Wikipedia:Media copyright questions

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Welcome to the Media Copyright Questions page, a place for help with image copyrights, tagging, non-free content, and related questions. For all other questions please see Wikipedia:Questions.

How to add a copyright tag to an existing image
  1. On the description page of the image (the one whose name starts File:), click Edit this page.
  2. From the page Wikipedia:File copyright tags, choose the appropriate tag:
    • For work you created yourself, use one of the ones listed under the heading "For image creators".
    • For a work downloaded from the internet, please understand that the vast majority of images from the internet are not appropriate for use on Wikipedia. Exceptions include images from flickr that have an acceptable license, images that are in the public domain because of their age or because they were created by the United States federal government, or images used under a claim of fair use. If you do not know what you are doing, please post a link to the image here and ask BEFORE uploading it.
    • For an image created by someone else who has licensed their image under an acceptable Creative Commons or other free license, or has released their image into the public domain, this permission must be documented. Please see Requesting copyright permission for more information.
  3. Type the name of the tag (e.g.; {{Cc-by-4.0}}), not forgetting {{ before and }} after, in the edit box on the image's description page.
  4. Remove any existing tag complaining that the image has no tag (for example, {{untagged}})
  5. Hit Publish changes.
  6. If you still have questions, go on to "How to ask a question" below.
How to ask a question
  1. To ask a new question hit the "Click here to start a new discussion" link below.
  2. Please sign your question by typing ~~~~ at the end.
  3. Check this page for updates, or request to be notified on your talk page.
  4. Don't include your email address, for your own privacy. We will respond here and cannot respond by email.
Note for those replying to posted questions

If a question clearly does not belong on this page, reply to it using the template {{mcq-wrong}} and, if possible, leave a note on the poster's talk page. For copyright issues relevant to Commons where questions arising cannot be answered locally, questions may be directed to Commons:Commons:Village pump/Copyright.

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File:Volksblad (S.A).jpg[edit]

That file seems to be a very basic text logo, which means it should allowed on Commons. --Enyavar (talk) 11:49, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This file would be too simple to eligible for copyright protection in the US per c:COM:TOO Unisted States, but Commons also requires that it also be too simple to be eligible for copyright protection in its country or origin (i.e. country of first publication) as explained in c:COM:Copyright rules. Since this is the logo of South African newspaper, whether Commons can keep it depends on c:COM:South Africa. The copyright laws of many countries that were once part of or are still part of the British Commonwealth are rooted in UK copyright law and the UK's threshold of originality is much lower than that of the US; so, some text-only logos may still be considered protected under South African copyright laws. There's no problem in relicensing this as {{PD-ineligible-USonly}} for local use on Wikipedia since it only needs to be PD in the US to do that, but whether Commons can keep the file is unclear. Since there's not much about South Africa's TOO on Commons, it would probably be a good idea to ask about this at c:COM:VPC just to see what some others might think. -- Marchjuly (talk) 03:00, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fan art as CC-attribution[edit]

The voice generator website 15.ai uses fan art of the My Little Pony character Twilight Sparkle as its logo. Wikipedia is currently hosting a copy of that image as CC-Attribution at File:15 ai logo transparent.png, attributed to the artist who drew it - is that permitted, or does it need to be fair use pointing to the website that uses it as a logo?

It's deletion from Commons is being discussed under Commons' fan art policy, but I'm not sure where Wikipedia stands on that kind of thing.--Lord Belbury (talk) 16:20, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We're shouldn't be hosting something under a CC license here if it's deleted at commons for being a possible infringement--when it comes to image copyright matters it's pretty safe to follow their lead unless we get Wikipedia-only licenses (still non-free, but a smidge easier to use) or US-only PD or other esoteric situations like that. Non-free would be the way to go. VernoWhitney (talk) 01:17, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Patrol question[edit]

