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Archive 1Archive 2

Template:policylist

I wanted to add Template:policylist to this page, but there doesn't seem to be room. If someone could think about a good way to add it, either do it, or let me know. Fresheneesz 23:26, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I've restructured {{Wikipedia copyright}} to include a "policy" section, which I think covers it – Gurch 13:40, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Suggested merge

I think that this page should be merged with Wikipedia:Copyright problems. Or perhaps, the instructions for dealing with copyright violations should be moved from WP:CP onto this page, and the list of articles with problems should remain on the other page. The current division of information is confusing and would benefit from being reorganized and simplified. Just a suggestion. Teryx 22:46, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Instructions now appear in both places; list remains on Wikipedia:Copyright problems because this is a policy page and that is a process one. I feel the instructions on Wikipedia:Copyright problems are a little untidy; I might rewrite them as well at some point. – Gurch 13:37, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Repeat offenders

I have edited language on the project page to include this unambiguous statement, "Contributors who repeatedly post copyrighted material after appropriate warnings will be blocked from editing to protect the project." A statement of this sort may be required by a provision of the DMCA:

(i) Conditions for Eligibility.—

(1) Accommodation of technology.— The limitations on liability established by this section shall apply to a service provider only if the service provider—

(A) has adopted and reasonably implemented, and informs subscribers and account holders of the service provider’s system or network of, a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider’s system or network who are repeat infringers; and"

We have the policy, but not the statement. Fred Bauder (talk) 15:53, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Mention of CSD

There doesn't seem to be any mention of WP:CSD#G12, which allows for the removal of blatant copyright infringements in certain cases (i.e. when the whole text is clearly from a copyrighted website). I understand that this policy outlines a process separate from CSD, but given that the two are related I think it's at least worth a mention and a link. I'd like to be bold and put this in, but given that this is a policy I thought it best to float the idea here first. --jonny-mt 09:02, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Added. – Gurch 13:35, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Rewrite

This policy was originally just a copy-and-paste from Wikipedia:Copyrights. I think such a move was a good idea as Wikipedia:Copyrights is very long and confusing and this information is important. However, the copied text as it stood was in need of an overhaul and little has been done since that time. I have expanded the page somewhat and given it some structure; I have also copied the instructions for copyright owners from the Contact Us subpages; this replaces a link to an obsolete page which now redirect to the Contact Us subpage anyway, and there's no harm in having the instructions here. I've also given more explanation of how to deal with copyright violations, including such things as a mention of the speedy deletion policy, which was not mentioned at all before, based on the instructions at Wikipedia:Copyright problems, but not as detailed. Finally, I've tried to give some introduction beyond simply "Wikipedia does not tolerate copyright violations", pointing out how Wikipedia's content is licensed and explaining the difference between text and media. I've also added a nutshell – Gurch 18:40, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Would one of you have a look at Talk:Duchy of Pless. Poeticbent (talk · contribs) is accusing me of copyright violation on the basis of the following comparisons:

Hans Heinrich XI von Hochberg not only endorsed him, but had so much control over the local government that he used the constables as election workers, parading the streets with drums to get out the vote; he also threatened, for example, to end wood-gathering rights for those who displeased him.

from

Hans Heinrich XI...summoned his gendarmerie...and told them to work for the re-election...The constables rode...beating their drums...”

a different statement of the same facts; and

Princes of Pless would remain owners of its soil, and lords of its inhabitants

from

The preamble to an Inclosure Act states that the lords of the manor were owners of the soil and waste within that manor and the soil and minerals therein.

a different claim, in different words, about a different country (this is from the English Law Journal reports, which I had never seen).

On the chance that this is a genuine confusion, would someone go inform Poeticbent of what copyright violation actually is; if it is not genuine confusion, it would seem to come under the Wikipedia:General Sanctions on Eastern Europe, and Poeticbent should be notified of them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:29, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Are timelines of fictional universes derivative works?

For example, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions#Back to the Future timeline.

The Transhumanist 02:31, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Policy question

I came across major copyright violations pasted by a user onto his userpage. Is this copyright violation? should it be removed? Tagged? Kingturtle (talk) 01:46, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

      • Of course, if the user will discuss the matter, that's the best option. It's always possible the user would tell you that he or she owned it - or even could show that he or she posted it to Wikipedia before the other site. These aren't unheard of. Just for future reference.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 19:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

While making a thorough research and verifying the sources provided, I not only discovered that Major General Terry de la Mesa Allen was not a recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, I also discovered that the article is not an "original" article as required by Wikipedia policy, but an article which infringes the copyrights of the National Timerwolf Association and Time Inc. It is a paste job using content from both sites which is in violation of copyright laws. See the following evidence and judge for yourself: Terry Allen ©1999 National Timberwolf Association andTerry Allen and His Men Copyright © 2008 Time Inc. All rights reserved. Am I right about being concerned and if so can somemone here please do something about it? Tony the Marine (talk) 03:28, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Is there a template...

Is there a template that incorporates both the COPYVIO and SPAM headers? A lot of times I see text copies and pasted from a company's website. I can't tell if it's plagiarism, or an attempt at advertising. DarthSquidward (talk) 02:50, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

How much?

This page, was copied from this page. Many unnecessary sentences were removed, and many other sentences changed, but so much of the original article remains, that it is obvious that it's copied from it. Is this a copyright violation? Where do you draw the line? -Freekee (talk) 15:57, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

If the text is substantially derived from a non-GFDL-compatible copyrighted work, it is definitely a copyright infringement. —Centrx→talk • 03:30, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Why don't we move our servers to a floating platform in international waters (see seasteading) or to a friendly jurisdiction that allows pirating, and then allow people to freely upload copyrighted images, copy and paste copyrighted content into articles, etc.? It would eliminate the need to paraphrase and/or limit content borrowed from others, would save a lot of time that is spent on fair use discussions, would make it possible to illustrate many articles that currently are in need of images, and would enhance the quality of much of our imagery as well. The Pirate Bay assists with copyright violations and look how successful they are. I think we should jump on that bandwagon forthwith. Aldrich Hanssen (talk) 14:09, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Apart from any debate over the morality of copyright laws and from the infeasibility of it, this is a bad idea for two reasons: first, because plagiarism is a bad academic practice even if it's not legally a copyright violation. For example, Wikipedia already allows biographies of government figures to be copied and pasted from U.S. government websites, because the text there is believed to be in the public domain by default. This is a poor way to write an encyclopedia for reasons of bias, academic honesty, and so forth. Allowing this practice on all articles from all sources would only compound that issue. Second, such a move would be unnecessary since many of the restrictions on copyrighted content (for example, the jihad against useful photos) are voluntary restrictions, put forth by an extreme faction of free-everything advocates on Wikipedia, and designed to protest copyright law by ludicrously over-applying it. There is no legal reason that such content couldn't be used from American or British or Chilean servers, so moving the servers elsewhere would not bring that content back. DarthSquidward (talk) 22:33, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure where to put this, I hope this is correct. Recently several editors have been adding copyrighted content from http://www.ctbuh.org to Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. I have attempted to undo the edits and even responded to a message about the copyright status of the page. Is there anything that can be done to prevent the copyrighted material from being added, or responding in some other way? Thanks. Leitmanp (talk | contributions) 20:33, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I have replaced the contents of the article for now with the copyright violation template and placed a note at the talk page. The individuals may be blocked or the page protected if they do not follow through with verifying permission. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:26, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey guys how do I edit stuffDogland200 (talk) 16:43, 21 December 2015 (UTC)dogland200

Nahum Slouschz

Could I get someone more versed in copyvio issues to take a look at this one? It is an obvious direct copy from [1]. But that source page has contradictory copyright information. The blurb itself declares itself to be under the GFDL, but the site itself has a blanket copyright statement at the bottom. So, is this GFDL, and useable, or not? - TexasAndroid (talk) 20:59, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi. :) This should be governed by their use policy, which indicates that "Some materials on this site including layout, look and feel, design, author biographies, and graphics are copyright Knowledgerush. Where noted Knowledgerush author biography texts may be distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License." It should be fine, though it sadly needs wikification! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:15, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

http://www.kaltura.com/devwiki/index.php/World_Trade_Center is violating?

Direct lift from arXiv (and most likely published source) by likely author

Could someone please have a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gauge gravitation theory? There is some obvious copying going on here, but it is most likely by the original author. I don't know what the procedure is for dealing with this kind of thing, so I took it to AfD. siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 17:09, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Haplogroup IWX (mtDNA) -links to possibly illegally hosted articles

I've removed one but there are other links from this article to journal articles hosted on the web at various sites, and with no indication that there is permission for the article to be there. This is the 2nd Haplogroup article where I've found this sort of link. dougweller (talk) 18:27, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

greyfalcon.us says on its home page "This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner." and I certainly have found links in articles to copyrighted stuff hosted there. Can it somehow be blocked? Thanks. Here are the current links, I am working on it when I can.[2] dougweller (talk) 13:17, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

This seems to be the place to go for it. Lyricwiki was added for that reason. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:05, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Done, thanks. dougweller (talk) 10:28, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Article Tony Gosling linking to offical website selling pirate videos

The article links to the subject's website (yuk) which has a page openly selling pirate videos.[3] Is there anything we should be doing here? Thanks. dougweller (talk) 11:12, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I'd be inclined to remove it under WP:EL, but I suspect this would not be a universal view. We do, after all, link to YouTube in its article in spite of its infringements. But this man is apparently seeking to profit off of his infringement. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:30, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
I've removed it, this is blatant and an attempt to profit by selling the videos as you say. dougweller (talk) 10:29, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Uploading music

Can we upload music tracks from the company's website it has released for free download? I'm wanting to upload them to help show the type of music associated with a particular game.じんない 02:14, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The policy states "if the contributor was in fact the author of the text ... they have the right to post it here", but I think this is incorrect - a reporter working for a newspaper may be the author of an article, but the newspaper is the copyright holder. I understand copyright of work created by an employee during the course of their duties is owned by the company. XLerate (talk) 00:02, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi. Looking for an informed second opinion. I am of the opinion that this section of an article is a barely disguised copy of a significant portion of this newspaper article and is therefore an infringement of the copyright. Another editor insists on adding it back and rejects my attempts to create a briefer summary. Separate from the fact that I think it's bad article writing, I'd be interested in whether other people agree with me that this crosses the line. Thanks. GDallimore (Talk) 22:00, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with you wholeheartedly. This is not only too detailed a summary but incorporates text from that source verbatim. I have blanked the section, listed the article at WP:CP and left a note at the talk. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:13, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. Shame it couldn't be resolved more peacefully. GDallimore (Talk) 23:26, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, well, thanks for trying. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:32, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Occasionally a really prolific copyright violator surfaces whose misuse of sources requires a major cleanup. A year ago one such person was allowed to continue editing and continued copyright violation and plagiarism during user conduct RfC, creating new problems nearly as fast as a team of volunteers could remedy old ones. She refused to assist cleanup in any way, and the delays in getting a block implemented resulted in a substantially larger cleanup job that other people had to do.

Recently another individual has been found who created 2500 articles, and of the 1000 that have been checked so far most are copyvio.[4] He was confronted a year ago about the problem, failed to respond, and continued his copyright violations. He was recently blocked and then unblocked while the extent of the real problem came to light, and has returned to editing mainspace while ignoring two noticeboard threads about his conduct and doing nothing to assist the cleanup.

It would be a great help to the volunteers who are fixing this very large problem if they knew which sources he was using, but nothing in the policy held copyright violators responsible for helping to resolve the problems they create. So I have added a line stating that in extreme cases such as these, administrators may require that copyright violators disclose the titles, authors, etc. as a condition of unblock, to ease the burden upon the people who are fixing the problems. DurovaCharge! 20:04, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Hoping to get a simple definition of copyvio included

Some of us are fresh from dealing with a major copyvio problem [5]. I for one would very much like to see copyvio policy made clearer and simpler for beginners early on in their experience of Wikipedia. I think that the majority of Wp copyvio problems arise because many people are naive about what is OK and not OK in terms of copying.

I do understand that at the bottom of every edit screen it says, "Content that violates any copyright will be deleted", and that beneath the "save page" button, it says again, "Do not copy text from other websites without a GFDL-compatible license. It will be deleted" and at the bottom, under "Please note", it says, "Only public domain resources can be copied without permission — this does not include most web pages or images."

This is all well and good, but I think that the problem appears to be that quite a few people don't read those sentences at the bottom of the edit pages, or don't read them soon enough, or don't understand them. And if a newcomer follows the link to the policy pages on Copyright [6] and CopyVio [7], well, currently these pages do not have a simple and clear introduction that any beginner could grasp.

I think it would help if we had some wording about copyvio that is very clear and simple to understand, and the sooner that the info is encountered by new editors the better. I have mentioned this on the talk page of the 5 Pillars page [8]. Here is a draft I put together of something that could go maybe on the copyright/CopyVio pages.


"Do not copy into Wikipedia any phrases, sentences, or paragraphs taken from books or websites unless you are clearly quoting and properly citing them, or unless you know for sure that they are in the public domain or are covered by GFDL. Even when you use other people's prose which you have slightly altered or paraphrased, this is still almost always against the law, see Wikipedia:Copyright violations. Text from sources must (in almost all cases) be read, understood, and then completely rewritten in your own words. "


Thanks for your attention, Invertzoo (talk) 18:17, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

That would be a very good thing to write up as a supplemental essay. DurovaCharge! 22:17, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion Durova, we may end up doing that. Invertzoo (talk) 21:57, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Could someone take a look at these two images? The first is of a controller for Nintendo's Virtual Boy (image viewable here), and the second is of a Pokémon mini handheld game system (image viewable here). The Nintendo logo (which is a registered trademark) is shown on both products, and the Virtual Boy logo/Pokémon mini logo are each trademarked as well. I took the pictures myself, so are they okay for Wikimedia Commons? -sesuPRIME talk • contributions 07:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Signpost dispatch on plagiarism

Editors here might be interested in the recently-published dispatch on plagiarism. Awadewit (talk) 00:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

An editor recently scanned several postcards and placed the images in the Pittsfield, Massachusetts article - the majority are stated to be from the early 1900s, and so would seem to be in the public domain, but a few are from the 1950s and 60s, and I believe they might be copyvios. Could someone please take a look at them? Files in question include File:Downtown Pittsfield 1960s-1.JPG, File:The Maplewood 1930-1.JPG, File:North Street 1957-1.jpg, and File:Aerial Downtown Pittsfield looking East-1.jpg. The uploader, User:Aaronlife, tagged the postcards as {{PD-Pre1978}}, but I am not sure what his/her claim of "published without copyright" is based on if the publishing company and photographer are listed. Others such as File:New Pittsfield High.-1.JPG (and countless more on the Pittsfield page) don't have dates, so I'm not sure if {{PD-US}} is appropriate either. Sorry, but I am not very experienced with this sort of issue :-) Cheers, Rai•me 01:38, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

You may get a good answer here, but if I were in your position, I'd ask at WP:MCQ, which is specifically for copyright questions related to media. Sometimes, media copyright savvy individuals happen by here, but they almost invariably show up there. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:44, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Thank you! Cheers, Rai•me 01:49, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

minor edit

In the "See also" section, I removed the word "proposed" from the line "Wikipedia:Plagiarism (proposed guideline}" with the edit summary that the promotion to guideline does not appear to be in dispute. If I'm in error on this, please feel free to revert. Thanks, Best to all. — Ched :  ?  06:45, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

It's in dispute now. :) However, there is not yet consensus to demote it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:52, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Policy on massive infringers: cleanup

The copyright problem process was created with an eye towards addressing articles with problems. Not infrequently, we encounter editors with problems: which is to say, they are found to have placed copyright text in multiple articles. The worst example of this I have seen is User:GrahamBould, who at last count had placed copyrighted text into as many several thousand articles. An emergency task force was convened to clean his contributions. Articles he created were proactively blanked. All content he contributed is still in the process of being removed.

Practice with other contributors who have done this has been to evaluate each article for infringement, but we lack manpower to do this efficiently, as a result of which we may have a known copyright offender who has blatantly placed copyrighted text into multiple articles but whose contributions are being permitted to stand unscrutinized on the project because we do not have sufficient people to evaluate them.

At the Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup talk page, there are a number of such individuals listed. See for specific example cleanup on Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Major project. Every stricken title has been evaluated; every checked title contained infringement. There are many titles that still need to be checked. But the workload doesn't wait for that. Just two days ago, another contributor was brought to my attention who has copied text from books and webpages into almost every article I've checked. His unchecked contributions (prioritized by size) are listed here. (I am not placing a checkmark or striking articles. I am simply removing those that have been processed.)

We need to devise a policy for addressing cross-article offenders. Many copyright offenders have placed text in one article only; some, in several. Some of them have been here placing text undiscovered in article, like User:GrahamBould or this one, for years.

On encountering a massive cross-article offender (however this should be defined: confirmed violations in x number of articles), should we:

  • Blanket revert all creative text additions by the editor, perhaps by restoring the last version of the article before his or her contributions, leaving it to the contributors of the article to work out what text is clean? (This solution takes into account the limits of manpower for evaluating contributions across hundreds or thousands of edits, but will almost inevitably have collateral damage as removing good edits by subsequent contributors)
  • Blank all articles to which he or she has contributed with a {{copyvio}} until each one can be evaluated individually to see if the contributors edits to it breach copyright? (This solution blanks publication of copyvio material, but effectively removes the article entirely from circulation until such time as the limited pool of contributors in this area can get around to evaluating it. Note: if we did embrace this solution, a new template might be appropriate noting that the copyvio is suspected based on the history of a contributor to the article. The {{copyvio}} is not written with this in mind.)
  • Create lists such as the one I have for gradual clearance that may or may not ever be completed? (This solution puts us in position of imposing less collateral damage, but also could lead to contributory infringement, as we are allowing the contributions of a contributor that we know has violated our copyright policy and US copyright law.)

