:59, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Copyright expiration

I own a book that I think has passed into public domain, and might be a good source for the (currently somewhat light) engineering section of Wikipedia. It's Mechanics of Materials by Laurson and Cox, 2nd edition (the Wiley & Sons edition, not the Chapman & Hall Amazon is selling). I went here and looked through the renewals for 74, 75, 76 and 63, 64, 65 (since the copyright dates listed are 1938 and 1947), and couldn't find it under the title or either of the authors' names. Is this enough effort to consider it expired, or should I do more? Thanks in advance, Joel 03:50, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The good folks at Wikipedia:Reference Desk sugggested I direct this question here, due to your specialized interest. So, uh...what do you guys think?--Joel 03:20, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Add it to wikisource.org, have fun. Travb 23:09, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Interwiki

please add 

sk:Wikipédia:Autorské práva

~~helix84 17:56, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

copies of pre-1923 postcards

There are several photographs which would be extremely useful at http://pre-grouping.fotopic.net/

They are mostly scans of postcards published pre-1923 in England and Wales and Scotland, some of them are Victorian.

The owner of the website thinks that they're all public domain. I'm not so sure, though if he owns the copyright he has admitted that he thinks they're public domain anyway.

But I think the creator of the work owns the copyright, or his estate, and the company that employed him to take the photographs, but it is nigh impossible to identify them.

It may be that they are ultimately owned by the NRM, having gone through the 1923 grouping, 1948 nationalisation to the British Railways Board to the NRM.

I think there is a recognised problem with identifying who owns ancient copyrights within the railway book business.

But should I use them?????? Dunc|☺ 21:01, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

anything published before 1923 is in the public domain, still dont beleive me? Go to http://www.gutenberg.org/ and see tens of thousands of examples. Travb 23:11, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Lawsuits

So who files a lawsuit in the case of infringement? Since it's a civil suit, it can't be filed on behalf of other people, the contributors themselves need to file suit, which is a bit strange. What exactly would happen, would they need to contact all the contributors and files a massive class action? Nathan J. Yoder 19:17, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A decent source for copyright law in many countries

A decent source for copyright law in many countries is at [13]. It seems to me that we could really use a page like this on WP, or at least a link to such a page. We don't have anything like enough on non-English language countries' copyright provisions.

Also, as suggested above, a link to Wikipedia:Fair use would seem to be called for. -- Mwanner | Talk 17:29, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]


While looking for info on copyright law in other countries, I came across this page [14] that contains the following ominous paragraph:
Even if you conclude that a work is in the public domain in the United States, this does not necessarily mean that you are free to use it in other countries. Every nation has its own laws governing the length and scope of copyright protection, and these are applicable to uses of the work within that nation’s borders. Thus, the expiration or loss of copyright protection in the United States may still leave the work fully protected against unauthorized use in other countries.
What, exactly, does "use it in other countries" mean? Anyone have a clue what law pertains when a person in Nigeria reads a Wikipedia article off of a server in France that contains a photo first published in Spain in 1938 (just to pick an arbitrary example). Should we be worrying about this stuff? -- Mwanner | Talk 17:55, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Don't worry until the first lawsuit ... --134.130.68.65 16:17, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Just as a basic principle of non-paranoia: the chance of being sued over something like this is very slim. We might get a letter asking us to remove the picture because someone claims copyright, and if the claim was anything like reasonable, we'd probably abide by it promptly. Past that, pretty much the only basis to get damages in a copyright suit is if someone could show that our use of the image cost them money: typically, that means that someone would have paid for a copy of the image, or of a work of which the image is part, if we hadn't given it away. There are not a lot of single images for which that would be the case, so the stakes are pretty low. On the other hand, if someone had a book of 235 photos and we used 60 of them, they might have a great basis for a suit.
We'd all do well to remember: the lines we (Wikipedia) draw on image use etc. are an effort to stay well within the law. In general, we are not skirting the edges and tempting fate. As far as I know, the only place we've taken a "so sue me" attitude is the claim that some museums make that they own the rights to reproductions of pictures of which they own the original. To the best of my knowledge, no court has ever upheld such a claim, and we've decided to bet on what looks like good legal precedent, if not universally agreed legal principle. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:41, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Time to fix copyvio

I noted a copyvio in an article, which has been added to quite a bit but is still very obviously derived from the original source. After I reverted to a non-violating version, the user who originally introduced the copyrighted material and is also one of the major contributors to the article reverted it back, saying he would edit out the non-original material "in a month or so." I would think that the correct thing to do is revert the article until the rewrite is available, but I wanted to ask. How long can the article remain as a copyvio while awaiting or in the process of having the "bad" material removed? --Bgruber 16:09, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