Hey there, I was just doing some strolling around the New Images and such and I noticed that someone self-appends their fair use rationale template as proper (using |image has rationale=yes). I couldn't find guidelines about how to handle this on the checklist unless I'm blind. Could anyone tell me whether this is allowed, and if not, what I should do when I find that this happens? I will subscribe to this section so no need to tag or talkback. Thanks! ★Ama TALK CONTRIBS 18:43, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe there's a "rule" that someone isn't supposed to do this. It's kind of similar to creating an article and then assessing it yourself. Another editor can still re-assess the non-free use rationale for the file at some point. If they disagree with the original assessment, they can nominate, propose or tag the file for deletion just like you can do for an article created by someone else. Setting the parameter as |image has rationale=yes doesn't automatically mean the rationale is valid; it just means the file has a rationale so it's not eligible for speedy deletion per WP:F6. — Marchjuly (talk) 20:36, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

File talk:Bruno Santos by Juan Martin.jpg[edit]

See my talk page entry about this file. I'm concerned about the fair use rationale, as described on the talk page. I'm not entirely sure what to do with it but I thought it'd be good to include here since it's on a BLP page and might involve breaches of copyright, or it may (likely) not fall under fair use. ★Ama TALK CONTRIBS 15:51, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Amadeus1999. This type of non-free use fails WP:NFCC#1 and the file could be tagged for speedy deletion per WP:F7 using the template {{rfu}}. Copyright holder consent doesn't really matter when it comes to non-free content; it's nice to have in a sense, but doesn't mean the relevant policy no longer applies. If the copyright holder, however, wants to email their WP:CONSENT to WP:VRT and agree to release the photo under an acceptable free license, then that would really matter. The only way this could possibly be justified as non-free use would be trying to argue it meets the "criteria" listed in item 1 of WP:NFC#UUI or that it meets WP:NFC#CS. My guess though is that it would be hard to establish a consensus for either because in many cases there are "free" photos of someone like this which already exist or such a photo could be easily created at some point (e.g. taken at some appearance or event) so that using any non-free one is going to be hard to justify. Another guess is that this might be one if the photos this person (or his representatives) want to use for his online presence or send out as part of their media materials, which is great for him (and them), that doesn't matter to Wikipedia or relevant Wikipedia policy. FWIW, this would really only be a "breach of copyright" if someone other than the copyright holder was claiming it as their "own work", which isn't the case here; the "problem" is that it's not really in compliance with relevant Wikipedia policy for this type of content. — Marchjuly (talk) 20:28, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah that's what I thought too. ★Ama TALK CONTRIBS 20:47, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've marked it accordingly. ★Ama TALK CONTRIBS 22:35, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Help with some images from Flickr[edit]

Hello, I am quite new to using Flickr images and wanted to make sure I got the basics of these copyrights down before I consider uploading them. I assume I can't upload them to the commons, so I am asking if I can upload them to Wikipedia at the very least.

The first two I would like to post on the Super Mario Bros. 35th Anniversary article. I am currently trying to revamp the article and was hoping these two images can be uploaded to Wikipedia as I wanted images that are more exclusive to the article:

These two are for the Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon article. I was hoping to help out with the article by adding images that help better explain the article:

Thank you for reading and hope you have a good day! CaptainGalaxy 16:06, 28 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Captain Galaxy. Neither Wikipedia nor Commons accept any NC (non-commercial) or ND (non-derivative) types of CC (Creative Commons) licenses; so, that means images 1, 3 and 4 can’t be uploaded and used just because of that, except as possibly non-free content (but that can get really complicated). Image 2 does seem to have an acceptable license for the photo, but it’s likely a WP:Derivative work as explained in c:COM:Packaging since the copyright on the objects being photographed is unlikely to be held by the person taking the photo. Since there are two copyrights that need to be considered, this could be considered Flickr washing even though it’s almost certainly unintentional. So, this photo probably can’t be used as well without the object imagery being licensed as non-free content (once again this makes things very complicated). — Marchjuly (talk) 18:31, 28 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thank you for telling me. CaptainGalaxy 18:33, 28 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

File:Shamans.jpg[edit]