Thoughts? Other solutions I may have missed? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:08, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

We simply can't tolerate copyvios, despite the collateral damage that may result. If a person has added copyvios to over a dozen articles, and that person is unable or unwilling to remove the copied information his/herself, then we have to either revert to the most recent clean version (or replace all text with {{copyvio}}) until the articles can be checked individually. It's a shame to lose subsequent edits, but Wikipedia has tens of thousands of active contributors, and we can survive losing good material. But systemic infringement really could kill the project, if left unchecked. – Quadell (talk) 12:44, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
I unwittingly responded to this in my comment in the next section. :-) In brief, blanket reverting (or deleting, if they are the only major contributor) is the only tenable solution. The most important articles will get fixed up by interested subject area experts. This is the only way to penetrate the backlog and make progress against systematic copyright violators. Dcoetzee 01:02, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Reverting to the last clean version would leave a fair article available, and immediately remove the violations. Subsequent edits don't have to be lost. The editors who made them could be notified, and they may replace them (if they are still relevant in the absence of the copyvio material). This automatically brings to each article editors with an interest in the subject, who may no longer be watching the article. If there are thousands of affected articles, there may be ten thousand editors of interleaved edits. It would be worth making a notification template to put on their Talk pages. And perhaps a little bot to place them there. KoolerStill (talk) 08:37, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Policy on massive infringers: rehabilitation

The policy currently indicates that we may block a contributor pending the naming of sources. In such cases as the current, this is not practicable. Here we have a contributor who very likely did not understand that the text he was placing could not be used. I think it highly unlikely that he could produce such a list, since evidence suggests he has simply taken text he wanted from any source he encountered along the way. He has already been issued a block advisory by another admin. Evidently, he had never been advised that this practice was unacceptable before.

Ideally, Wikipedia would monitor the contributions of editors such as these for a while, as my own experience tells me that the concept of US copyright law (and our copyright policy) is not as easily grasped by some as others. We do not have either manpower or a good process for doing this, so I think this is not practicable. However, it seems irresponsible to permit an editor who we know to have violated copyright in many articles to continue editing without some review to verify that the problem does not continue. In the case of User:GrahamBould, discussed above, who pasted text from books and websites into possibly thousands of articles on Wikipedia, he was first advised of our copyright policies here, in February 2006. Obviously, he would not have been identified as a massive infringer at that point. But there have been others. For example, in December 2008, I identified 43 copyright violating articles by a single contributor. He is on my limited list of individuals whose past issues are worrisome enough to merit checking on periodically, but I haven't checked him in some time. Between regular CP issues and new massive infringers, I simply don't have time. And I'm going to be kicking myself if he—or one of the other massive infringers we've detected in the past—shows up with another 40 or 400 or 4000 articles to be cleaned.

I don't think I have any practical ideas for dealing with this one. Ideally, mentorship (including monitoring & as necessary education) would be supplied to these individuals, many of whom are passionate contributors, some of whom almost certainly do not understand copyright. (Some do. I don't hesitate to block individuals who have received proper notice, including block advisory, and persisted.) I have engaged in long-term mentorship with one massive infringer, whom I hope (desperately) now understands our policies. (I believe he does; he has even approached me with copyvios he has found in articles that were placed by others.) But that kind of mentorship eats a lot of time. It's tedious, and I suspect we'd have a pretty high burn-out rate even if we managed to assemble mentors.

It would be great, obviously, if we could put them to work cleaning up their own messes. But that's not workable at all, since if they broke it, we can't trust them to fix it. :) Thoughts? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:08, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The worst solution is to allow the infringements to continue. Slightly better is to simply block the user, biting the newcomers but stopping the infringement. Better still is to leave a {{uw-copyright}} note and watch the user's contributions, blocking them if they continue. And the best solution is to mentor the user, patiently explaining policy to him or her, etc. But if we don't have the time and resources for the best solution, do the next best. – Quadell (talk) 12:54, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
The solution needs to be evaluated against a set of prioritised criteria. Copyright infringement is a serious legal issue aside from any ethical aspects. Acknowledging that we don't want to bite new editors, and that we want to maintain an open and easy to edit encyclopedia, stopping continued infringement should be accorded significant weight in evaluating a course of action. -- Whpq (talk) 13:24, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Most user sanctions are in the environment where the user is abusing the encyclopedia - vandalism, rudeness, edit warring, etc. Copyright violations expose the encyclopedia to external legal risk.
A one article one time incident should not result in a block. However, with someone who's done multiple copyright violations and plagarized routinely, I don't think BITE applies evenly in that situation. We're acting to prevent damage to the encyclopedia - from outside, by our having and hosting plagarized, copyright violation information.
It would be BITE to indef block someone rudely. It's not BITE to indef block them and say "Hey, this was serious, we need you to understand that this is not ok and cooperate on identifying where you got this all from. If you cooperate and agree to abide by the policy we can unblock you.".
That's not AGF - but at this point, we presumably have in hand evidence that they're in violation of policy, in a way that exposes us to legal risk. AGF extends to "Let's assume they didn't mean to do that and give them another chance" but does not mean we need to let them do it more before we block them. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:08, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
I've thought some about this and I think the above is the right idea. When someone is a systematic copyright violator they need to be blocked immediately, regardless of their potential for rehabilitation, and this should be codified in policy. This is the only way to control the spread. They can appeal for unblock by the normal process, and undergo a conversation about their future contributions at that time.
Similarly, the only way to deal with the contributions of a systematic offender is to get out the big axe and revert (in the case of added content) or delete (in the case where they are the only major contributor) the entire article. This may remove useful newer contributions; this cannot be helped, and cleaning it up is a task that must be left to subject area experts.
This is not punitive action, but the only efficient way to penetrate the enormous backlogs of copyvios. The current cleanup task force is simply not up to the task of carefully reviewing every affected article, or mentoring every contributor. Wiki magic says that the things that matter most will get the most attention, and that will have to be enough. Dcoetzee 00:40, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposed language for both of the above

Currently, policy says this:

Contributors who repeatedly post copyrighted material despite appropriate warnings may be blocked from editing by any administrator to prevent further problems. In extreme cases administrators may impose special conditions before unblocking, such as requiring assistance with cleanup by disclosing which sources were used.

I propose altering it to read thus:

Contributors who repeatedly post copyrighted material despite appropriate warnings may be blocked from editing by any administrator to prevent further problems. Contributors who have extensively violated copyright policy by uploading many copyrighted files or placing copyrighted text into numerous articles may be blocked without warning for the protection of the project, pending satisfactory assurances that infringement will not continue. In extreme cases administrators may impose special conditions before unblocking, such as requiring assistance with cleanup by disclosing which sources were used. It may be necessary to remove all suspect material placed by contributors who have verifiably extensively violated copyright policy, even if individual infringement is not verified. If contributors have been shown to have a history of extensive copyright violation, it may be assumed without further evidence that all of their major prose contributions are copyright violations, and they may be removed indiscriminately.

What do you think? Is this broad enough? Too broad? Open to misinterpretation? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:53, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

This language seems good - it's an appropriate policy enhancement per our discussion here and is well written. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 18:54, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
A writing style nitpick (it's the copy-editor in me coming out). The original wording referred to "contributors" (plural), and the new wording refers to "a contributor" (singular). The paragraph Should be consistent in the usage. Otherwise, it's fine and the message is clear, and the broadness is appropriate. -- Whpq (talk) 19:00, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
Changed in example. :) Thanks. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:06, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
The last sentence is a bit terse and vague. I'd go with something more like: "If a contributor has been shown to have a history of extensive copyright violation, it may be assumed without further evidence that all of their major prose contributions are copyright violations, and they may be removed indiscriminately." Dcoetzee 07:52, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
Okay. I've pluralized contributors for consistency. How's this? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
Looks good to me, providing others agree with my strong choice of language. :-) Dcoetzee 06:23, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
Strong violations warrant strong language. These are clearly people who are proud of their contributions. If/when they start to notice the removals, they might begin to get serious about understanding the importance of the issue.KoolerStill (talk) 08:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

stolen picture report (2)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AN#stolen_pictures.2C_info_requested User F203 (talk) 15:21, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Not sure if this is a copyright problem or not. The article Cenogram consists basically of a single attributed quote, with no prior versions with other content. I wouldn't be comfortable writing such an article myself, but I thought I'd double check before calling it a copyvio. --Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:35, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I would say the quote fails to satisfy fair use as it isn't being used in the context of any commentary, and in relation to the rest of the article, it is a substantial (as in 100%) part of the article. -- Whpq (talk) 23:19, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
That's pretty much where I'm leaning on this. I'll send it on to WP:CP. Thanks!--Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:26, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Threading (epilation)

Stumbled upon this. It seems to be a copyvio of some advertisement site, but speedy delete tags keep getting removed. The long-standing version even encouraged Wikipedia readers that "If you are unsure or have questions, you should feel free to contact any of the salons sponsored on this website, and they will be happy to help you."

I do not trust this article at all, in any form. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 06:53, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

The analysis of the of the text and its provenance is provided on the article talk page. Perhaps you should share your concerns there. -- Whpq (talk) 09:33, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Note

There is a question from a new editor at this link which one of you "copyvio" pros may want to take a look at. I left a rather rudimentary reply, but realize that I have limited experience in this particular area, so I thought I'd dump it in the laps of you pros. ;) Cheers — Ched :  ?  16:49, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I've offered some feedback in addition to yours. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:22, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Copypaste template

I'm somewhat gobsmacked to find a {{copypaste}} template that has been transcluded to hundreds of articles, often by editors who don't bother to explain why they did it, and often long ago so that those editors have moved on and it's impossible to ask them--even if they remember themselves--where the material they have identified has been copied and pasted from.

Needless to say the existence of this template encourages lazy treatment of copyright infringements--which must be removed as soon as they are identifed.

I have started a discussion on the talk page of the template itself, and encourage interested parties to add their own opinion:

Template_talk:Copypaste#This_template_must_be_deprecated_at_once

I suggest changing this section as follows: ...please cite the exact title of the book or publication and its date of publication or the exact URL...

I also suggest adding this as a hatnote: If you are a copyright owner or represent a copyright owner, and you believe that Wikipedia is infringing your copyright, please see [[<wikilink>#Copyright owners|this section]] below.

This article needs a TOC. --Espoo (talk) 07:20, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

This section is so long-winded, complicated, overly technical, and bureaucratic, that many/most editors looking for info about what to do with the probably most common kind of copyright infringement, copypasting, will probably not do anything. To help editors reduce copyright infringement, this section needs a short summary at the beginning, and both this page and Wikipedia:Copyright problems are missing instructions for dealing with copypasting!

I suggest adding something like the See also section of the {{copyvio}} template to the beginning of this section (Dealing with copyright violations) and to Wikipedia:Copyright problems. --Espoo (talk) 07:54, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't know where to report this but User:Ivankinsman is making systematic copyright violations, cutting and pasting text verbatim from sources online and off. A perusal of his contributions will show it going way back, more than I can handle trying to untangle. Even when the copyright material is deleted, he re-adds it to talk pages, he also deleted notices from his talk page. Green Cardamom (talk) 17:14, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

He's also wikilawyering by claiming that the copyvio rules only cover posting material to the mainspace and that therefore he's free to add it to talk pages. See this for a typical argument. TheRetroGuy (talk) 21:54, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Actually, given the extent of this problem I think I'll take this to ANI. TheRetroGuy (talk) 22:10, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Discussion now open TheRetroGuy (talk) 22:19, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure

A user made a hand draw interpretation of this psychological test. Psychologist claim that this is an infringement of copyright. The image that was on Wikipedia can be seen through a google search as it is currently removed.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fc/Rey-osterreith_example.jpg/180px-Rey-osterreith_example.jpg&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rey-Osterrieth_Complex_Figure&usg=__CEVS1NkvnIKJ4zYaayykoi4iR5I=&h=131&w=180&sz=5&hl=en&start=15&sig2=aPpBLwfEbnVi1FD6DS0JLA&um=1&tbnid=MAmZFzjOWTHJ4M:&tbnh=74&tbnw=101&prev=/images%3Fq%3DRey-Osterrieth%2BComplex%2BFigure%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1&ei=26DXStDPHYT2NNG26eUH

Is it possible to claim copyright over something like this? Psychologists have also claimed copyright infringement over the intersecting pentagons that ones sees on this page. Mini-mental state examination as well as of course the Rorschach test ink blots.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:26, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it sounds like a derivative work of a picture beyond simple design / threshold of originality. Two basic identical intersecting pentagons look simple, but the Rorschach test ink blots appear complex. XLerate (talk) 01:24, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Sorry I should have stated that the Rorschach ink blots are out of copyright as it is more than 70 years since the death of there creator. This one is no longer an issue Arguments have been presented for the MMSE but the image has not been pulled and the argument dismissed. The ROSF has been however removed due to concerns over copyright. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:29, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
I believe that the ROSF pictures are sufficiently complex to be copyrightable, but I myself would take that to WP:MCQ, where the media copyright gurus hang out. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
I have discussed this with Mike Godwin Wikipedia's lawyer and he "strongly believe the user can legally publish his own drawings into the public domain" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Mike gets the final word. :) He's my court of last resort. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:47, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Butter Braid

This article appears to be an advertisement for this product copied mostly from the product's page, with a well-thought-out change here and there. I said so on the discussion page, what else should I do? --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 08:17, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Quotations

This page doesn't even mention that word; it should at least contain a link to a policy explaining how and when we use direct quotations. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:46, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

It contains a link to WP:C, which is the policy. That said, I could see the value of adding a bit here:

However, material copied from sources that are not public domain or compatibly licensed without the permission of the copyright holder is likely to be a copyright violation. Such a situation should be treated seriously, as copyright violations not only harm Wikipedia's redistributability, but also create legal issues.

Perhaps this could be altered to read:

However, material copied from sources that are not public domain or compatibly licensed without the permission of the copyright holder (unless brief quotation used in accordance with non-free content policy and guideline) is likely to be a copyright violation. Such a situation should be treated seriously, as copyright violations not only harm Wikipedia's redistributability, but also create legal issues.

Thoughts? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:52, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
That's fine, but what I would like to see is for this policy to mention the word "quotation". I, for example, search a policy for given keywords, and I didn't find it here. Btw, I wonder if Wikipedia:Quotations shouldn't be upgraded from an essay to something more official and community approved? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:01, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Well, if we make that change, it would. :) ("unless brief quotation"). I could see the value of elevating that essay to a guideline, if the community approved, but I'm all kinds of busy with proposals at the moment, having my hands in two that are near and dear to my heart. Maybe Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines? The use of quotations is governed by official policy (and guideline) at WP:NFC, though. (I always find it strange that NFC is really both.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:05, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
I'll start a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Quotations#Guideline and link it from other places you mentioned. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:55, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Template:Uw-rikrolblock

Can someone have a look at Template:Uw-rikrolblock ? I have a feeling it's a copyright violation, since I don't think it has enough originality to not be a non-infringing derivative use of the Rick Astley song. 76.66.192.35 (talk) 06:40, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Experiment

I'll go add a pointer to this message from WT:C. I'd like to try an experiment with this page. It's currently not in any policy subcat. The subcat I'd like to suggest is Category:Wikipedia basic information, which is being experimentally added to WP:Consensus, WP:Civility and WP:Ownership of articles, on the theory that these four pages expand WP:5P (which has always been in Category:Wikipedia basic information). The idea is to see Category:Wikipedia basic information as one of the policy subcats. One discussion is over at WT:POLICY#Agreed. Thoughts? - Dank (push to talk) 18:59, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I've changed my mind on this after discussions. The new policy subcat is meant to point to pages with similar problems ... this page may be similar in some ways, but it doesn't have the kind of back-and-forth problems that those pages have. I'll throw it into "legal" along with WP:Copyrights and similar pages; feel free to revert. - Dank (push to talk) 16:59, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Contradiction

This page says If you suspect a copyright violation, you should at least bring up the issue on that page's discussion page. But when I wanted to discuss this on a files talk page, there's an angry red box that forbids Asking about the copyright status of the image. Which one is it? Do we bring it up on the talk page or elsewhere? Totnesmartin (talk) 12:38, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I suspect that the "talk page" note was meant more for articles (though it certainly doesn't say that), where people are likely to see it. I'm not particularly happy with that advice in any case, as even talk pages for articles can go unread for months. We may need to revise that. A good place to ask about image issues is WP:MCQ. If you think it's deletable, there are more suggestions at WP:GID. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:07, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for that. The unfree files pages on WP are a maze in all honesty, it's not really obvious where to report things. I'll mosey on over to those pages you suggested. :) Totnesmartin (talk) 13:20, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Don't I know it. :D I actually compiled Wikipedia:Guide to image deletion for that very reason. I could never figure out what to do and after wishing there was a guideline multiple times finally decided to make one myself. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:30, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I've raised a question about copyright blocks, the appropriate venue for requesting & the number of warnings required at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Copyright blocks. Feedback there would be most welcome. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:04, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Episode summarys

Is copying edit summarys from a TV guide or Their website considered a violation? Jayy008 (talk) 14:23, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, unless they have licensed that content so we can use it. Our copyright policy and Terms of Use are clear that we can only import text that has been previously published if it is explicitly public domain or compatibly licensed. While we are permitted to briefly quote copyrighted sources in accordance with non-free content guideline and policy, the length of the quotation depends in part on the length of the source. Episode summaries tend to be very brief, so quoting content from them is a problem. Episode summaries should be written in original language by people who have seen the episodes to avoid creating unauthorized derivative works, which can result when they are close paraphrases of somebody else's plot description. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:57, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yes it is. The copyright belongs to the company who wrote the text, and they most often don't want anyone to copy their contents. Most of the time you can find this information at the bottom of a website, or by going to the website's "Terms of Use" page. Theleftorium 16:00, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
That's fine, on the page I was talking about 90210 (season 2) the summaries were removed by a user on that basis, which was obviously fine. When I added them back, this time, my own summaries after watching the episodes, they was reverted. Jayy008 (talk) 16:31, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
If you are talking about this edit, where in edit summary you say, "Added episode summary's. Own words.", I've taken one at random. You wrote:

Annie surprises Debbie and Harry when she asks them if she can invite Jasper over for dinner. Dixon decides to pass on the event as a result of his anger over Debbie's management of the Sasha situation. Meanwhile, Kelly shows her support for Silver and heals the wounds with her mother. Navid confronts Adrianna about her drug use. Also, Naomi is caught kissing Jamie by Richard and his mother, which forces her to come clean about her true intentions.

