Wikipedia:Copyright issues

This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Wikipedia:Copyright issues is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:

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ATTENTION: For blatant copyright infringements:
  • If there is a clean revision in the page history, revert to it.
  • If not, and it meets the criteria, request speedy deletion with {{db-copyvio|url=http://www.WhereItCameFrom.tld/}}
  • If it does not meet the criteria or you are not sure who originally authored the material, list it here instead for investigation.
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This page is for listing and discussing possible copyright problems involving text on Wikipedia, including pages which are suspected to be copyright violations. For images that are clear copyright violations, follow the procedure for speedy deletion; list images that are suspected to be copyright violations at possibly unfree images and images with disputed fair use rationales at Non-free content review.

Contents

Copyright owners

If you believe Wikipedia is infringing your copyright, you may request immediate removal of the copyright violation. Alternatively, you may contact Wikipedia's designated agent under the terms of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act.

Copyright owners who submitted their own work to Wikipedia

Policy shortcut:
WP:IOWN

If you submitted work to Wikipedia which you had previously published (especially online), and your submission was marked as a potential infringement of copyright, then stating on the article's talk page that you are the copyright holder of the work, while not likely to prevent deletion, helps. It is sufficient to either:

  • Make a note permitting reuse under the GFDL at the site of the original publication; or
  • Send an email from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en at wikimedia dot org or a postal message to the Wikimedia Foundation.

See also Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials.

What's copyrighted?

Copyright exists automatically upon creation in a tangible form. An author does not need to apply for or even claim copyright for a copyright to exist. Only an explicit statement that the material is in the public domain, licensed with the GFDL, or is otherwise compatible with the GFDL, makes material reusable under current policy, unless it is inherently in the public domain due to age or source.

What about fair use?

Under guidelines for non-free content, brief selections of copyrighted text may be used, but only with full attribution.

If you see an article somewhere else which was copied from Wikipedia without attribution, visit the GFDL compliance page or meta:Non-compliant site coordination.


Purge server cache if recent edits are not visible.

Plagiarism that does not infringe copyright

Wikipedia will naturally refer to and include some material that comes from outside sources. This material may be in the public domain, may be included under a fair use argument, or it may be under a license compatible with the license used on Wikipedia, the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). Examples of public-domain works include text and images from United States Government publications, and older works—such as the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica—that are no longer, or never were, covered by copyright. Some further examples are at Category:Attribution templates.

Even when material is not covered by copyright, it is still important to state its origin, including its authors or creators. Failure to include the origin of a work is misleading and also makes it more difficult for readers and editors to refer to the material's source. It may also violate the terms of the GFDL.

Material that is plagiarised but which does not violate copyright does not need to be removed from Wikipedia if it can be properly sourced. Add appropriate source information to the article wherever possible, or move unsourced material to an article's talk page until sources can be found.

If an editor has copied text or figures into Wikipedia without proper attribution, politely refer him to Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Citing sources, and/or Help:Citations quick reference. Editors who have difficulties or questions about this guidance can be referred to the Help Desk. Editors engaged in ongoing plagiarism who do not respond to polite requests may be blocked from editing.

Repeated copyright violations

Contributors who repeatedly post copyrighted material after appropriate warnings will be blocked from editing to protect the project, see 17 United States Code 512.

Instructions

Material whose presence on Wikipedia infringes copyright (ie. the material is not Public Domain, licensed under the GFDL or specifically licensed to Wikipedia on suitable terms) should, as a general rule, be removed.

Blatant copyright infringements may be speedily deleted if:
  • Material was copied from another website which does not have a license compatible with Wikipedia;
  • There is no non-infringing content in the page history worth saving.
  • The text on Wikipedia really is an infringement of another source (Wikipedia has numerous mirrors — Make sure we're copying someone else, not the other way around)
  • Uploader does not assert permission, or the assertion is questionable

After notifying the uploading editor, add one of these to the page:

{{db-copyvio | url=insert URL of source here}}
{{db-copyvio | describe non-web source here}}

An administrator will examine the article and decide whether to delete it or not. You should not blank the page in this instance.

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

  • Revert the page to a non-copyrighted version if you can
    The infringing text will remain in the page history for archival reasons unless the copyright holder asks the Wikimedia Foundation to remove it.
  • However, if all revisions have copyright problems:
    • Place on the page one of the following:
      {{subst:copyvio | url=insert URL here}}
      {{subst:copyvio | identify non-web source here}}
This will blank all text beneath the template. (To limit blanking, place </div> at the end of the text to be blanked.)
    • Go to today's section and add
      * {{subst:article-cv | PageName}} from insert URL or identify non-web source here ~~~~
to the bottom of the list. Put the page's name in place of "PageName". If you do not have a URL, enter a description of the source. (This text can be copied from the top of the template after substituting it and the page name and url will be filled for you)
  • Advise the contributor of the material at his or talk page. The template on the now blanked page supplies a notice you may use for that purpose.
  • You're done!

Instructions for special cases

  • Probable copyvios without a known source: If you suspect that an article contains a copyright violation, but you cannot find a source for the violation (so you can't be sure that it's a violation), do not list it here. Instead, place {{cv-unsure|~~~|2=FULL_URL}} on the article's talk page, but replace FULL_URL with the full URL of the article version that you believe contains a violation. (To determine the URL, click on "Permanent link" in the toolbox area, and copy the URL.)

Alternatives to deletion

In addition to nominating potential copyright infringements for deletion, you may:

  • Rewrite the article, excluding copyrighted text. This is done on a temporary page at Talk:PAGENAME/Temp so that the original, copyright-infringing version can be deleted by an administrator and the rewrite copied over. If the original turns out to be non-infringing, these two can be merged.
  • Write to the owner and Ask for permission. Check whether they gave or will give permission (or maybe they in fact posted it here!). Also see Wikipedia:Example requests for permission, Wikipedia:Confirmation of permission.

Instructions for administrators

Pages should stay listed for a minimum of 7 days before they are checked and processed by administrators. See Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Advice for admins for some help.

All pages tagged with {{copyvio}} are placed in Category:Possible copyright violations.

See also

Listings of possible copyright problems

Very old issues

Remaining older issues, consolidated

Older than 7 days

Below are articles and images that have been listed here for longer than 7 days, but have not yet been dealt with.

13 November 2008

New listings

edit this list (to add or to remove per-day pages)

14 November 2008

15 November 2008

16 November 2008

17 November 2008

18 November 2008

Note to adminsistrators: I did not create this article, but I spent considerable time editing it to remove the basic copyright infringement [60] It should not have had this notice slapped on it without reading the history. The remaining review excerpts are clearly marked as quotes and simply require sourcing. Voceditenore (talk) 21:37, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
I don't think voceditenore was aware that multiple sources were copy pasted. There are still two paragraphs and multiple individual sentences not in quotes that are identical to this source: [61]. The structure of the article is also identical to that source. See my further comments on the article's talk page.Nrswanson (talk) 02:26, 19 November 2008 (UTC)