Regarding image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shamans.jpg the source does not specify that the image is Creative Commons. Upon reverse image searching, several older sources with larger image dimensions appear, highlighting that the subject in the image is 'Nikolay Oorzhak'. I cannot find anything suggesting this image is actually Creative Commons licensed. LukeHancock (talk) 16:33, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@LukeHancock If you think this isn't an image released under a CC licence (or is PD) then you can nominate it for deletion on Commons. Nthep (talk) 18:32, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Are links to the Internet Archive for books in copyright copyright violations?[edit]

See the discussion at WP:ELN#Are links to archived copies of books ok?. Thanks. Open Library#Copyright violation accusations is relevant. Doug Weller talk 09:54, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If it's books or media still in copyright and not being released by the copyright holder, then it's a clear violation of WP:COPYVIOEL. VernoWhitney (talk) 16:19, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The Internet Archive would claim these are cached copies that they are justified in keeping, following the precedent set by Google's book approach. As there are pending lawsuits whether this is true or not, we should still take caution for this (whereas linking to Google Book scans are fine due to the established clearance). --Masem (t) 16:23, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
While we should instantly remove links to Library Genesis, we should keep all Internet Archive links until the WMF tells us to remove them. Making our articles harder to re-verify for our users out of copyright paranoia does not serve our mission. —Kusma (talk) 16:32, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Kusma are you suggesting we can use them for external links as well? Doug Weller talk 16:33, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think "link in references only" versus "link wherever appropriate" is a huge difference from the copyright point of view. "Link in references only" is easily circumvented by citing some content from the book. I don't think I have ever linked to a copyrighted book without citing it, so perhaps I don't understand what is being asked. —Kusma (talk) 16:55, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In either case, the actual legal concern for the WMF would be contributory copyright infringement, and I agree that there's not much difference (if any?) between linking in a reference versus and external link. Besides the COPYVIOEL guideline, there's also the more important WP:COPYLINK policy which applies to every link (including cited sources) and states "if you know or reasonably suspect that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work."

So I need to take back part of my initial gut reaction since I hadn't looked far enough into the particular question at ELN when I said it's a clear violation, because you're right, it's not always clear. The issue with Internet Archive library is that users choose what to upload, so some of the stuff is certainly PD and okay, and some is not (recent movies, for example). The library loan stuff could be okay, for a similar reason to why Google Books is (and was, while their lawsuit was ongoing), but this might actually be a question that should escalate to the legal team if you're looking for a definitive answer. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:15, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think that’s a good idea, not sure the best way to do it. I guess I could just email them but I don’t know if that would work. Doug Weller talk 19:25, 1 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Back in the day I'd just drop a note for MRG and she'd work her magic to contact whoever, but I've obviously been away for a while. VernoWhitney (talk) 00:07, 2 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If the links are the problems and the sources cited are otherwise acceptable, then a "no-link" citation seems perfectly fine. Just provide as much information about the source as possible and leave it up to those who want to find out more to search online for it. I've linked to Google Books before in citations, but these are almost always convenience links and the |via= is used; in other words, the links are nice to have but not necessary. I also think it's hard to do anything about this right now as long as there are apparently still legal battles being fought out in the real world. Unless the WMF steps in and uniequivocally lays down the law that such sites aren't to be linked to, it seems like it's going to require a RFC to determine what to do projectwise. It's going to need to be an RFC that has lots of participants that probably is going to take some time and unlikely lead to a strong consensus as long as the real world stuff is unresolved. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:35, 2 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Marchjuly. Not sure if you noticed this is about adding it to The external leak section Doug Weller talk 06:14, 2 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I assumed that part of the discussion involved citations, but apologize if that was incorrect. However, the basics of my post probably apply to ELs as well in that a RfC is probably going to be needed (absent a real world court case or some action taken directly by the WMF) to start universally prohibiting the use of such links; otherwise, there's always going to be disagreement and you may have different local consensus resulting from different talk page discussions. As pointed out above, the second paragraph of WP:COPYLINK begins with "However, if you know or reasonably suspect that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work." and that seems clear enough except there's likely going to be disagreement on the meaning of "you know or reasonably suspect". I could see it being argued that sites like the Internet Archives and Google Books should be OK to link to until someone of some real world authority decides that they're not. Personally, I can't really see there being much need to provide an EL for an online copy of a book since that seems to be a bit of overkill; maybe such links should be treated as YT videos are treated per WP:YT in that an official link to the book's publisher's site would be fine, but a link to anything else would require more scrutiny. -- Marchjuly (talk) 09:13, 2 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Mug Shots - Which States Copyright Them (if any)[edit]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse#New_editor_w%2F_photo_to_add