This source says:

Annie leaves Debbie and Harry surprised when she informs them that she would like to invite Jasper over for dinner. Dixon decides to pass on the event as a result of his anger over Debbie's management of the Sasha situation. Meanwhile, Kelly shows support for Silver regarding the caring of Jackie despite the fact that she does not yet know if she can ultimately forgive her mother for all the pain she has caused in the past. Navid confronts Adrianna about her drug use, and a weekend camping trip leads to Ryan and Jen's relationship climbing to a new level. Also, Naomi is caught kissing Jamie by Richard and his mother, forcing her to come clean about her plans for CU admission.

This is at best a close paraphrase and at worst verbatim duplication, with the sentence that begins "Dixon decides to pass...." I'm afraid that what you've done there is create an unauthorized derivative work. You cannot base your descriptions off of somebody else's, but must craft them completely in your own words. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:37, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
For a start, I didn't use a source, if I check tv listings I use tvguide.co.uk. Why can't I base my descriptions on somebody else's? If I deem the best bits of the show in my own words and put them here, why is it a problem if another source thinks those bits are the best too? Jayy008 (talk) 16:42, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but it is highly implausible that you would have spontaneously created the sentence, "Dixon decides to pass on the event as a result of his anger over Debbie's management of the Sasha situation", particularly in context of the rest of the close paraphrase. In answer to the rest of your question, because it is against Wikipedia's policies, the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use and the copyright laws of the United States, which govern our project. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:44, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
I used This source and wrote in my own words. Which is what I thought you was supposed to do. I didn't think I'd need to mention it because it's an illegal source which obviously has no copyright at all. Jayy008 (talk) 16:46, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean "obviously has no copyright at all". Copyright protection is bestowed automatically by US law at the moment creative expression is fixed--that is, written down. You cannot use somebody else's language unless you can prove that it is public domain or compatibly licensed. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:52, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
I mean that it's an illegal source to watch TV, and I thought the summaries were written by "fans" so to speak, who don't claim copyright. I based my summaries on those, wrote it in my own words and removed alot of content to make it briefer. The one you say "you picked at random" is probably the only one that I couldn't change much, because I didn't want to be the cause of a bad article by writing a load of garbage. Now wasn't that allowed? With your permission I'd like to revert the block and re-do the episode summaries on the entire page. Can you also delete episode of 1 of the series, it has it's own page and does not meet any noteability guidelines. All the info can easily be included on the main page. Jayy008 (talk) 16:56, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

The one that I picked at random was not in your own words; it not only heavily paraphrased by also copied content verbatim. These are not your own words. Choosing another at random, I see that it uses language that also does not seem to be "your own words": [9], [10], [11]. Looking at a third, it seems it is also not "your own words": [12], [13], [14].

No, it is not allowed to copy over content because we can't think of a better way to say it ourselves. In that case, we must have nothing at all. We cannot copy content from websites that do not "claim copyright". As I said, copyright protection is bestowed automatically by US law at the moment creative expression is fixed. They don't have to claim copyright; it exists automatically. That evidence suggests they did not create it but instead copied it from somebody else does not mean that it's okay for us to use it. The Wikimedia Foundation is compliant with US copyright law, even if they are not.

If you want to write new episode summaries, please do so in the temporary space linked from the article's face. Writing it in your own words means that you will not be able to base your episode summaries off of the summaries written by anyone else, anywhere, unless these are explicitly usable as I've indicated above. Copying or closely following previously published content is otherwise a violation of our copyright policy, which Wikipedia takes very seriously. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:12, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I understand perfectly, but and this is a big but, when I do re-write them. Nothing else interesting happened in the episode, so I'm not allowed to say anything that any other source on the internet used. They use the best bits, like episode summaries are supposed to be. So all it leaves me to say is "this person walked down the street", "this person spoke to this person" the end. Can you explain that to me. Jayy008 (talk) 17:36, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
I can't be bothered to write them all over again, so I just emailed the CW and asked them if we could use their summaries. Jayy008 (talk) 17:41, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
English is a word-rich language. There are many, many combinations of words which can be used to describe the same events. If you'd like some assistance with this, Purdue has a nice resource available. If CW is willing to license their summaries to the OTRS team, that would certainly save you the trouble. Meanwhile, please be careful with other contributions you may make to ensure that what you contribute was written by you. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:56, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
So I can copy and paste and episode summary from another source into that machine, then what comes out the other side put it on here? That's allowed? And I don't do anything on the matter until The CW reply. And yeah I will do, thank you! Jayy008 (talk) 18:01, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
No, it's not a machine. :) It's a university sponsored guide to how to write to avoid plagiarism/copyright concerns. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:04, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Oh, ok, well that's fine, if The CW say no, I will use that and re-write them all in the sub-page, unless anybody else does it first. Also I don't know if you saw it but could you delete This page it's the first episode of the season and has no apparant noteability. Thanks. Jayy008 (talk) 18:07, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Even though I'm an admin, I can't delete pages without a policy-based reason. If you think it's not notable enough to have its own article, you can redirect it to the season or nominate it for WP:PROD. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:10, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Please excuse me, I'm sorry to butt in here, but this is from CWTV.com's "Terms of use" at http://www.cwtv.com/thecw/terms-of-use. Please note the portions in bold italics.

Trademarks and Copyrights

This Site and all materials incorporated by The CW on this Site ("Material") are protected by copyrights, patents, trade secrets or other proprietary rights ("Copyrights"). Some of the characters, logos or other images incorporated by The CW on this Site are also protected as registered or unregistered trademarks, trade names and/or service marks owned by The CW or others ("Trademarks"). The CW respects the intellectual property rights of others and asks users of this Site to do the same.

Your Use of Material
Your right to make use of this Site and any Material or other content appearing on it is subject to your compliance with these Terms of Use. Modification or use of the Material or any other content on this Site for any purpose not permitted by these Terms of Use may be a violation of the Copyrights and/or Trademarks and is prohibited.

You may access and display Material and all other content displayed on this Site for non-commercial, personal, entertainment use on a single computer only. The Material and all other content on this Site may not otherwise be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, distributed or used in any way unless specifically authorized by The CW. Any authorization to copy Material granted by The CW in any part of this Site for any reason is restricted to making a single copy for non-commercial, personal, entertainment use on a single computer only, and is subject to your keeping intact all copyright and other proprietary notices. Using any Material on any other web site or networked computer environment is prohibited. Also, decompiling, reverse engineering, disassembling, or otherwise reducing the code used in any software on this Site into a readable form in order to examine the construction of such software and/or to copy or create other products based (in whole or in part) on such software, is prohibited.

I think that is pretty clear. You can't use it. --Logical Fuzz (talk) 18:08, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

It seems likely that they're going to refuse then. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:10, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
I have eyes, I can view for myself on the CW website, I think it's always good to ask. That's all. And thanks Moonriddengirl I'll just re-direct. Jayy008 (talk) 18:23, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Not for nothing, but with all of the scrutiny on copyrights, what is the WikiPolicy on press releases? I've noticed a number of times that people just copy/paste a press release summary to the summary section, only to have it removed as a copyvio. Isn't usability assigned by the word "release"? Or is it also restricted by the use of the word "press"? For my own effort, I've tried to phrase things in my own words, but sometimes the details of a release are so sparse, or the item being detailed is so limited in it's ability to be described, that any effort to put it in your own words will still result in some sort of copyvio. I recently condensed the line, "Investigating the murder of a thief, Castle and Beckett are surprised to learn that Esposito has a personal connection to the suspected killer" from the ABC press release of the Castle episode "Den of Theives" to, "The suspected killer of a thief has ties to Esposito", and sweated it for two days, all the while regretting the cut of the "personal" connection as feeling that an element of the summary was being left out. The fact of the matter is, many of the deemed reliable sources for TV show info, i.e. theFutonCritic.com, spoilertv.com, reprint those releases verbatim, in their entirety. Now in a case like tv.msn.com, which tends to paraphrase and condense the release (though perhaps that is because they don't reprint them in their entirety that they have to), I understand; that has become their original work, but to quote the press release directly? Even if, perhaps, you have to create a permanent reference link to the article, that seems pretty harmless to me. It's already been "released". KnownAlias contact 09:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Unless otherwise stated, a press release is still copyrighted. Despite the aim of a press release being dissemination of its contents, I suspect that most companies would not want the text release material then modified out of their control. And aside from any copyright issues, press releases are problematic as self-published sources. -- Whpq (talk) 10:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

help

is quoting entire passages from an environmental report a copyvio? Eli+ 20:25, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Quotes need to be brief, really as brief as possible. That is, of course, unless the environmental report is in the public domain (e.g., created by the US government). VernoWhitney (talk) 21:00, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Copyvio?

Is this a copy vio from here? Vegaswikian (talk) 07:03, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Close paraphrasing as copyvio

While Wikipedia:Plagiarism gives guidance for dealing sensibly with close paraphrasing, if such paraphrasing is too extensive it can become a copyright problem. I propose that the second paragraph be amended as follows –

However, material copied from sources that are not public domain or compatibly licensed without the permission of the copyright holder (unless brief quotation used in accordance with non-free content policy and guideline) is likely to be a copyright violation. Even inserting a text copied with some changes can be a copyright violation, as well as raising problems of plagiarism. Such a situation should be treated seriously, as copyright violations not only harm Wikipedia's redistributability, but also create legal issues.