0 seconds? This is simply not allowed. Known copyvio material should not be in Wikipedia, even temporarily. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:35, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Two questions

I wish to clarify two things:

  1. If I take a photograph of a newspaper, is it "copyrighted" (by the newspaper's publisher) (and if so, is this "fair use"?), or is it a work created by me (so that I can e.g. put it under the GFDL)?
  2. How about public art? (I suppose if posters are ok these must be ok, but just to be safe…)

Thanks—Gniw (Wing) 03:58, 4 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

IANAL, but I believe, for question 1, you can copyright a photograph of a copyrighted work only if your photo essentially transforms the original work into a work of art (you paint on the paper, make a collage of it, it appears as one element in a larger composition, etc.).
As for question 2, I believe that you would obtain copyright on your photograph of a sculpture, as there is something inherently creative about the choice of angle, lighting composition, etc., but publishing a photograph of a copyrighted painting would violate the author's copyright-- you do not create a new, copyrightable work by making a "slavish copy". See Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., which is kinda the obverse of this question, in that it deals with public domain art. -- Mwanner | Talk 18:12, 4 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
See Derivative work. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:37, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I am completely confused. Does it mean that if I want to upload some photos of public art (or a place where art is everywhere and cannot be avoided) to Wikipedia,
  1. it is not allowed (which explains why there aren’t many photos of subway stations in Wikipedia)
  2. it is a blanket “fair use”
  3. it is “fair use”, but only if the purpose of the photo is to let the reader identify the piece of art
  4. it is “fair use”, but only if the article is a piece of art criticism
  5. none of the above (and if so, what)
and if I have already uploaded photos and it is “not allowed”, or “fair use” only when the article must critique the art (instead of describing, say, a subway station), how do I delete the photo? (Should I mark my own upload as copyvio and let the admins delete them? That sounds nasty…) :-(
Thanks—Gniw (Wing) 04:07, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It just isn't that clearcut. You can't copyright a subway station; not even the lovely ones in Moscow. It matters (a lot) whether your picture is basically of the place, and a public work of art just happens to form part of the place, or your picture fundamentally amounts to a reproduction of the work of art. Other factors also enter, including the context in which the image is used.
One thing I can dispense with, though. There is no such thing as "blanket fair use" for an image. If the image is copyrighted, them some uses are not fair. If "blanket use" is OK, that can only mean that the image is either not copyrighted, or is licensed for "blanket use".
It would be a lot easier to talk about concrete examples (specific picture, specific use). IANAL, of course, and Wikipedia probably sets itself stricter standards for fair use than the law requires, and case law is spotty in this area, anyway, but I have a pretty good sense of this and probably can give you a decent answer to a more specific question. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:20, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The specific cases for me would be Finch (TTC), North York Centre (TTC) (the top photo), Sheppard-Yonge (TTC), Bessarion (TTC), Leslie (TTC), and Don Mills (TTC).
North York Centre (TTC) (the bottom photos) and Bayview (TTC) are similar but someone else uploaded the photos.
For the first question the specific case would be for me [15], though if someone could explain the reason for Toronto Sun being considered not ok but broadsheet apparently ok (a straight reading of the guidelines would have me “almost” believe the Toronto Sun use is ok for Wikipedia, and conversely if Toronto Sun is not ok then it’d be very difficult to understand why broadsheet is fine) would be much appreciated.
(I personally don’t believe photos of public art would be problematic, otherwise TTC would have stated that fact instead of “no professional photographers allowed” in the public notice.)—Gniw (Wing) 14:16, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

On the subway photos, I can't imagine a problem, assuming that the photos were uploaded by the person who took them. These are basically photos of public spaces; the fact that there may be a work of art visible in the public space should not be an issue: clearly these are not basically reproductions of that work of art. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:58, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see anything problematic about the Toronto Sun example. Clearly they could not reasonably claim that you are diminishing the value of their asset by the use of these pictures, which is the biggest issue. The use of their copyrighted materials seems to fall withing fair use where you use it in a context of legitimate comment on the confusion between the newspaper and the flyer. Does anyone else see a problem with this that I'm missing? -- Jmabel | Talk 00:04, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oh that’s good. I’m going to take pictures of every subway station that’s missing photos :D
If the Today Daily News photo is ok (the one with the paper and flyer side by side) I'm considering re-using it in the article. Good :D
For the Toronto Sun exampe, I saw a comment about the work being copyrighted and unlicensed (in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Droegedead.jpg). Rereading the page, it seem to have been generated by a tag and not an editor's comment. I guess the uploader just used the wrong tag.
Thanks for answering my questions.—Gniw (Wing) 00:11, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use (again)

There is a section on Fair use, but it provides no link to Wikipedia:Fair use. Could we get this added (or changed)? TIA -- Mwanner | Talk 00:26, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Is Google even legal?