The above link introduced a discussion on what states issue a copyright on mug shots. It would appear that this is rare, if not unknown, however, in the above discussion, it is pointed out that all public photographs taken by any public servant are copyrighted by default. The state government must specifically state that the photos are not copyrighted, according to that point of view.

There is a list, on a website that serves reporters (https://www.rcfp.org/open-government-sections/11-mugshots/), called 'The Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press' that shows each state's policy on mug shots along with legal references and statutes.

The end of the above discussion temporarily resolved the question by referring it here, and so, which states release photos (mug shots specifically) into the public and then copyright them? It is tempting to say none of them do, and that the states are similar to the federal government; Wikipedia says that any mug shots produced by the federal government are public domain. At the above website, in this list of states, most of the states listed show that their mug shots are publicly available for reporters to publish. The remainder of the states are either agnostic on this, having no legal references on the topic (according to this list on this website), which probably means that they are copyrighted by default? The other states that remain, have various statements and rules explaining on how mug shots are restricted from the public. So a list could possibly be compiled from this site as to whether those particular states have policies showing that mug shots are in the public domain. That list would be verifiable.

Which states clearly lay out that their mug shots are publishable; is this reporter's committee website reliable; can a list be compiled for editors to refer to when this question comes up?

69.112.128.218 (talk) 18:15, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi IP 69.112.128.218. There’s a difference between something being “publicly available” (i.e. “part of the public record”) and something being “free from copyright” (i.e. within the public domain “public domain”). The link you’ve provided above seems to be primarily for the former and not whether mug shots are free from copyright protection. As far as I know, only California and Florida have statutes currently in place which state that works created by state government employees as part of their official duties fall within the public domain as explained WP:PD#US government works. Copyright status, however, is only one of many important things to be considered before using mug shots in Wikipedia articles as explained in WP:MUGSHOT and WP:BLPCRIME. Finally, it’s best to assume these days all photos pretty much taken anywhere in the world are copyrighted by default unless it clearly states so otherwise. In the US, for example, visible copyright notices stopped being required on March 1, 1989. For some older US photos, a notice or a notice plus a renewal of copyright was required, but that’s no longer the case. Copyright laws of other countries may differ, but it’s best to assume copyright protection and work to prove the contrary, at least if you want to upload mug shots to Wikipedia or Commons. — Marchjuly (talk) 18:59, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Where to get Public Domain or similar license for satellite images for geographic areas?[edit]

Are there sources for satellite imagery, preferably that can show geographic areas worldwide, similar this one for Kansas that are released as public domain or any image license that are compatible with en.wiki? If so, what are the fair use/public domain image tags that we use for those? --Lenticel (talk) 03:33, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

File:Holiday Corporation Logo - 1985-1990.jpg: PD or not to PD.[edit]

File:Holiday Corporation Logo - 1985-1990.jpg is currently licensed as non-free content and being used in Holiday Inn#Logos. Is this logotoo complex to be relicensed as either {{PD-logo}} or {{PD-ineligible-USonly}}? It looks as if the company was American owned up until 1988 when it was bought by a UK company. This logo apparently was used from 1985 to 1990 so I'm not sure whether that means c:COM:TOO United Kingdom also needs to be applied. If this logo is otherwise simple enough to be PD in the US per c:COM:TOO United States, then maybe "PD-inelgible-USonly" is OK for local use on English Wikipedia. If the file needs to remain licensed at non-free content, then its current use seems to fail WP:NFCCP per WP:NFC#cite_note-4 and WP:NFG. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:42, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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