Review and revisions welcome, I've posted notice of this at Wikipedia talk:Plagiarism. . . dave souza, talk 17:14, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Works for me. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:17, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
I agree in principle, but I am also concerned about the points Risker made here. Here is a scenario that I think editors may come across quite regularly. You find a great source, which offers detailed information about a specific part of a topic you are writing about. This could be –
  • an old history book providing the most authoritative and detailed account of a battle, stating when the first shot was fired, how troops moved, who commanded each battalion etc.;
  • an anthropologist providing a detailed study of the family life of an Amazonian tribe, with an authoritative description of an initiation ceremony;
  • an in-depth report in a quality publication like The New Yorker, which reconstructs the precise movements of various people before and after a very notable, and much commented-on crime.
As an editor you rub your hands, thinking: Wow! This is just what I was looking for! It all makes sense now; this ties everything together! These are the details that the other sources gloss over! You end up relying heavily on that source for one section of your article. By the time you're done, you have reformulated, or even translated the source from another language, but the facts you describe are much the same as those in your source. In your description of the tribe's family life, you still have mothers, fathers, uncles sitting around a pot of stew made from the leaves of a particular hallucinogenic plant; your escaping criminal still got into a blue Chevrolet, ran over a person on 22nd Street, and was pursued by a policeman on a motorbike, eventually shot in the left shoulder, and taken to St. Mary's hospital.
Given that there is only one logical way to describe the sequential steps observed in a tribal ceremony, or the course of events that led to the criminal ending up in hospital, your account, spanning ten or twelve sentences, has a substantial similarity to what your source says. You cite your source, and you mention the author by name in your text. You are confident that you have not committed a copyright violation -- you have read that facts aren't copyrightable, only the words used to tell them; and you know that words like "father", "mother", "pot", "stew", "sitting"; "blue", "Chevrolet", "22nd Street", "policeman", "motorbike", "hospital" and so forth are not creative expressions. Nevertheless, you are perturbed to find intermittent sequences of three, four or more words where your text is identical to that of your source, in particular perhaps in two places where your source uses a slightly ambiguous word, and though you think the author means it like this, another editor who accused you of POV pushing only last week tells you that would be an interpretation of the source, so you agree to use the same word that the source used as a compromise. Now, have you fallen foul of the policy that is being proposed here? --JN466 18:37, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
Yes, and by definition of U.S. copyright law, if your account has a substantial similarity to your source (as you posit that it does). But though this is not spelled out in this policy, it is already policy. WP:C says, "Note that copyright law governs the creative expression of ideas, not the ideas or information themselves. Therefore, it is legal to read an encyclopedia article or other work, reformulate the concepts in your own words, and submit it to Wikipedia, so long as you do not follow the source too closely. (See our Copyright FAQ for more on how much reformulation may be necessary as well as the distinction between summary and abridgment.) However, it would still be unethical (but not illegal) to do so without citing the original as a reference." --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:51, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Well, the problem I see, as Hexham said, is that "it is almost impossible to describe the origins of something like the Watergate Affair in 300 words without using almost identical words to anyone else that attempts to describe the same event." If this means we cannot write about Watergate, then it is a bad rule. :) So, how do we avoid both Scylla and Charybdis? --JN466 19:00, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
You are missing an important point: It's impossible because so many have written about the Watergate Affair before. If you base your text on a pre-existing text and paraphrase too closely it's a copyvio, although this may not be easy to prove for this topic unless you actually cite the correct source. If you rewrite the information competently, some other text is likely very similar to your result, but that's not your fault. So it's not a copyvio, although of course someone might think otherwise and sue you. Hans Adler 19:05, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
And from memory, if several authors over time have used the same wording it would be accepted as an obvious non-creative way of covering the Watergate affair, but frankly the English language has so much flexibility that it's unlikely that accounts would be as closely similar as to have that problem. Substantial similarity gives a useful primer, but I'm reluctant to link to [editable] articles in policies. . . dave souza, talk 19:09, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
Just to add to the last two, with which I agree, we're not talking about plagiarism here anymore; now we're talking about copyright problems, and that's an entirely different kettle of fish. You can't defend copyright infringement by saying you couldn't think of a better way to put it or that Wikipedia's "no original research" policy wouldn't let you put it in your own words. :/ Actionable infringement has been found in less than 300 words; Richard Stim noted in 2007's Patent, Copyright & Trademark that "[a]n infringement may be found based on several paraphrased passages of a few hundred words each, or just 20 words copied verbatim."((Stim, Richard (2007). Patent, Copyright & Trademark: An Intellectual Property Desk Reference (9 ed.). Nolo. p. 220. ISBN 1413306462.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:19, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
Well, to be fair, I was talking about rather less than 300 words, and certainly nowhere near 20 words copied verbatim. But if you describe a battle, words like "cannon", "hill", "castle", "wall", "soldier" and so on will be shared by any texts describing the same event. Here is an example from Siege of Godesberg (don't worry, it is based on several non-English sources, and one of them is long out of copyright):
Arenberg's and Ferdinand's troops tried to storm the castle, but found their way blocked by masses of debris created by their own explosives.[42] Furthermore, although close to half of the garrison had perished in the explosion and subsequent collapse of the fortifications, those who remained offered staunch resistance by throwing rocks on the approaching attackers, causing a large number of casualties.[42] In frustration, 40 or 50 of the attackers tied together two ladders and crawled through the sluice-ways of the garderobe (latrines) that emptied on the hillside, thus gaining access to the interior of the castle.[42] There they killed around 20 of the defenders in fierce fighting; the remaining defenders, approximately 70 men, among them Buchner and Sudermann, the garrison commander and his lieutenant, sought refuge in the castle's keep.[42] In this way, Ferdinand's infantry at last gained unopposed access to the fortress.[43] Storming the castle had taken about two hours.[44]
If you try to describe the events of that historical battle in your own words, you will end up with some form of substantial similarity. This is not due to your copying my words, but due to your describing the same events I am describing. --JN466 19:45, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
Being based on non-English sources doesn't necessarily eradicate copyright concerns, since the right to license translation from one language into another is reserved to the copyright holder. But backing up here: substantial similarity is a legal term used in intellectual property law. If you have substantial similarity, you have by definition taken enough to constitute infringement, unless a sustainable defense is made. What it boils down to is this: it is not always possible to use a single source for a detailed recounting without paraphrasing too closely. If multiple sources are not available, sometimes you must sacrifice detail. That's an unavoidable fact of ensuring that we remain within copyright law. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 20:01, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
You know that "substantial similarity" is also affected by the proportion of the source that I make use of, and by other factors such as the originality of the source. There is no problem whatsoever if an editor cites details described on a single page of a 600-page book, or in a single paragraph of a scholarly paper (say, the size and shape of the humerus of brachiosaurus). Editors here do this every day; and not only do Wikipedians do it, scholars and publishers of tertiary works do it too, when they report the findings of their antecedents. So do authors of literature reviews in medicine. These latter are specifically written to summarise the findings of published studies, and of course there is an in-built "substantial similarity" to the studies they are reviewing, because they are writing about them, and report their results. No author of a clinical study will sue the author of a literature review who covers his study as part of her review. There is something missing here. Even in the case of shorter sources -- for example, a newsflash which reports Michael Jackson's death – we do not have a problem if we cite that newsflash to say, in our article, that Michael Jackson is, in fact, dead, even though our report will bear a substantial similarity to the original report, and cover practically all of the main ideas conveyed in the original source. --JN466 02:25, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
I know that "substantial similarity" also considers the relative importance of the information to a work. There may indeed be a problem if an editor follows too closely on a single page of a 600-page book or a single paragraph of a scholarly paper. The problem is not in using information from sources; it is in closely following language and creative structure. We cannot permit derivative works on Wikipedia just because some people have trouble contributing without creating them. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:59, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
Then, to prevent false positives, we ought perhaps to give editors some hints as to what constitutes creative vs. non-creative structure. I know it's a hairy problem (see e.g. Feist v. Rural). --JN466 03:50, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
<ec> The proposal says "may", it's a matter for consultation and discussion on the article talk page, as suggested at Wikipedia:Plagiarism last I looked. There's a point at which it does become a copyright issue, such as only minor changes made to whole sentences and paragraphs, perhaps changing the order of sentences but keeping the same sentence structure and only changing some words to synonyms. It will be good to provide more guidance on where to draw that line, but in the meantime it's valid to alert editors to the potential problem. . dave souza, talk 18:56, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
I agree; you say "may", and that of course makes the proposed text eminently correct. So I don't object to the wording going into the policy, but these things do warrant thinking about. If you describe events in time order, and they involve actors like "mother", "father" etc., for which we do not have alternative terms, you may create similarity that is not based on copying, but simply inherent in the events being described. --JN466 19:14, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
My feeling is that we should alert editors to the problem as a first priority, giving them fair notice of this commonly misunderstood area and not misleading them by the current wording. The detail of guidance is already there in the FAQ, but more obvious guidance will be good. Where similarity is inherent in the events being described then there's not a problem, but care is needed to avoid re-using creative and non-inherent expressions about the events. . . dave souza, talk 19:21, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
Well, that is the point, is it not. Facts are not copyrightable; creative expressions used to describe them are. If I read that actor X got drunk, crashed his car into a garden wall and suffered a concussion, neither the word "actor", nor the word "drunk", nor the word "crashed", nor the word "car", nor the term "garden wall", nor the word "concussion" are copyrightable. If I were to add that incident to the actor's BLP, what I write might well read like a close paraphrase of what the original news report said, but there isn't really a copyright violation involved, is there. The fact that actor X crashed his car into a garden wall because he was drunk, and that he suffered a concussion as a result, is not copyrighted by the fact that some copyrighted source reported it. How are you going to say it without using words that are similar to the source wording? Will we write that "Thespian X suffered an accident when in a state of inebriation he lost control of his vehicle causing it to collide with the vertical boundary marker of a private property, and bumped his head in the process?" We need to make clear it is creative expressions that are the problem, not the surface similarity of source and article wording. --JN466 02:47, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing has some good guidance on how to rewrite copyrighted material. The article Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches, while about plagiarism rather than copyright concerns, also contains some suggestions for reusing material from sources that may be helpful, beginning under "Avoiding plagiarism". That said, creative expressions are not the sole issue here; you can infringe copyright without using a single word from your source. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:55, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
Could you give us an example? --JN466 03:40, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
Sure. Translate Twilight into Chinese. You will have changed every single word, but it will still be a copyright violation. Beyond that obvious example, on the broader principal, what we're talking about here is called "comprehensive non-literal similarity", which as defined by Melville Nimmer is "a similarity not just as to a particular line or paragraph or other minor segment but where the fundamental essence or structure of one work is duplicated in another"; he notes that "the mere fact that the defendant has paraphrased rather than literally copied will not preclude a finding of substantial similarity."(Nimmer, Melville B. (1963). Nimmer on copyright: a treatise on the law of literary, musical and artistic property, and the protection of ideas. M. Bender. p. 620.) Courts are smart enough to understand that people will try to bypass copyright with a thesaurus. (And Nimmer is the authority here; the courts quote him in that Feist decision.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:24, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
What you are talking about here is, as you say, "comprehensive non-literal similarity" -- "a similarity not just as to a particular line or paragraph or other minor segment but where the fundamental essence or structure of one work is duplicated in another". We are not talking about a paragraph or a page, we are talking about "the fundamental essence or structure of one work [being] duplicated in another". This is not the case if an editor closely paraphrases a paragraph of factual detail. --JN466 22:15, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
You asked for an example of of how you can infringe copyright without using a single word from your source; I gave you two. I'm sorry that based on what you say below I seem to have misled you into thinking that all close paraphrasing falls under this doctrine. That wasn't my intention; I'm rather pressed for time lately, and I did not consider that you would think my example was exhaustive. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:07, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
(ec) Probably not but possibly yes. Ultimately this mess is the fault of copyright law in the real world. It is generally thought to stimulate literary production, but apparently that's not true. [15][16] Apparently the kind of problems that we are encountering here is why the entire English book market was much smaller than the German one at the time when England had copyright laws and Germany didn't. We need not like these laws, but we must try not to break them.
The people who wrote the GNU tools that are now a standard part of Linux had similar problems, and they found a solution. If the original program (whose source code they inspected in order to find out what exactly it was doing) was written in such a way as to make it run fast while possibly using a lot of memory, then they rewrote it so that it ran with little memory but possibly slower. Or vice versa. We can do similar things with text.
Another aspect is that if there is only one source with that level of detail, then often these details are simply not appropriate for an encyclopedia. In that case, remove at least 25% of the details, and try to do it in such a way that it affects the structure: "The gangsters entered their black Volvo and raced with it to a nearby Sainsbury's supermarket car park, where they switched to a dark blue Mercedes." -> "Two cars were used in the flight." The details are still available to those readers who are really interested in them (usually a tiny minority), because we point them to the best source.
We need a lot more positive advice like that, and a lot less "you must not do this, and you must not do that, but meanwhile you must do the following" style guidelines. Hans Adler 19:01, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
There is an issue with that car example though, because the details in the external source may not be available for free and providing free access to (relevant) information is what we are all about.--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:34, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
"The sum of human knowledge", in fact. --JN466 02:50, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
While an admirable goal, I'm afraid it doesn't change the fact that close paraphrasing of copyrighted content is against the law. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:55, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
Yes, but we have to differentiate between close paraphrasing of creative expressions, and reporting facts in idiomatic language. If an editor reads in the Belfast Telegraph that –
  • "Pop star Michael Jackson has died after collapsing at his home yesterday following a suspected heart attack. The 50-year-old singer was rushed to hospital in LA, but efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead at 2.26pm local time."
there is surely little creative expression involved in that. If the editor then adds the following to Jackson's biography, citing the Belfast Telegraph –
  • "Michael Jackson died on 25 June 2009, apparently of a heart attack. Jackson had collapsed in his LA home; he was rushed to a local hospital, where efforts were made to resuscitate him, but he was pronounced dead at 2.26pm."
would you have a problem with it? It's still a close paraphrase. If you would have a problem with it, how would you report that Michael Jackson had died of a heart attack? --JN466 03:24, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
Depends: how much more of it is there? If that's all, I would tweak the wording to separate it from source, but it would not be a copyright problem. But to answer your larger question, here's what I would do: I would start with that news article, and I would look for others. What time did Jackson collapse? Who found him collapsed? What hospital was he taken to? Who pronounced him dead? As Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing advises, the best answer to following a source too closely is to take information from multiple sources. Avoiding close paraphrasing while not losing detail is very difficult on obscure news items, on heavily discussed items, it's not. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:24, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
Of course this is the right way to go about it in a case like Michael Jackson's; but it is not uncommon to find that a particular aspect of an article topic is only addressed in detail by a single source. The bare facts of these details, divorced from any creative expression and arrangement involved in how the source presents them, are still eligible for inclusion, whether one source has reported them or several, and we should never imply otherwise. --JN466 18:27, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
Quote to me where you believe we do. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:29, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
This passage in WP:Close paraphrasing – Note, however, that closely paraphrasing extensively from a non-free source may be a copyright problem, even if it is difficult to find different means of expression. In Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service, the United States Supreme Court noted that factual compilations of information may be protected with respect to "selection and arrangement, so long as they are made independently by the compiler and entail a minimal degree of creativity," as "[t]he compilation author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the collected data so that they may be used effectively by readers"; the Court also indicated that "originality is not a stringent standard; it does not require that facts be presented in an innovative or surprising way" and that "[t]he vast majority of works make the grade quite easily, as they possess some creative spark, 'no matter how crude, humble or obvious' it might be."[1] – could be interpreted that way, and Hans for example has made it clear above that he does interpret it (the situation, not necessarily that wording) that way. --JN466 18:38, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
If the problem you have is with WP:Close paraphrasing, then the discussion belongs there. It would be better to keep it in its relevant place. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:45, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Interim edit

Since editors shouldn't be left in the dark about this serious issue, I've modified the proposed additional text to "Even inserting text copied with some changes can be a copyright violation if there's substantial similarity (this can also raise problems of plagiarism)." to take account of the discussions above, and edited the policy to include this. If some better form of words can be found that'll be great, which is why it's described as an interim edit. . . dave souza, talk 23:16, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I've added some words, clarifying that this is in the context of comprehensive non-literal similarity (see below, and Substantial_similarity#Tests for reference). [17] Please review. --JN466 23:10, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Identifying creativity

Jayen says above, "to prevent false positives, we ought perhaps to give editors some hints as to what constitutes creative vs. non-creative structure. I know it's a hairy problem (see e.g. Feist v. Rural)". First, that's out of scope of this particular document. Explaining the intricacies of close parpahrasing would overwhelm this document, and should be undertaken at Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing.

That said, it's not that hairy; Feist v. Rural says, "To be sure, the requisite level of creativity is extremely low; even a slight amount will suffice. The vast majority of works make the grade quite easily, as they possess some creative spark, 'no matter how crude, humble or obvious' it might be." It goes on (quotes from [18], citations omitted):

Factual compilations, on the other hand, may possess the requisite originality. The compilation author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the collected data so that they may be used effectively by readers. These choices as to selection and arrangement, so long as they are made independently by the compiler and entail a minimal degree of creativity, are sufficiently original that Congress may protect such compilations through the copyright laws...Thus, if the compilation author clothes facts with an original collocation of words, he or she may be able to claim a copyright in this written expression. Others may copy the underlying facts from the publication, but not the precise words used to present them. In Harper & Row, for example, we explained that President Ford could not prevent others from copying bare historical facts from his autobiography, see 471 U.S. at 556-557, but that he could prevent others from copying his "subjective descriptions and portraits of public figures." Where the compilation author adds no written expression, but rather lets the facts speak for themselves, the expressive element is more elusive. The only conceivable expression is the manner in which the compiler has selected and arranged the facts. Thus, if the selection and arrangement are original, these elements of the work are eligible for copyright protection.

Now, by compilation, they're discussing a phone book: a bare list of facts without creative language. In prose sources, we deal with both "an original collocation of words" and the "selection and arrangement" of facts (if original). To make sure that this is not misconstrued, the Court goes on:

the originality requirement is not particularly stringent. A compiler may settle upon a selection or arrangement that others have used; novelty is not required. Originality requires only that the author make the selection or arrangement independently (i.e., without copying that selection or arrangement from another work), and that it display some minimal level of creativity. Presumably, the vast majority of compilations will pass this test, but not all will. There remains a narrow category of works in which the creative spark is utterly lacking or so trivial as to be virtually nonexistent.

Most prose content is amply creative enough to qualify for copyright protection. Structure is not creative when it is flat obvious; when anybody reporting on the incident would have done so in the same way. The more facts you pile on one another, the less likely it is that the structure will be flat obvious.

When it comes to lists such as those discussed in the case you invoke, we have had a few borderline cases there. I've previously taken this to our attorney, who has been very good about settling disputes. In those cases, it has always come down to the creativity of selection and presentation. If a human being had to put subjective thought into what elements to include, or their order, then it is creative. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:22, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Substantial similarity

Basically, there are two types of substantial similarity per Nimmer. They are briefly discussed by Joshua Kaufman, a well-known copyright litigator, here:

"The leading legal treatise in the field, Nimmer on Copyright, comes up with its own terminology for analyzing substantial similarity and breaks it into two forms: comprehensive non-literal similarity and fragmented literal similarity. Comprehensive non-literal similarity is a similarity not just as to a particular line or paragraph or other minor segment but where the fundamental essence or structure of one work is duplicated in another … the mere fact that the defendant has paraphrased rather than literally copied will not preclude a finding of substantial similarity. Copyright can not be limited literally to the text or else a plagiarist would escape by immaterial variations".

This forms part of the one type of substantial similarity, "comprehensive non-literal similarity". Note the word "comprehensive"; we are talking about "the fundamental essence or structure of one work" being duplicated in another, not about a paragraph. Kaufman continues,

"This concept, however, is tempered by one of the basic premises of copyright law that ideas are not protected only an expression of an idea. Therefore, if the similarity between works rests solely in the duplication of the idea, it will not be deemed substantially similar even if the ideas are identical. It has to be in the way that the ideas are expressed. Fragmented literal similarity is where there is similarity but not necessarily of the whole work. This comes into play where specific elements of a work are copied but the overall work may be very different. Therefore, it could be a line, a paragraph, a tree, a face, an arm, a few measures of music that are copied literally. The question then becomes, at what point does the copying become substantial and therefore an infringement. Again, there is no easy rule or test to decide as to the amount of fragmented literal similarity permitted before substantial similarity kicks in and infringement is found. In addition to looking at how much was copied (i.e. what percent of a work, how many elements or square inches or the like) one also needs to look at the quality of the taking. Was the copying of an important element of the underlying work? Is it an important element of the new work? Is it an essential element? The more important and essential the elements copied, the more likely that a smaller amount of copying will be considered substantial similar."

So according to Kaufman, even fragmented literal similarity -- i.e. a paragraph copied verbatim -- is not necessarily a copyright violation. Nimmer is not talking about paraphrasing a small section of a work when he says that paraphrasing cannot prevent substantial similarity. He is talking about paraphrasing an entire work, such that its "fundamental essence or structure of one work is duplicated in another". This is not what happens when a Wikipedian paraphrases a paragraph.

So, to recap, as I understand Kaufman –

  • Including a paragraph verbatim may or (may not) constitute a copyright infringement.
  • Closely paraphrasing a small part of a larger work does not constitute a copyright infringement. --JN466 22:18, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm afraid you misunderstand. David Nimmer clarifies in 2008's Copyright Illuminated: Refocusing the Diffuse US Statute that fragmented literal similarity considers both "copying of direct quotations or close paraphrasing." (Nimmer, David (22 May 2008). Copyright illuminated: refocusing the diffuse US statute. Kluwer Law International. p. 9. ISBN 9789041124944. Emphasis added.) You're right that including a paragraph verbatim may or may not infringe copyright; once copying is determined, courts consider whether the use is "fair". Closely paraphrasing a small part of a larger work does, however, constitute a copyright infringement if that small part does not clear both amount and substantiality. As your Kaufman himself points out, the "quality of taking" matters: "Is it an important element of the new work? Is it an essential element? The more important and essential the elements copied, the more likely that a smaller amount of copying will be considered substantial similar", he says. Comprehensive non-literal similarity does impact the "fundamental" structure of a work (which would mean the entirety or its heart), but fragmented literal similarity is not limited to verbatim copying. I would refer you to Fishman, Stephen (March 2000). The Copyright Handbook: How to Protect & Use Written Works. Nolo.com. ISBN 9780873375481.: "In the infringement context, paraphrasing means making alterations in an author's words instead of copying them verbatim. Whether done consciously, to make it appear copying has not occurred, or unconsciously, paraphrasing constitutes copyright infringement if there is a substantial amount of it." I'm afraid I don't have much time, so I'll have to come back later to see if I've missed any nuances in your note. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:39, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
Are you saying a verbatim copy of a text may not be a copyvio, while a close paraphrasing of the same text is a copyvio (assuming equal attribution in both cases)?--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:07, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
No, if the verbatim copy were not a copyvio, a close paraphrasing would not be a copyvio, either. The problem is in the words "may or may not". If the single paragraph is not found to clear "fair use", it won't clear "fair use" whether it's directly copied or closely paraphrased. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:27, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
Actually, I disagree. If the only reason the verbal copy is not a copyvio is because it is fair use, then the close paraphrasing is probably a copvio. That's because fair use requires what the Berne Convention calls "fair practice" without further defining it. Taking a paragraph from a book and presenting it in such a way that everybody knows what it is, with clear pointers to the original work, is fair practice. But if you (a) incorporate it into your own work without quotation marks or special markup, or if you (b) paraphrase it and thereby lie about your source, then I doubt very strongly that you can still sell it as fair practice. Therefore it's no longer fair use. An exception would be if you say explicitly what you are doing: "The following paragraph is paraphrased from ...". Hans Adler 19:34, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
I can't argue with that. :) I'm afraid I oversimplified. I wasn't thinking in terms of acknowledged quotation v. unacknowledged paraphrase, only in terms of whether the material itself met the fair use factors in its usage. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 21:16, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
you did not at least not regarding my question. I asked specifically under the assumption of equal (appropriate) attribution.--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:21, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
My point was that appropriate attribution can turn into inappropriate attribution if you paraphrase the text. Hans Adler 23:13, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
I've undone this for reasons that should be obvious now based on the above. I do apologize that I seem to have sent you on a wild goose chase. When you asked earlier for an example of how you can infringe copyright without reproducing a single word, I gave you two. It was not at all my intention to suggest that this was the limits of close paraphrasing infringement, and I'm sorry that I inadvertently misled you. See also Barrett, Margreth (April 2008). Intellectual Property. Aspen Publishers Online. p. 131. ISBN 9780735562974.: "In literal infringement cases, the defendant has duplicated or paraphrased the plaintiff's literal expresssion...." --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:35, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
As always, I appreciate your patience with this, and I am trying to learn from you. :) However, your last source above does say, "paraphrasing constitutes copyright infringement if there is a substantial amount of it." I feel we need to tell editors stuff like this, otherwise people will get dragged to ANI, with all the attendant drahma, if they have closely paraphrased three sentences from a source, and we'll have a lot of avoidable heartache.
That's what "substantial similarity" means: if there's a substantial amount of it. (Although substance doesn't always refer to length, but to whether it constitutes a "core" element.) We've had Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing for a long time; WP:C has cautioned against following sources too closely for over a year. We don't see a lot of people getting dragged to ANI for closely paraphrasing three sentences from a source. I don't remember ever having done so, although I do remember a plagiarism allegation that turned out to be nothing substantial. (We dealt with it reasonably and moved on. I don't want to link to it, because I'm sure it was embarrassing for all parties.) I almost never see content at WP:CP tagged for close paraphrasing that is not a legitimate problem. When I do, I simply revise it slightly, because our copyright policies are deliberately conservative. Properly paraphrasing content that is de minimis costs nothing; failing to properly paraphrase content if it turns out not to be de minimis (as only a court can determine) can cost quite a lot. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:50, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
The Harry Potter lexicon decision by the US Supreme Court (p. 54) gives some examples of prior court cases in which verbatim copying and close paraphrasing were found to have infringed the original source. Craft v. Kobler includes a useful discussion.
Isn't it important that in these cases the artistic nature of the takings was a key factor? It concerned Stravinsky's striking use of language; as well as the power of JK Rowling's imagination. Clearly we should not have a large amount of JK Rowling quotes or close paraphrases in our Harry Potter articles, but shouldn't we make clear that these cases are seen rather differently from a newspaper article recounting a train crash? --JN466 01:37, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
Fiction is typically more creative, but non-fiction is amply creative. See #Identifying creativity. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:51, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
Well, as you quoted above, "Others may copy the underlying facts from the publication, but not the precise words used to present them. In Harper & Row, for example, we explained that President Ford could not prevent others from copying bare historical facts from his autobiography, see 471 U.S. at 556-557, but that he could prevent others from copying his 'subjective descriptions and portraits of public figures.'" My concern is that describing the bare historical facts, which is permitted, will involve some of the same words that Ford's autobiography used, simply because there is a need to call things by their names. Can we please make clear that we are concerned with the copying of creative expressions? --JN466 02:09, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
Like this? If Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing is ever elevated to a guideline, it will be a much simpler matter to link to it, with its more complete definitions. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 02:28, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
That hits the mark much better. :) Thanks for your time. --JN466 03:43, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Stargazer