Google does not mention anywhere, anything about the GFDL when they return definition results in their search engine. i.e. define:someword. There is no mention of the GFDL and no link to a local or external copy of the GFDL. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.151.20.123 (talk • contribs) 21 Nov 2005 (UTC)

They have at least our implicit permission to index our content. We find it beneficial that they do so. They comply with requests not to do so. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:07, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I can't believe people are asking such kind of questions, and in Wikipedia of all places. Copyright law is destroying the Internet culture.—Gniw (Wing) 18:46, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It's not the copyright law that I was questioning. I was questioning why google can take content from the wikipedia and not make any reference to the GFDL. So now that I have a partial answer, I'm still quite confused. Why can a small website or medium website who is not google, not have the same rights as google? It's not the copyright in question, it is the copyleft in question. I have no problem with google using the content of the wikipedia without referencing the GFDL, if I and every other small website owner that indexes website content have the same right. That includes all other corporations in addition to the small website owner. --Lars Olson
Again, they have at least our implicit permission to index our content. If we didn't want it indexed, we would follow the Robots Exclusion Standard. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:47, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

copyvio on User Talk-pages

What about pasting copyright protected material on lots of users talk-pages? Like all the things User:Armour copied from Encyclopædia Britannica. Doesn't it has to be Copyright violation in some way? How should it be dealt with? --Boivie 22:08, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting issue, not least because I keep encountering cases in which a certain user copies material from websites to talk pages, in order to use them as arguments in a discussion. If you edit a talk page, no matter if it is a user one or not, you'll see "DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION" at the bottom of the page, and "Only public domain resources can be copied exactly—this does not include most web pages." I've adjusted my User preferences to de:Deutsch, which has another sentence. It tranlates as "Please DO NOT COPY WEBSITES which are not yours, do NOT use COPYRIGHTED WORK without permission of the copyright-holder." It seems to me to be an obvious case and anyway, I do not think the people from Britannica would like to have their work published. Don't forget that talk pages can be found via Google too. I cannot tell you whether their translation is a copyvio too but I think it is. NightBeAsT 15:06, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Policy Template

This page needs a {{policy}} tag, because it is listed in Category:Wikipedia official policy. (Or remove the Cat). --Michael (talk) 13:05, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Request for ceb interwiki

Please provide a link to the Cebuano WP equivalent of this page: ceb:Wikipedya:Katungod sa pagpatik. Thanks! --58.69.21.243 07:58, 28 November 2005 (UTC) (Bentong Isles from the Cebuano Wikipedia)[reply]

User page copyright notices

Do we have any policy -- or even, suggested course of action -- about copyright notices on user pages, purporting to withhold permissions that the GFDL grants? (Such as redistribution.) It strikes me this could cause a certain amount of confusion, though I assume it doesn't cause any legal problems as such, given how explicit and up-front we are about the GFDL being a given. In other words, ignore 'em, ask the user to remove them, remove on sight? Alai 02:54, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There was a big flap about this some months ago. I forget the name of the user involved. The outcome was that such notices aren't permitted, for exactly the reasons you cite. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 03:23, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'm much obliged; the pages one doesn't have on one's watchlist, until some time after one realizes one needed 'em. Alai 03:26, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Photos used on other site w/out attribution

It was pointed out to me that http://www.caninecrib.com/dog/pictures/ is using many many pohtos from Wikipedia w/out attribution. I've sent them email, but does anyone know whether there's a procedure to follow or a committee that handles this kind of thing or whatever if they DON'T comply?

I'd monitor it myself except that wikipedia has ruined my life (well--not really--just takes too much time) and except for today I've been avoiding it and will have to go back to avoiding it. 71.131.35.122 00:02, 3 December 2005 (UTC) (Ooops, that was me Elf | [[User talk:Elf|Talk]] 00:03, 3 December 2005 (UTC))[reply]


Graphics for Mathematics Articles

I would like to create graphics for some of the more incomplete mathematics articles, using Mathematica and possibly Matlab. I don't know what kind of licenses I can use, is there anyone that knows, or can suggest someone to ask? -Monguin61 01:32, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Question about Gary Barnett and rewriting copyright violations

I tagged Gary Barnett as a copyright violation. Another user, acting in good faith, restored a slightly cleaned-up version of the copyrighted text, which was a biography of Barnett posted on a website of Barnett's former employer, the University of Colorado at Boulder. Is [16] still a copyright violation? NatusRoma 02:43, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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