Anyone have any idea which of these the copyright problems are on? Stargazer bio on Sputnikmusic or StarGazer (band), current version mainly introduced here [19]. My first thought was to go back to the pre this version entry but I don't know if it might have been copied to Sputnik, where do their bios come from? duffbeerforme (talk) 12:26, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. This one's tricky. If they copied it from us, they would have had to have done it before this edit in 2008. That gives them enough time to have done it, though. I can't tell if the band profiles are created by staff and altered by contributors or not. The only person credited there is a contributor there called "badtaste", who has been active since 2003. ([20]) Meanwhile, the contributor above has been here since 2005; he's pretty active, and I don't see any indication of copyright problems in his talk page history. I looked at the foundational edit of The Party Boys, which he created around the same time, and didn't find any matches that didn't look like mirrors. Wayback is not cooperating with me at the moment, so I can't even take a stab at dating the Sputnikmusic profile. Maybe Wayback will be more cooperative soon and we can start trying to figure that out. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:12, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Might be easier if I go straight to afd. That's why I started looking at the details at this entry. duffbeerforme (talk) 13:52, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
But that would only solve the fundsmrntal problem if the copyvio was taken from them to here. duffbeerforme (talk) 13:58, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Well, if it's a copyright problem, that would take care of it, yes. :) But you're right that if they've copied from us, it wouldn't resolve that issue. Reuse of our material out of license is a pet peeve of mine precisely because it leads to these situations. I hate when legitimate content contributors are faced with copyright problems because somebody stole their words. :/ It's got to happen sometimes, because we need to be sure, but it's just not right. :P --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:25, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Discussion regarding this policy

Located at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Recommendation to change slightly the policy regarding the edits made by known copyright violators. VernoWhitney (talk) 15:25, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Not a copyvio... so tag it copyvio?

The policy as written says (with my underlines):

Also, if the contributor is the copyright holder of the text, even if it is published elsewhere under different terms, they have the right to post it here under CC-BY-SA and GFDL – the text may still be unsuitable for Wikipedia for another reason, but it is not a copyright violation. They may donate the material through the procedures described at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials, although until the donation process is complete the article should be replaced with the {{subst:copyvio | url=insert URL here}} tag.

If it is specifically not a copyright violation, why would we blank the article and mark it as a copyright violation?

Thparkth (talk) 01:58, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Because until the permission is verified, the content is still a copyright problem. I would estimate that half the time we are told to expect permission, we don't get it. We don't really have a template to use when permission is asserted but not yet verified. The tag at least does not draw conclusions; it says, "Possible copyright infringement". And it contains all the necessary steps for addressing the situation. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:27, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Changes to policy page

Based on a recent note at my talk page and a recent listing at VP, I've attempted to clarify this policy to actual practice. I did this in a couple of steps. Here's what I've done and why:

  • Added reference to guideline on handling image issues, since this page is all about text
  • Moved the material on addressing contributors, previously divided, into one section, with its own header.
  • In that new section, made the CCI link more obvious.
  • Explained when one might wish to address on the talk page. An article that is blatantly copied from a copyrighted source should be blanked or edited to prevent mirroring. It is not recommended practice to leave a note at the talk page or even at WT:CP and walk away. Noted {{copy-paste}}, which now prompts a bot to list articles at WP:CP. (On second thought, I brought back reference to WT:CP as well: [21] The VP complaint was about the difficulty in figuring out where to go. The clearer guidance on that we can offer, the better.)
  • Added an explanation that PD or compatibly licensed text is also not a copyright violation.
  • Added directions on how to handle PD or compatibly licensed text with attribution templates and notes at talk page.
  • Retitled "copyright owners" to clarify the purpose of that section. Belatedly added info on donating content as well. Anchored.
  • Changed "see also" to "resources"; many of these links have long been mentioned within the body of the policy
  • Added (what I hope are) clear explanation of what these links are
  • Organized the links into sections and expanded them with more pages, templates, etc. (two belatedly entered here)

I think these changes should be uncontroversial, since actual policy is not affected. I'm only updating descriptions of processes for handling copyright problems and attempting to provide clearer guidance for users who are completely unfamiliar with this work. Naturally, I'm open to being told that I'm wrong. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:27, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Hrmmm... maybe it could be made clearer that the appropriate course of action if they even assert permission or there's any other reason to assume they might have permission to use the material is to blank the article (as opposed to G12 or userfy) to try and cut back on biting? Maybe also include {{PD-old-text}} as a third generic attribution template along with dual and ccbysasource and separating the problem/cleanup/attribution templates? Just some passing thoughts. VernoWhitney (talk) 13:47, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

RfC for the explicit auditing of DYKs for compliance with copyvio policy

An RfC has been launched to measure community support for requiring the explicit checking of DYK nominations for compliance with basic WP policies—including copyvio policy—and to improve the management of the nominations page through the introduction of a time-limit after which a nomination that does not meet requirements is archived. Tony (talk) 04:16, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

What about when someone else violates Wikipedia's copyright, rather than when Wikipedia violates someone else's copyright? Hyacinth (talk) 17:46, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi. :) See Wikipedia:Mirrors, which includes some recommended steps to take if people are using content without compliance. As a fine point, though, Wikipedia does not own copyright to any of its content; the copyright is owned by contributors. The Wikimedia Foundation does own copyright in its logos, etc., but only requires liberal license from contributors here. It can also be a good idea to add {{backwardscopy}} to the talk page of the article in question if it is not really obvious that they are copying from us to prevent that content later being mistakenly removed as a copyright issue. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:32, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Speaking of which, an interesting situation has cropped up with this paper which has been retracted due to copyright violations, including copying from Wikipedia. A pdf of the original paper may be available online, would linking to the pdf go against WP:COPYLINK policy? I'm not sure who's put it online, but it seems likely to be the original publisher – would that affect things? . . dave souza, talk 21:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Refinement, the retraction was for plagiarism rather than explicitly for copyright violations, would that leave it ok to link to the original paper? . . dave souza, talk 22:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The page currently located at Uta monogatari violated copyright in its initial version up until September 11/12 of this year. The page was a near carbon copy of the Santa Fe Poetry Broadside "A Brief Note Concerning Tanka Prose" by Jeffrey Woodward. It saw only relatively minor edits until User:Bagworm and myself basically overhauled it, and at least until that time entire sentences were still copied verbatim from the Woodward piece. I moved the page, and changed the subject (the original topic was not notable, and assuming good faith I guessed it was meant to be about uta monogatari, which I later found out was unrelated). Therefore, some of the text may still resemble the Woodward article, but in a completely different context and entirely by coincidence. However, I recently found out that on Japanese Wikipedia past versions of pages can get completely expunged if they are revealed to be copyright violations. This seems logical, since the offending material still exists in Wikipedia even if it has been removed in the current version of the article. Is this also policy on English Wikipedia? If so, is there a "past-edits for deletion" page I should consult? elvenscout742 (talk) 08:46, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

mental diagnoses

In quite a lot of articles on mental diagnoses such as ADHD, autism we have previously had diagnosis criteria from DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10. However editors have removed them saying they are copyvio, and that we have received a letter from DSM/ICD. Now diagnosis criteria are all over on the Internet, and I wonder - is it true that we are not allowed to cite diagnosis criteria and, if it is true, can't we ask for permission? Lova Falk talk 08:21, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it is true that we received a letter. You can review the details at Wikipedia:Copyright_problems/2010_March_9#DSM_Complaint_.28Ticket:2010030910040817.29 (most of the discussion is in the collapse). They did not extend to the point of an official DMCA takedown but were evidently willing to work within community processes - after it went to Mike Godwin (then our attorney) I couldn't see it anymore. :) At the time of their letter, we evaluated all of the articles that copied their diagnostic criteria. Where the criteria were paraphrased with brief quotations, they remained. Where the entire criteria for an illness or extensive amounts of it were copied, they were removed or replaced. I think you can probably follow that same principle in referring to it now - summarize with brief quotes. You are certainly welcome to ask for permission, and that would be lovely, but at the time they wrote us in 2010 they said "We do not grant permission for our information to be freely available on the internet." If they change that stance, lovely for us and our readers. :) Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permissions has some requested forms if you want to reach out. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:14, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for your answer! It's a real pity but at least good to know it is true. Lova Falk talk 05:46, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
PS What about ICD-10? Can their criteria be copied or paraphrased? Lova Falk talk 06:07, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Sorry for my delay. I don't make the rounds as often as I used to. :D I would recommend taking the same approach. It seems that the ICD-10 is owned by WHO which is itself a branch of the UN. They could certainly freely license their content if they choose, but they don't. :/ With their web site, they say, "Reproduction or translation of substantial portions of the web site, or any use other than for educational or other non-commercial purposes, require explicit, prior authorization in writing." Now, that doesn't override fair use, of course, so we can excerpt their works in accordance with WP:NFC to the same extent we do any other copyrighted source. But they might be more willing to license the content than the DSM were, if asked. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:56, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for your reply. I didn't want to remove ICD-text unless I was sure it had to go, but I'll do that now. I might ask for their license some day...Lova Falk talk 08:24, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

no mention of close paraphrasing

Neither this policy page nor Wikipedia:Text Copyright Violations 101 link to nor even mention close paraphrasing! See also Wikipedia_talk:Template_messages/Cleanup#excessive_paraphrasing_of_one_source. --Espoo (talk) 06:09, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

This policy says:

However, copying material without the permission of the copyright holder from sources that are not public domain or compatibly licensed (unless it's a brief quotation used in accordance with Wikipedia's non-free content policy and guideline) is likely to be a copyright violation. Even inserting text copied with some changes can be a copyright violation if there's substantial linguistic similarity in creative language or structure (this can also raise problems of plagiarism). Such a situation should be treated seriously, as copyright violations not only harm Wikipedia's redistributability, but also create legal issues.

Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing is an essay; I don't have any problem with linking to it from this page, but I'm not sure it's entirely necessary. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:47, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
Sounds like there's the danger of someone else disagreeing sometime in the future :-) so it'd be good to have at least the word "paraphrasing" somewhere in the text, better yet in a subheading. We have to remember that probably 90% of users who look for help on this page don't have time to read much of it and will only look at the TOC or perhaps use their browser's search function. This is especially true of such topics as plagiarism, copyright violation, and excessive paraphrasing because they are hard to understand and even harder to differentiate for most people, so the policy should do it clearly and in an easy to find place, in other words at the beginning. Most people get very frustrated very quickly when trying to look for help on difficult subjects if that help isn't extremely user friendly. --Espoo (talk) 20:02, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I have a question. A number of editors often cut-and-paste, verbatim, the plot concept for upcoming episodes of South Park into the newly-made stub articles for those episodes prior to their debut. Two different editors, for example, did so here and here with the episode that debuts tonight. Is this copyright infringement? Or are press released written with the expectation that they will be reproduced verbatim for promotional purposes? I tend to think that it's a copyvio, but wanted to be sure by soliciting other opinions. Granted, these additions would still violate WP:V for being unsourced and WP:TONE and WP:NOTADVERT for the way they're written, but aside from those issues, I want to know if the community thinks they violate copyright if not paraphrased. Nightscream (talk) 15:27, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, as it stands I think this is a copyright violation. Every page at www.southparkstudios.co.uk has the footer text "©2013 South Park Digital Studios LLC. All Rights Reserved." (I assume the .com version has something similar, but it won't let me see it). Maybe the studio won't be surprised to find their text copied elsewhere, but article text at Wikipedia has to be available for re-use, even commercially, under a CC-BY-SA license.
If the text had been formatted as a direct quote, with attribution, then it starts to be more acceptable, but even then "The copied material should not comprise a substantial portion of the work being quoted" (Wikipedia:Quotations#Copyrighted material and fair use) -- John of Reading (talk) 15:56, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)From Wikipedia:FAQ/Copyright - "While press releases are by nature intended to be reproduced widely, there is no inherent permission to alter them or create derivative works based on them, or to use them for commercial purposes. Accordingly, press releases are handled like other copyrighted content. In the absence of explicit disclaimer or permission, these may not be freely reproduced." Seems fairly definite to me that there use is a copyvio, albeit one the copyright holder is unlikely to persue. NtheP (talk) 15:58, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) :Hi Nightscream! The question is not what the community thinks but what are the laws of the country in which Wikipedia is registered the press release is written. And I don't know the first thing about either of them. Having said that, for most people who write a press release (or for their principals), it is their dream scenario to have their words copied and pasted in as many places as possible. So I personally would do other things with my time than paraphrasing plot concepts for episodes of South Park... Lova Falk talk 15:59, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
I am not a lawyer (and this is not legal advice), but by my understanding of copyright law, pasting an entire press release would constitute copyright violation in the United States and might be difficult to justify as fair use. You may want to consider getting a legal opinion from the Wikimedia foundation, although the easiest & safest thing to do might be just to leave the press release as a citation and quote from it selectively. Vectro (talk) 16:03, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
+1 to NtheP. Of course, per WP:COPYPASTE, brief attributed quotations may be used. — MusikAnimal talk 16:11, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
The question is not what the community thinks but what are the laws of the country in which Wikipedia is registered the press release is written. Well, yeah, I wasn't saying otherwise. What I was trying to say in essence was, what does the community think is the proper interpretation/application of those laws in question in this country? I wasn't trying to imply it was an Either/Or situation. Nightscream (talk) 16:21, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm sorry that my response below is thrown in. There were several edit conflicts. This topic is specifically covered at WP:COMPLIC. OlYeller21Talktome 16:28, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
I haven't read any other responses yet because I'm a little pressed for time.
The short answer is that sometimes press releases can be used but not usually. Furthermore, from my experience, this is a rampant problem with TV episode summaries.
Here's the longer answer. Press releases are obviously published with the intent for the contained information to be reused and republished but unless the press release is published with a license that's compatible with Wikipedia's license (CC-BY-SA), it can't be used here. If there is no specific copyright mentioned, by default, it's copyrighted and can't be used.
There are those who think that, because press releases are meant to be used by others, that they can be used here, regardless of the copyright status. While that may be true, the problem is that the organization that publishes the press release rarely states that the text can be altered or used for commercial purposes by anyone. For the text to be on Wikipedia, it needs to be able to be changed at any time, for any reason. You can find more information about that at WP:COMPLIC.
As for Fair Use, it doesn't apply because Wikipedia isn't offering any kind of its own commentary or criticism about the episode. Fundamentally, the summary isn't a creative work about the press release. It's a creative work (even though it should be factual and neutral) about the episode but doesn't use any part of the episode so there's no "Use" to be considered "Fair".
Lastly, press releases often run afoul of WP:NPOV but that doesn't fundamentally disqualify them. In this case, episode summaries can be hard to write in a neutral way, anyway. If you want to discuss that issue further, I'd start a discussion at WP:WikiProject Television.
As for why this issue seems to run rampant, I think it falls through the cracks due to the apathy or unofficial acceptance of those publishing the press releases. That doesn't make it ok. That's just my guess as to why it isn't a more prominent issue.
I'll be back later to see if the discussion continues. I apologize if I repeated anyone. OlYeller21Talktome 16:26, 13 November 2013 (UTC)


If parts of a press release are used (visibly) as quote that might be ok. However the plot description cannot be simply a collection of quotes and doing a cut & paste job without rewriting it sufficiently in your own words is certainly a copyright violation unless the press release was posted under a free license. In the latter case a pure cut & paste is no copyright violation but possibly still a case of plagiarizing if not properly attributed. However contrary to the copyright case the plagiarism problem can always be fixed by simply adding a proper attribution and without rewriting the text as such.--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:33, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

On the assumption that these are copy-and-paste (without having checked the source myself) this looks like obvious copyright violation and, even if the material was under some sort of open license, plagiarism. Without a cited source, the information should not be there. If the source is cited, it should be summarised in the Wikipedia editor's own words, at most with some brief attributed quotations but that seems unnecessary. In my opinion, essentially just reaffirming the policies cited above. . dave souza, talk 16:35, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
Actually, what the community thinks is important. I trust it is obvious that if the community wanted to allow something not permitted by law, the law would trump and it would not be allowed. However, the community can and does set rules that are more stringent than the law. Because fair use laws are not bright line, and the amount of material that could be copied can vary based upon the circumstances, we have taken a conservative view, and often require paraphrasing even when not strictly required by law. This is prudent, because with literally millions of examples of text derived from sources, if we allowed editors to get close to the line, we would probably find ourselves involved in many lawsuits. Even if we won them all, because we were just barely on the right side of the line, it would be too costly, so we try to stay well away, to discourage anyone from even thinking about legal action.
It is a bit of an irony that marketing people create press releases, with the fervent hope that they are used widely, while we try to avoid using them extensively, but they are typically subject to copyright, so we must take care not to infringe, or even have a close call.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:44, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
I agree. Perhaps the best way to solve this problem would be to get specific companies like Comedy Central to license their press releases in a way that's compatible with Wikipedia. That obviously wouldn't solve the NPOV issue but that's another issue.
As far as I know, even if we quoted the text, it wouldn't fall under fair use because Wikipedia isn't commenting on the quote. I think that underlines the fact that Wikipedia isn't intended to publish original thoughts but legally functions as though it does which allows it to cite Fair Use in various cases. From what I've seen, the copyright issues comes from the fact that the press release publisher doesn't explicitly give anyone the right to change the text they've published which is inherently required for it to be a part of Wikipedia. If someone wished to change the situation to stymie this issue, that may be the best point of attack. Get the company publishing the press release to allow Wikipedia to use the text however we want while not changing the text if it's used in quotes (so as to not assert that the company said something that they didn't). OlYeller21Talktome 19:49, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
If the plot description is facilitated by quotes only that is certainly true. However an intelligent combination of self written text and quotes might be ok from a legal perspective. If the company puts the press releases under WP compatible license, we should handle it in a similar fashion as we do/did with old Britannica texts. That is preferable to quotes since then editors can modify the texts freely to improve or augment them, which wouldn't be possible with fixed quotations.--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:33, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
We either paraphrase-and-cite or quote-and-cite sources. I would say that blatantly not putting copy/paste in quotes with an immediate citation does constitute copyvio, but it's very easily remedied, especially for short (one-sentence) plot summaries. --Lexein (talk) 22:07, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
Actually the second case is exactly what we can't do if the press release is not under a free license and if it is under a free licens we don't want to do that either for the reasons explained above (and use the "britannica solution" instead).--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:10, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
Even if a press release is compatibly licensed, I agree that it would be plagiarism to copy it without attribution: in such cases it’s not so much a legal question as one of editorial ethics. If the material is indeed copyrighted (whether explicitly or just because no licence is given), it’s both plagiarism and a copyvio to use it. An author’s apparent intention for information to be widely disseminated is never a valid rationale for ignoring his or her copyright on the text.—Odysseus1479 01:49, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you all for participating. In addition to the above, Moonriddengirl, who was among those I invited to join this discussion, declined to do so, but posted her response on her own talk page:

In a nutshell: given the lack of explicit permission to modify them and commercially reproduce them, we have to treat them as fully copyright reserved. Maybe someday there will be a legal case that establishes differently, but so far there has not been (to my knowledge, and I've researched this a bit...though not lately.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:25, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks again. Nightscream (talk) 14:51, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I need an editor to delete an article describing my patented technology as belonging to another person instead of me (and posted by competitors working with that person) because my attempts have long been characterized as "writing material about myself" or some other similar nonsense leaving me the only recourse is to sue this piece of trash known as "wikipedia". Respond and discuss it here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.219.246.53 (talk) 06:55, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect information

According to User:Jcb, the following information is incorrect:

"If you are a copyright owner or represent a copyright owner, and you believe that Wikipedia is infringing your copyright, we can assist you best via e-mail. You may contact 'info-en-cwikimedia.org"

Contacting someone at this address is incorrect, according to the overworked Jcb. What is the correct address, and it should be corrected and added to the policy. --AfadsBad (talk) 22:14, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

"That course has long ago already been tried and all efforts were thwarted to that by, bias, anti-intellectual property wikipedia editors that stormed the site, deleted everything including history and any semblance of my comments in talk and of my supporting editors on my side labeling all opposition as sock puppets and hacked into my email site, hunted down all related articles and deleted them and still leaving up insulting comments in talk calling my work and patent "nonsense", leaving up the infringer and the device. The culprits were probably the Anonymous Hacker Group. I have stayed away from the article (even though I started it) thinking if I did that cooler heads would prevail but that has not been forthcoming and the sight is still, incorrect, infringing and locked to my IP area, as usual for years now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.219.246.53 (talk • contribs) 10:31, 11 December 2013‎ (UTC)

Small-scale verbatim copying

I'm writing to improve my understanding of the policy. While I have some knowledge of copyright law, I know very little about Wikipedia's treatment of it.

I've assumed that a single sentence can be copied verbatim from a reliable source, particularly when it contains highly contentious language (neutrality issues aside). Sometimes if you stray from the language even slightly then you're distorting the source and creating a neutrality/OR issue. However, this has now gotten me into trouble a couple of times, with editors reverting my additions citing COPYVIO. So my question is, can anyone point me to any guidance (policies, guidelines, essays) on the subject of very small (e.g. single sentence) copying?

P.S. To be clear, I don't need anyone to teach me about the fair use defense, I just need to know how it's applied here at Wikipedia. Thanks.

P.P.S. Am I even posting this in the right place?

--Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:41, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

I’m no expert, but where verbatim text is deemed necessary, I think it must be attributed and either enclosed by quotation marks or block-quoted. WP takes a precautionary stance regarding fair use, with a narrower or more conservative licence than is taken in the US legal system, for example, so all quotes should be contextualized with pertinent commentary, and the amount of material quoted should be no more than is necessary to make a point, neither should it compose a substantial portion of any article. There is also the consideration of editorial standards, making it clear what’s said ‘in Wikipedia’s voice’ and what by others. As for the venue, if not here I might guess WT:Copyright problems.—Odysseus1479 07:37, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
I understand there can be an issue of whose voice is being used, Wikipedia's or the source's, depending on the context. I see that as touching on neutrality concerns. Here I'm speaking purely to the copyright issue. Given that attribution isn't a defense to infringement, how does attribution address the COPYVIO issue? And if attribution does solve the COPYVIO issue, is a citation to the source sufficient attribution? (I generally try to avoid excessive in-text attribution because it strikes me as hard to read and unencyclopedic, and I only use it when required by policies or guidelines such as WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV.) Thanks for the feedback. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:38, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
AIUI attribution cannot directly alleviate a copyright problem per se, but is necessary to avoid plagiarism or the appearance thereof, and is part of what makes an instance of “fair use” fair, so to speak.—Odysseus1479 01:08, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
+1 to Odysseus. :) Dr. Fleischman, the policy is WP:NFCC, which notes that content copied from copyrighted source must be attributed and clearly marked as quotations. (This is used in conjunction with the guideline at WP:NFC.) This is in part because our material meant to be freely used for any purpose anywhere in the world, and we are committed to marking non-free content so that reusers can assess the fair use or free use of that content in their own jurisdiction and for their own intent. What is fair in an online encyclopedia hosted by a nonprofit organization might not be fair in a commercial product; what is fair in the relatively liberal United States might not be legally protected in more restrictive jurisdictions. If the source is not copyrighted, it is handled somewhat differently. The guideline there is Wikipedia:Plagiarism. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:22, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
Just what I was looking for. Thank you. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:59, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Arabic language

The copyright policy page for Arabic Wikipedia seems to be here, but for some reason it is not linked in the languages column on the left. I have tried to add it to the Wikidat list, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q13418068 but have not been able to add it. Does someone know how to make this work?

On a related topic, and I realize this might be a bit of a long shot here, the Arabic translation of the copyvio template for Commons {{Autotranslate|1=File:Angie Abdallah - انجى عبدالله.jpg|base=Copyvionote}} only explains deletion, not copyvio. —Neotarf (talk) 05:56, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Can't we make this page more understandable?

This page, even the lead, is so full of jargon and legalisms, and the text (even the sentence structure) is so complex, that it is almost incomprehensible. It is so complex, and so technical, that it conveys almost no useful information to the average reader. I have sometimes linked to WP:COPYVIO while trying to explain to someone why they can't copy-paste large swaths of material into Wikipedia. But I might as well not bother to link to it, because I don't think anyone, much less a newbie, can understand what it is saying. Seriously, the lead sentence here is One of the most important aspects of Wikipedia is that its text (not media; but that will be discussed shortly) may be freely redistributed, reused and built upon by anyone, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA) and, except where otherwise noted, the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts). Who in the world can understand what that means? Even the nutshell - Do not add content to Wikipedia if you think that doing so may be a copyright violation. - is unhelpful, because how is a naive person supposed to "think" about such issues?

I strongly propose that we come up with a new lead, one that states, clearly and in simple language, something like Pasting or close-paraphrasing material from other sources into Wikipedia is generally a violation of Wikipedia policy, with the following exceptions - and then list when it's OK. If others agree with this idea I will propose some language. Or if this is not the place for such simplification, perhaps an essay could be written that would convey Wikipedia policy in simpler and more understandable terms. We need someplace that we can link to, that will explain to editors why they mostly can't copy-paste stuff into Wikipedia. --MelanieN (talk) 17:24, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi, User:MelanieN. :) You might want to link people to Wikipedia:Copy-paste. It's intended for newcomers. That said, the language here could certainly be made more user friendly. These policies were established before I came on the scene, but I think this one is probably intended more to advise how to address it (so, the internal facing policy) while WP:C was meant to be the one to explain what our policy on adding content is. That said, Wikipedia:Copy-paste was created because it, too, is harder to quickly grasp. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:46, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, Moonriddengirl, that's the link I needed! I'll use it from now on. --MelanieN (talk) 14:29, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Is close paraphrasing acceptable?

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 116#Is close paraphrasing acceptable?. A WP:Permalink to that discussion is here. Flyer22 (talk) 19:24, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Policy - if copyright isn't on the webpage or a section of a website

I have an example for the Velma Pollard article in which the main site for the university is copyrighted but without copyright tags on each webpage. There's a section where the document resides and the cited document itself don't indicate that the content is copyrighted.

Is use of the pdf document a copyright violation? I would assume, yes, that it would fall under the university policy. It would help to have your input, though, that I'm on the right track. Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 23:38, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Replied

Hey there replied on the talk page of India. I suggest you count the lines carefully this time. Thanks a lot buddy. Mousanonyy (talk) 22:21, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Listing contents of copyrighted work

If a copyrighted work contains a form of annotated list or bibliography with comments or encyclopedia of other works, is it a copyright violation to simply add the titles of the listed works without any of the annotations to wikipedia? John Carter (talk) 18:50, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

John, it is always good to wikilink the background discussion you are referring to. It is located at Talk:Bibliography of encyclopedias#Copyvio?. Solomon7968 07:43, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I Should have thought of that myself. John Carter (talk) 16:15, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 January 2015

I Have A VALID Request To Add A Violation. May i Do IT ? Xxxbaconboy88xx (talk) 17:22, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format.  B E C K Y S A Y L E S  17:41, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 January 2015

103.22.172.148 (talk) 08:53, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Not done: as you have not requested a change, but I suspect you are in the wrong place, as this page is only to discuss improvements to Wikipedia:Copyright violations.
If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Given the nature of this page, you will also need to reach consensus before any significant changes are implemented. - Arjayay (talk) 09:05, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

would you like to go to — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:3792:75A0:E1F9:9188:3778:BC43 (talk) 23:09, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Talk page transclusion: is it a COPYVIO or ATTRIB problem?

Feedback of knowledgeable editors is sought regarding the transclusion of one talk page discussion to another, wherein

(1) all talk page comments have been previously signed and dated by those editors participating in the discussion; and

(2) the following notation is included in the transcluded discussion:

"This ongoing discussion is transcluded from Talk:__________. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to this discussion.
"The foregoing discussion regarding this template was started on another talk page (see link here), and transcluded to this talk page on __________, 2015, in order to give all concerned editors the opportunity to participate."

Question: given (1) the existing signatures of all participating editors and (2) the specific notation of the transclusion and hyperlink to the original talk page discussion, does the transclusion constitute a violation of either WP:COPYVIO or WP:ATTRIB? Thank you, in advance, for any feedback provided.

Please note: I am simultaneously posting this request for feedback here and the talk page of WP:ATTRIB. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 10:45, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Attribution is definitely not the place to post this. WP:ATTRIB is a page for a failed proposal to merge Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research which did not gain a consensus. Attribution in the sense you are using it here is covered in the guideline WP:PLAGIARISM. -- PBS (talk) 11:08, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
WP:ATTRIB was cited as one of the two policies which required the deletion of the following user talk page discussion to a template talk page discussion: [23].
Is it your concern that when a page is trancluded that the history of the trancluded page does no show up in the history of the main page and therefore is a licence violation of CC BY-SA 3.0? -- PBS (talk) 11:08, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
@PBS: I am not the objecting party; I am the editor who attempted to transclude the discussion which was deleted by another editor for alleged violations of WP:ATTRIB and WP:COPYVIO. Given that the deleting editor cited this policy and WP:ATTRIB, I came here (and the WP:ATTRIB talk page) for advice. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:20, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
Context can be found at: Template talk:Infobox college football player and [[Us]er talk:Dirtlawyer1/sandbox]]. My understanding is there was an effort to transclude the sandbox with the template talk page. — Ched :  ?  12:41, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
Actually, Ched, there was an effort to transclude a user talk page discussion to the template talk page for purposes of expanding an ongoing discussion to additional participants. Please see this diff [24] for how the transclusion appeared before it was deleted for purported violations of WP:ATTRIB and WP:COPYVIO. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:20, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I found that all a bit confusing, but I don't often use that "transclude" function. Did I get the right pages listed in my links? I'm also not clear on why multiple people were discussing that in your sandbox, did they show up uninvited and start editing where you were attempting to formulate a post to the template in question? If that's the case, I can speak to them if you'd like. — Ched :  ?  13:51, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
The problem occurs when DL twice copy-pastes the contents of his sandbox, including other editors' contributions into a template talk page. Here are the diffs: first copy-paste at 01:08 UTC and second copy-paste at 01:43 UTC. That's what I explained to him was a breach of ATTRIB in this diff at 01:30 UTC (after the first copy-paste but before the second}. I was clearly ignored. He had just reverted three different users who edited the template page and was attempting to invent support for his actions. He still hasn't explained why he hosted a discussion in his own userspace sandbox, nor why he didn't notify the watchers of the template talk page.
As for the attempts at transcluding his sandbox into a template talk page, I have explained that is a really bad idea because of the transient nature of userspace and sandboxes in particular. Nobody does that. His best bet would be to move his sandbox into a more permanent namespace and provide a link to it on the talk page as a preamble to starting discussions there - the proper place for such debates. --RexxS (talk) 14:57, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
Ched, please follow the link provided to see how the transclusion appeared on the template talk page before it was reverted. Your question regarding why people were editing my user talk page appears to be irrelevant the question asked. At the top of this thread, this question was asked: was the transclusion of a user talk page discussion to a template talk page, with the above-referenced notations and hyperlink, as well as a complete list of all contributing editors, a violation of WP:COPYVIO and/or WP:ATTRIB. The tentative feedback we are getting is that neither of those policies apply to the circumstances. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:11, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
Rexx, first WP:ATTRIB does not apply; apparently you meant to cite the WP:PATT subsection of the WP:Copying within Wikipedia policy, which includes the terms of use. You have not yet explained why (1) the copying with full attribution of every edit by every participant by means of time-spaced signatures, constituting a complete list of all participants, and (2) the transclusion of the same discussion, with a hyperlink to the original, with the same time stamped signatures, does not satisfy the terms of use regarding attribution. It appears that you have (a) cited the wrong linked policies, and (b) ignored the policy that actually applies, WP:Copying within Wikipedia, and do not seem to comprehend that such copying and transcluding complied with several of the methods permitted for attribution under the terms of use. Please address the issues you raised in reverting me three times, to wit: alleged violations of WP:COPYVIO and WP:ATTRIB; further attempts to change the subject will be ignored. You have accused me of violating two policies, neither of which actually applies to the circumstances, and have yet to explain why the copying/transcluding does not comply with the policy that actually applies. Let's focus on the issues you raised in reverting me three times, and not try to change the subject again. Thanks. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:11, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict) You're wrong once more. Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia is a guideline, not a policy and explains how to avoid breaching ATTRIB and COPVIO. Its opening sentence is "Wikipedia's licensing requires that attribution be given to all users involved in creating and altering the content of a page." That is precisely what WP:ATTRIB spells out in detail. The first words of Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia link to Wikipedia:Copyrights. Both of those policies apply to you when you copy and paste the contributions of other users from one page to another:
Did you make those copy-paste edits or not? In your haste to manufacture support for your edit-warring, you copy-pasted other user contributions from your userspace to the template talk page. Even though I explained the problem that causes, you did it again. Can't you understand that those other editors didn't edit the template talk page and because you didn't link the page where they actually made their edits, there's no page history where their contributions can be verified? And why did you think that hosting a discussion in your sandbox was a good idea? Why did you selectively invite only a small group to comment there? Why did you think that any agreements in your userspace would count as consensus on the actual template talk page? Indeed, let's focus on the real issues, and not your smokescreen of trying to blame others for your mistakes. --RexxS (talk) 21:55, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to suggest that all parties let go of the copyright issue, and focus instead on the original task of continuing the infobox discussion. Copyright aside, there is no consensus that transcluding the discussion from the user page is necessary in this case. As for copyright concerns, attribution could have been addressed in an edit summary or by use of {{copied}} in lieu of outright reverting, or the user page could have been simply moved into the Wikipedia or template talk namespace. Let's agree that other alternatives were possible by all parties to address any copyright concerns, and return to solving the primary concern of the infobox.—Bagumba (talk) 21:28, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Would Dirtlawyer like me to move his sandbox to Template talk:Infobox college football player/Parameters and create a prominent link to that from the talk page? That would preserve the page history of contributions while reducing the chance of the page being deleted by the user at some point in the future per WP:PATT. --RexxS (talk) 21:55, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
I'm going to suggest this be taken up at Template talk:Infobox college football player, so as not to clutter this talk page. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 22:07, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Translation of Pages and copyvio

Is an almost direct translation of a foreign language source a copyright violation. I seem to remember reading somewhere that it was but can not remember where. If so could you point me to the right place and how for instance would I tag it. By way of example I am thinking about the second section of Ali Aliyev (wrestler).Peter Rehse (talk) 18:19, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, an almost direct translation of a foreign language source is a derivative work - the right to make translations is reserved to the copyright holder. It should be handled as any other copy-paste would be. In this case, I have removed it and have spoken to the contributor about it. :/ Thank you so much for finding this problem, Peter Rehse! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:35, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
Thank you.Peter Rehse (talk) 14:30, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

fair use

why no mention of fair use on this page? Namecheapblues (talk) 07:51, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't rely on fair use, Namecheapblues. Instead, we have our non-free content policy and guideline, which are mentioned. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 09:57, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

When is copying a copyvio?

Hi. usually we read and find and source information and if of good quality and such that it will add value to an article we rewrite it, retaining the concepts, ideas, claims etc. Alternatively, depending of a number of factors, we might use a short piece verbatim in quotation marks. So if I find a section that is not in quotation marks, but is copied word for word from the source, the source is credited, what is the procedure? I could of course just rewrite it, but should I come across such an occurrence and not have the time or the subject-specific knowledge to rewrite it, do I tag it? do I remove it? Herewith an example. The editor (no longer around) merely copy-pasted the intro:

  • "In Marxist geography the relations that geography has traditionally analyzed--natural environment and spatial relations--are reviewed as outcomes of the mode of material production. To understand geographical relations, the social structure must also be examined. Marxist geography attempts to change the basic structure of society"

Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 10:13, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi, User:Rui Gabriel Correia. Sometimes in these cases, you can simply put quotation marks around the passage and add the name of the author or work to the text - for that to work, it must be brief and "transformative". I've not found a quick way to describe that, but it means basically that we have to have a good reason to copy their proprietary content. (At WP:NFC we offer the following examples: " illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea. ") If somebody just copied it because we wanted the information, it may not be appropriate to turn it into a quote.
In this case, it would probably be acceptable although not perfect to add According to J. Richard Peet, " before the quote. I don't know how to rewrite that either, and it's not that long.
If it were lengthy, you could remove it or cover the section with {{copyvio}} to flag it for others to remove or rewrite.
Of more concern to me, though, is that people who did this once usually do this regularly. If you can, it's always a good idea to spot-check their contributions to see if they made a habit of this If so, we sometimes need to open a WP:CCI to facilitate cleanup. I'll take a quick look at this gentleman's edits and see if this was a more widespread problem.
Thanks much for noticing and caring about this issue. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:17, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks Moonriddengirl for such a detailed reply — it equips me to deal with other situations in the future. And you hit the nail on the head - "people who did this once usually do this regularly". That was my very thinking. So, thanks for taking a look. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 11:48, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 April 2015

The diagram on this page is copyrighted by me. I am the author of the dissertation entitled "An Ecosystemic Assessment of Families of Children with Cancer Returning to School." The diagram was created with my dissertation chair, psychologist Dr. Felise Levine. The diagram is also copyrighted in my current book, What Every Mental Health Professional Needs to Know about Sex, Springer Books, 2013. Please either attribute the diagram to me or remove it from the entry. Thank you. Stephanie Buehler, MPW, PsyD, CST-S.

  • Buehler, S. (1999) An ecosystemic assessment of families of children with cancer returning to school. Doctoral dissertation.
  • Buehler, S. (2013) What Every Mental Health Professional Needs to Know about Sex. New York, NY: Springer Books.
There is no diagram on this page, and you do not provide enough information to identify the diagram or the page it is on. You need to provide more details so the image can be identified, such as the name of the file, the article it appears in, or both. Any copyright image without proper permission should be removed promptly but it needs to be identified first.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 01:04, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I think that the documents are not the most important problem, but her behavior.she never does my mum because she didn't do something like a mum,for me she is a normal woman who gives me life — Preceding unsigned comment added by 105.168.70.197 (talk) 18:47, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

using public domain and CC-BY source material

As someone who has negotiated CC-BY access to various source material for use in Wikipedia articles, I am tired of having these flagged as copyright violations for speedy deletions despite the articles containing a clear statement of attribution. What can be done to prevent this? Latest example: David John Garland. Kerry (talk) 23:54, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 March 2016

Kkhorshed (talk) 11:42, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

 Not done as you have not requested a change, but I suspect you are in the wrong place, as this page is only to discuss improvements to Wikipedia:Copyright violations.
If you want to suggest a change, please request this on the talk page of the relevant article in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 12:37, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 March 2016

At the beginning of the Ty Pak biography change "Ty Pak (born 1938 in Tae-yong Pak)" to "Ty Pak (born Tae-yong Pak in 1938)". Peter Jooyung Bach Ultar (talk) 02:42, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

This request is misplaced, but the Ty Pak article is not actually protected and it appears the OP has figured out how to make the change himself.—Odysseus1479 04:07, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Landslide pier

What is a landslide pier, please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.44.185.245 (talk) 08:47, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 July 2016


DJ BULGARI (talk) 19:23, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. --Majora (talk) 19:50, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

complaint

Hello, I have a complaint on an administrator User:Diannaa who is claiming that there is something wrong with the article scaly-foot gastropod. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scaly-foot_gastropod&type=revision&diff=729994365&oldid=729983893 The article is currently under the GA review, the reviewer also found no copyvios. The resource is under the CC-BY-4.0 license and it is properly referenced and attributed in the "scaly-foot gastropod article" like this: "This article incorporates Creative Commons (CC-BY-4.0) text from references ...". That is really annoying and disturbing if an wikipedia administrator is erroneously arguing like this User_talk:Snek01#Scaly-foot_gastropod. Thanks for your attention. --Snek01 (talk) 21:55, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

According to the WMF legal team, CC BY-SA 4.0 is not backwards compatible with CC BY-SA 3.0. Compatible licenses are listed here. Therefore we cannot import the prose verbatim. It has to be paraphrased. — Diannaa (talk) 21:59, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
Hello, Snek01. At this point, unfortunately, we have to treat CC By SA 4.0 sources just as we do any other copyrighted content that we do not have license to use. If you look at the chart on the page Diannaa linked, you'll see that CC-By-SA 4.0 is listed as incompatible - this is on the input of the legal team. Content taken from CC-By-SA 4.0 sources must be fully paraphrased until we can resolve this licensing issue. :/ --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:40, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
Diannaa, I have received an email from Snek01 explaining that there is some confusion here in that the source is CC-By 4.0 and not CC-By-SA 4.0. Snek01, it's okay to plainly and transparently on wiki call that out. The two letters do make a big difference and, being two letters, are not a difficult confusion to make! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 09:11, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for your help sorting this out. I have restored the edit and apologised to Snek01 on his talk page for my mistake. — Diannaa (talk) 12:14, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

I have noticed that articles such as Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time do not include the full list of songs due to copyright concerns, however, other articles such as Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1976 contain the full list as published by Billboard magazine. The Billboard year-end lists were the product of their proprietary research and are unique to that publication. Is this a copyright violation? I would have replaced the text with a copyvio tag but this series of articles (there are dozens of them) have been in place for years, apparently without any concerns raised. Piriczki (talk) 15:01, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

There is now a discussion underway on this same subject at Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems#Long standing articles that may be copyright violations Piriczki (talk) 21:16, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

What if someone copy contents from Wikipedia? e.g. Earwig's Copyvio Detector showing 72.5% possible violation at Ayesha Khan (see copyvio result) and I just notice this video was published on June 7, 2016 when the contents was already available on Wikipedia so What to do? Thank you – GSS (talk) 17:26, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Public domain

Hello, Is it allowed to copy text to Wikipedia from an old book (<1900) of which the publication is now in the public domain? (of course giving the reference and note that the text has been copied) Thanks, Sander.v.Ginkel (Talk) 12:56, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Updated DCV with current practice

I've updated WP:DCV to document the current practice, which skews towards removal and directly requesting revision deletion rather than listing at WP:CP. The edits can be seen here. I'm obviously open to tweaks, but as this is almost the universal practice nowadays, and the advice that most admins give to people when dealing with copyvio, I thought the policy should reflect that. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:03, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 April 2018

Chhavi faujdar (talk) 18:45, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: as you have not requested a change.
Please request your change in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 18:48, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Tapan kumar seceret officer tapan 15:24, 22 April 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by TAPAN KUMAR seceret officer (talk • contribs)

Looking for help with copyvio tool

Looking for help with copyvio tool

Hello,

I'm an admin on w:mr. We are trying to enforce "no copyvio" policy there and use WMF lab's CopyVio tool (https://tools.wmflabs.org/copyvios/ ) extensively. We come across text that's been copied from w:mr onto blog sites and the like. Often, we're able to identify it as such (Wikipedia --> blog). Sometimes, we cannot find the date of publishing on the blog and cannot determine if the copy was (W --> blog) or (blog --> W).

I'm sure many of you have come across this situation. What did you do?

I read a bit here and searched for this info but couldn't find anything. Your help is much appreciated.

If this question is better asked elsewhere, please point me in that direction.

Thank you.

अभय नातू (talk) 20:23, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

admin, 'crat: w:mr

Hi, @अभय नातू:. I'm unsure if this is helpful with Marathi language websites, but we often use the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to examine previous versions of a website. Simply enter a website address and, if it has been archived, previous versions will be listed with the archived date. — CactusWriter (talk) 02:58, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

@CactusWriter:, That's a great suggestion. I will try it. Thanks. -- अभय नातू (talk) 16:47, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Another tool

Not new, but I didn't know about it until recently, and have found it effective: User:Ahecht/Scripts/CVD.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:41, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Trypophobia article -- using wording from quoted text

Opinions are needed at Talk:Trypophobia#Latest changes. The discussion concerns whether or not it is fine to quote this source as much as desired without the use of quotation marks, and whether or not we should always use a source's exact words. Regarding the latter, the question is whether it's WP:Original research to use our own wording as opposed to a source's exact words and whether wording like this needs to be tagged as WP:Weasel. The discussion additionally concerns stating things in Wikipedia's voice when sources disagree, the research is new, and/or there is no consensus in the literature on the matter.

On a side note: The Trypophobia article contains an image that some find distressing. So a heads up on that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:23, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 October 2018

197.0.4.42 (talk) 07:09, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
 Not done ―Abelmoschus Esculentus 11:41, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 November 2018

171.253.141.186 (talk) 10:04, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. DannyS712 (talk) 10:18, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 December 2018

223.187.189.163 (talk) 07:13, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. DannyS712 (talk) 07:37, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 December 2018

66.181.180.50 (talk) 04:23, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. DannyS712 (talk) 07:04, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Confused "Dealing with..." paragraph needs a re-org

The second paragraph of section Dealing with copyright violations is disorganized and confused, has little to do with the section title topic, and needs a re-org. It starts off talking about what isn't a CV (backwardscopy, licensing reasons), then digresses into a how-to for providing shareable licensing (which should be a separate section), then back to other issues that are not violations (public domain; already appropriately licensed).

There is little in this long paragraph concerning the section title, i.e., actually dealing with what are copy violations. Most or all of the text needs to be appropriately set off in its own section (possibly "False alarms", "What CV is not", or similar). In addition, the paragraph is long enough by itself that it should probably be broken up with a couple of subsection headers (perhaps "backwards copy", "licensing issues", or similar), and depending what the top-level section is called, some of it might need to be moved out to another section.

If no one responds after a time, I'll make a BOLD attempt that I think will be an improvement and hopefully won't ruffle any feathers except perhaps in minor details. Hoping for some feedback first, though. Mathglot (talk) 23:33, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

New addition at WP:Copying within Wikipedia

See Wikipedia talk:Copying within Wikipedia#Proper attribution. A permalink for it is here.

Anyone interested in commenting on this there? Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 21:13, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 May 2020

1.47.111.53 (talk) 07:50, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Victor Schmidt (talk) 07:51, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Commons images

If commons images are nominated for deletion as suspected copyvios, should they be removed immediately? Under what circumstances is it acceptable to restore Commons images that have been removed as probable copyright violations? The issue is that commons deletion discussions, even obvious ones, can linger for months without closing (due to long backlogs), leaving copyrighted images on Wikipedia for an extended period. buidhe 20:19, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Making it clear that copyvio tags should not be removed

At present, the text for the {{copyvio-revdel}} tag says "Note to others: Please do not remove this template before an administrator has reviewed it". However, the relevant user warning only makes reference to {{copyvio/core}} being removed, and neither is mentioned at all in this policy - thus we have a position where people can de jure willy-nilly go about removing copyright violation tags. De facto, I don't think this is the case - I think it's a pretty clear and obvious consensus that you shouldn't do that - but following on from a discussion I had about that user warning with Bsherr, I thought I'd raise it here.

In effect, the proposal I am making is to insert something like this under the "Dealing with copyright violations" heading:

Copyright violation tags

Once a copyright violation tag has been placed, it is generally inappropriate to remove it until the problem has been addressed by a sysop, unless you are certain that the content of the article is not a copyright violation. If there is doubt over the copyright status of material, do not remove the tag, and wait for a sysop to address the issue. The user who added the contested content should never remove copyright violation tags attached to it; if they wish to contest the tagging, they should explain their reasoning on the article's talk page, and/or follow the relevant copyrighted material donation procedure. If the user who added the contested content is a sysop, they should not normally review the content themself, unless the tag has been placed blatantly and obviously in bad faith; rather, they should wait for another sysop to address it.

The exact wording I'm not fussed over, but something to that effect would be good IMO. Thoughts? Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 15:53, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

This looks fine as a general principal, but I'm very wary of the word "never". Anyone can add that tag, so we may get bad-faith additions or incompetent ones where the supposed source of the copyright violation is clear that the content is copied from Wikipedia, rather than vice-versa. There seems to be a bias on Wikipedia towards those who mark other people's work rather than do any themselves, regardless of whether taggers have any more competence than content creators. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:53, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
@Phil Bridger: I'm effectively proposing the same standard we use for CSD, because much like CSDs, we don't want users removing their own copyvio tags. In the same way as CSD, if it's not apt, then someone will be along to remove it. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 14:57, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
I also offer general support to this, but think we might want to put in the tiniest of caveats. To offer a practical example: a little while back, I reviewed a page for NPP and Earwig turned up a copyright violation which I noted on the talk page. It turns out the text in question was freely licensed (oops) and thus perfectly fine. Let's say that instead of going to the talk page I had tagged the page as a copyvio, and that the author had subsequently removed it, explaining in their edit summary. I wouldn't want them to have technically violated policy and have to rely on IAR. That said, I find it very hard to imagine a situation in which an erroneous copyvio tag could not be dealt with through appropriate channels by another editor, so I would have no big concern if this was adopted as written. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:34, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb: Is there a reason why that couldn't be dealt with in the same way as CSD is - i.e. a big button to put a message on the talk page, which the deleting/revdeling/whatever admin can review? Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 19:43, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
That sounds fine to me; like I said above, I would have no big concern with this. It's a tradeoff between making copyright-abiding editors go through a little extra process to resolve erroneous tags and making it easier to deal with copyright-infringing authors who resist. I'm not involved enough with copyright to know which of those two situations is more common, but that should factor into the decision here. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:50, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Copyvio content is often added by individuals who did not create the article. Is this excluding any major contributor from removing the tag? If the author removes someone else's violation do they need to wait until someone else comes along to review it? What is the average turnaround time from tag to consideration? Nosebagbear (talk) 09:22, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
    @Nosebagbear: My intent wasn't to exclude any major contributor, only the person who introduced the copyvio that's been reported - but I'm not too fussed on the specifics of that point. If the author removes someone else's violation, do they need to wait until someone else comes along to review it? - well, unless they're a user with revdel power, yes, by definition. And if they are a user with revdel, well, would hope that a revdel'ing admin would know better than to introduce a copyvio
    As to the average turnaround time, I can only talk about my personal experience here, not being an administrator myself, but for me over at 51Give it took between two and five days the two times that I had to request revdel. As of posting this, the RD1 queue is backlogged, so both of those things suggest that there is opportunity for people to remove tags. I'm pinging in here the two admins who did the revdel on 51Give, Primefac and Nthep, who may be able to give some additional useful perspective. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 11:51, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
    I'm not sure what I'm being asked about here; are we talking about changing a template or this guideline? I've dealt with revdel tags that were weeks old; it's a weird form of banner blindness that I'm not too bothered about; once the text has been removed no one really cares what happens in the follow-up (or at least, not enough to remove the {{revdel}} request). Primefac (talk) 02:09, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
    @Primefac: The problem is when a persistent vandal adds content again over the copyvio revdel tag, which I've seen happen at least once and I think a couple of times. Normally that's a copyvio too and the vandal can just be blocked on that basis, but sometimes they add other non-copyvio content over it. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 16:01, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
    I'm with Primefac here, I tend not to look at the banner as I'm concentrating on the revisions that need to be revdel'd. Nthep (talk) 14:15, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
    Naypta, How do you define backlogged? I think these items should be handled relatively quickly, but they aren't emergencies. At the time I wrote this, there are 6 items in the queue, 4 our which are form today, one from yesterday, and one from the day before. That's not much of a backlog. S Philbrick(Talk) 14:49, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
    @Sphilbrick: Honestly, I think I was probably looking at the definition used on WP:AN, which I think is the default category definition of five items or more - but I don't remember now, I'm afraid, as it was a few days ago. I'm not trying to suggest that they're emergencies - they're not, clearly - but the fact that some of them are from yesterday and the day before shows that there is sufficient time for someone to remove the tag before an admin gets to it, keeping the copyvio in. There's two ways of addressing that - either faster admin responses, which I don't think should be the way to go about it here bc sysops have enough on their plates already, and this is hardly urgent work, or preventing copyright notices being removed, in the way that my suggested addition to the policy addresses. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 16:28, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
    Naypta, Thanks for the response. I have concerns about the proposal as written, and concerned that addressing the wording issues turns into a tar-baby. I have another thought, and not even sure if it is technically possible. What if adding the tag, added the article toa cat (as it does now), but removal of the tag by a non-admin did not remove it from the cat? I think your concern is that someone, especially the editor who added the potential problem, might remove the tag, and it would never come to the attention of an admin. If so, my proposal makes sure an admin looks at it. S Philbrick(Talk) 18:26, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
    @Sphilbrick: That would solve the same issue, but I'm not sure why you'd do it that way. AFAIK that's not something MediaWiki natively can do, so you'd have to get a bot to maintain a list somewhere, rather than having a category as-built-in to MW - what's the advantage of doing it that way over the way I've proposed? Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 22:14, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
    Naypta, Because there are some definitional issues you've said you're "not too fussed on the specifics of", but I am. You've been around long enough to know that it isn't sensible to talk about "The author of the tagged article...", except possibly when there has only been a single editor, which is rare. Presumably you mean the editor who added the material that caused the need for the tag, but while that is often easy to determine, it might not always be true. I think you want the editor who created the possible problem to be prohibited form removing the tag (and I'm sympathetic) but if we are going to handle this by writing policy, we need to consider edge cases. Plus, if we want to wordsmith (and if we are writing policy, we need to wordsmith), the literal wording of your wording would mean I was wrong when I did an RD1 removal, then removed the tag. You obviously didn't mean that, but that's what you said. My alternative approach may not be technically feasible, but it avoids the need to do the wordsmithing. S Philbrick(Talk) 22:29, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
    @Sphilbrick: Apologies for the confusion - I didn't mean to suggest that this was a "cut-and-paste" proposal for addition to the policy. Rather, I wanted to gauge community reaction to something along these lines, not the specific wording - if nobody thought it was a good idea in its concept, it would be fairly useless to sweat the specifics of something already opposed by the community. I'm more than happy to do the necessary wordsmithing - and of course, the vast majority of articles do not have a single author, or else we wouldn't be much of a wiki
    I've updated the proposal to make it slightly more like what might appear in the actual policy - what do you think? Certainly not suggesting this is perfect, either, but it's a vague attempt in that direction now, which it wasn't before. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 10:11, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
    Naypta, Definite improvement. S Philbrick(Talk) 12:08, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Surely the fact that it can take a week or so for this to be removed even if it has been added in error means that we should allow article creators to remove it in clear-cut cases? We shouldn't have such tags on articles for any longer than necessary. In the case of speedy deletion tags they are usually removed within a few hours so we can reasonably wait for someone else to remove the tag. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:49, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I think the main issue here is that there seems to be a popular assumption on Wikipedia's non-article pages that people who add tags to articles automatically know better than people who write articles. That is not the case. I have come across many editors who only add tags to articles because they haven't got a clue about how to write them or to find sources for them. The real issue is that we need to address the people who think that they are qualified to mark other people's work when they are incapable of doing any themselves. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:57, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
    (edit conflict) @Phil Bridger: Is copyvio tagging abuse a thing that happens, though? It seems to me that for the minor inconvenience for an article creator that there might be to have to wait a little while for an admin to check the talk page and remove an inappropriate copyright tagging, which wouldn't happen all that often, it's worth it to avoid issues with people who are not here to WP:BUILD removing copyvio tags in bad faith, which definitely does happen.
    As to people who don't know what they're doing tagging articles, well, that's a very different issue, but RD1 is a very strict criterion - and if a tag was invalidly placed, as I've said, it would be removed. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 16:01, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
    Very rarely do I see a revdel request that is placed that doesn't result in an RD, and the exceptions are generally when it's a not-too-obvious reverse copy. It's not like people are using RD1 requests as a backdoor to win an argument (e.g. I revert your change and then RD1 it). Primefac (talk) 17:20, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
    For evidence that articles are tagged as copyright violations when they are not see, for example, the history of 6th New York Cavalry Regiment. Three different editors tagged this for copyright violation even though in the very first edit it was pointed out that the content was public domain, and each time it was tagged it was also pointed out. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:56, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
    @Phil Bridger: In such a case, is there a problem with either someone who did not add the material themself removing the tag, or with the reviewing administrator checking a note on the talk page contesting the tagging, rather than with the person adding the material removing the tag themselves? It strikes me that would be an actively better way of dealing with that situation, as it means someone uninvolved can ensure that the public domain rationale is genuinely valid, and ensure that there's no reasonable doubt left for people to re-add the tag. It would also offer an opportunity for {{PD-notice}} or {{Source-attribution}} to be added, if it wasn't there already. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 22:05, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
    The problem is that nobody other than the article creator notices that the tag has been added - you yourself linked to evidence that it typically takes several days for anyone else to come along. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:18, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
    Well, no, adding the tag to the article adds it into a queue for a sysop to look at, so they're not piling up unreviewed. They do all get looked at, so an objection could be considered at that point, even if no other editors have seen it since; my point was just that it sometimes (understandably, not meant as a slight towards the sysops!) takes a little while to get done, which gives the opportunity for people to illegitimately remove the tag. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 22:22, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
  • A related issue should be addressed here. When the original author has by various means changed sufficient words from a well written source text to pass the Earwig test the result can be somewhat stilted. If another well-meaning author then changes a few words to others in the interest of better clarity, and the article then fails the Earwig test, what action if any should be taken? Downsize43 (talk) 05:11, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
    Downsize43, That's an interesting question, but I'd like to see a real example. I'm guessing it is so rare as to be handled on a case-by-case basis. S Philbrick(Talk) 16:18, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
@Sphilbrick:

The article John Howe (Australian settler) has gone up to 42.2% in Earwig because of well-intentioned changes to words which I had deliberately used to achieve a lower score. I have seen worse cases but none come to mind at present. I also believe that some articles based on ADB have high scores that have been that way from the start and were never picked up. Downsize43 (talk) 21:33, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Downsize43, At what point was the article acceptable? I tried the version on 4 October 2019, and Earwig ranked it as 41.2% Yes, it is now a tiny bit higher, but I think the problem was the 41% not the increment from 41 to 42. The reason I am asking is that is it extremely rare for a passge to be perfectly fine, and have independent editors chnage individual words until it becomes a clear copyright violation. Physically possible, statistically extremely unlikely. S Philbrick(Talk) 22:08, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
@Sphilbrick:, Sorry but I have no record of the original ranking. All I remember is that it went down from a much higher value when I substituted words, like "passed away" for "died" and "interred" for "buried", which have now been reverted. Downsize43 (talk) 23:04, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I would favor this proposal in general. I am not sure exactly how to word thew caution abo9ut the person who inserted the allegedly copyvio text removing the tag. Perhaps the provision already in the proposed wording ...unless you are certain that the content of the article is not a copyright violation. handles this? I do not object to the wording near the top of this thread as it currently stands. DES (talk)DESiegel Contribs 16:24, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Not sure if I'm doing this right...

It appears that much of the content of Amadeo_Giannini#Bank_of_Italy is identical to the audio of This "History Guy" video, but perhaps we should investigate.

Riventree (talk) 07:45, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

"Reproduction in part is permitted exclusively for the exercise of the right to report"?

What about a copyright claim like:

Copyright © 2020 Holy See – Secretariat of State. All rights reserved. Reproduction in part is permitted exclusively for the exercise of the right to report.

This is from the Report on the Holy See’s institutional knowledge and decision-making process related to former Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick (from 1930 to 2017), which has been deemed a possible copyright violation.

The Wikipedia:Neutral point of view (NPOV) policy establishes that Wikipedia is, indeed, simply reporting. Over to the WikiLawyers.

Pol098 (talk) 12:23, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Possible vio at Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time article

I've just opened a discussion at Talk:Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time#Possible copyright vios, again. It concerns whether the inclusion of Wikipedia-generated lists such as "Albums Returning to 500 Greatest Albums of All Time List 2020 Edition" is an issue, because they're reproducing many of the Rolling Stone list's results. (As has been pointed out there over the years – eg. under Copyright discussions – the 2003, 2012 and 2020 RS lists are not arbitrary, or compiled alphabetically or by sales figures. They're creative works, compiled from expert professional opinion.)

Input there would be very welcome. Also, if there's another page worth posting notification on, perhaps someone could ping me with a suggestion. Many thanks, JG66 (talk) 05:01, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Huge quotes in citations

Do we have any guideline for {{cite}} on how much is considered reasonable in a quote within a citation, in order to not violate copyright restrictions? See this fix by me of two ridiculously long quotes by a user who has a habit of including extremely long quotes in citation templates for regular news media. I haven't noticed any guidelines on this, but I see absolutely no point in quoting 25 or 14 sentences from a regular English-language news media source in an ordinary article. I seem to remember that copyright (and plagiarism) guides sometimes give quantitative guides, such as 10% or more of a page in a book is considered to be "substantial". To me it seems common sense that for a regular newspaper article of 5-10 paragraphs, a quote of 1 or 2 sentences would normally be the maximum. Boud (talk) 09:18, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Excessively long quotes are not typically going to be considered acceptable per MOS:QUOTE and WP:NFC#Text in the body of an article, but short quotes are sometimes considered OK. I'd imagine the same would apply to |quote= parameters in citation templates for the same reasons, but I'll ask an administrator who does lots of work with WP:COPY stuff to take a look at this. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:14, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
Short quotations are okay if the material is controversial or likely to be challenged. However, we should not be routinely adding quotations (of any length) from ordinary easily-accessible sources, as per our fair use rules. Please see WP:NFCCP— Diannaa (talk) 11:36, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Copying text from US government websites?

What's the proper procedure for copy pasting text from US government websites? A user did this here. The original source was [25]. We ended up re-writing it so the issue is solved now, but I am wondering about this for the future.

  • Is copy paste from US government websites allowed because of public domain?
  • Does some template have to be added to the page or talk page mentioning the copy?
  • Should I have warned the user in the example above?

Thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:52, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: text by the federal government is in the public domain and can be copied. When copying, it should still be attributed for two reasons: 1) the editor should not claim it as his or her own text, and 2) content on Wikipedia needs to have sources anyway. You can read all about it here: Wikipedia:Public domain#US government works. I recommend using the most appropriate template found in Category:United States government attribution templates inside the normal ref tags. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:44, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Foreign sources translated

@Diannaa:@Moonriddengirl: Here is something that does not seem to be covered under the policy. In Marburg, an editor added a source in German to a paragraph of text. This text is a direct copy-paste of a very accurate machine translation from the source. Does this intermediate use of direct translation amount to copyright violation ? Thanks. Acabashi (talk) 11:52, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Special:Log/pagetriage-copyvio generates a whole bunch of log entries that look like "10:21, 17 March 2021 EranBot talk contribs marked revision 1012676319 on National symbols of Taiwan as a potential copyright violation Tag: PageTriage"

Is this actually useful to anybody? At one time, these bots would place a template on the article, which, and this is very important, stated where potential copyright violation material came from. This newer copyvio log seems completely useless without it.

(Tagging @EranBot and its operator @User:ערן which seems to be the only user generating these entries.) Oiyarbepsy (talk) 18:50, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

It is part of Wikipedia:PageTriage. Links to CopyPatrol reports are in the toolbar. — JJMC89 (T·C) 03:38, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
@JJMC89:The toolbar? I see no such link on the left side of the screen, nor at the top, I can't for the life of me see where it is. Seems like there is a serious lack of documentation on the page. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:05, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
The curation toolbar. In page info under possible issues, the word 'Copyvio' is the link. — JJMC89 (T·C) 06:33, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
Ohhhhh, you're talking about New Page Patrol. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 07:57, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Springer Nature copying Wikipedia

I don't know where else to post this. Can I get some advice on this?[26] ApproximateLand (talk) 01:27, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Copyright problems doesn't seem to be the place to list my concern, so I'll ask on the talk page there. ApproximateLand (talk) 01:33, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Copyright violations has, I believe, more to do with people adding copyrighted content to Wikipedia without the copyright holder's consent, then third-parties using content found on Wikipedia. Wikipedia content is licensed as explained in Wikipedia:Copyrights (see the big pink box at the top of the page), and basically it's free for anyone anywhere to use as long as they abide by the terms of license it's been made available under as explained in Wikipedia:Reusing Wikipedia content.
For what it's worth, there's probably lots of Wikipedia (and Commons) content being copied by third-parties and being reused in some way, including in commercial ways: some of these reusers might even not be attributing the content to Wikipedia (or Commons) and instead are claiming it as their own work (thus basically claiming they own the copyright over it). If you suspect something like this is happening, you might need to contact the Wikimedia Foundation directly, explain the issue and see what they say. There's nothing that anyone here on Wikipedia can do about how Wikipedia content is being used outside of Wikipedia. When editor's edit or create content on Wikipedia, they are (for the most part) basically agreeing to relinquish any claim of ownership over it every time they click on the "Publish changes" button per the wmf:Terms of Use; so, even if an editor finds something they wrote on Wikipedia being used, for example, in a book published by someone else, I don't think there's much they can do about it. Please understand though that what I've posted here is just my understanding of things, and not intended to be treated as any sort of legal advice. You will need to talk with the Wikimedia Foundation or a legal professional if you want to know whether something is "legal". -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:36, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
  • You say Springer Nature published copyright violations of Wikipedia, but you do not say which (what article, where was it copied, etc.).
If you have substantive evidence, you could post at WP:MIRROR (assuming the copyvio is online). The vast majority of such copyvios do not result in a lawsuit. Among other things, the Wikimedia foundation does not hold the copyrights to the Wikipedia articles (individual contributors do), so the WMF would be standing on shaky ground, and individual contributors rarely (never?) bring such lawsuits. TigraanClick here to contact me 09:58, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
Marchjuly and Tigraan, hi. I pointed to an edit I made[27] showing that the reference's phrasing is identical or near-identical to the Wikipedia phrasing.[28] The signs point to the reference lifting phrasing from Wikipedia rather than the other way around. Some publications have also come under fire for copying Wikipedia.[29] One guy said that lifting passages from Wikipedia for his book wasn't plagiarism.[30] ApproximateLand (talk) 23:00, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Plagiarism isn't about people stealing from Wikipedia either. So we're on the same page, I'll say I didn't directly accuse Springer Nature of violating a copyright policy, but I know that copyright and plagiarism overlap and I chose to post on the copyright talk pages because I wasn't sure which page to bring this to the attention of others. If I use this reference, it seems circular. It's using a source for its reliability, but how reliable is it when it got its information from Wikipedia itself? Maybe I should ask about that at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources? ApproximateLand (talk) 23:20, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
If the source being cited simply copied it's content from Wikipedia, then it's not going to considered to be a reliable source per WP:WPNOTRS; however, if you can find out sources are being cited for the Wikipedia article, then you can possibly cite them if they're considered to be reliable sources. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:40, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Template:Copyvio-revdel

I just had occasion to use {{Copyvio-revdel}}. I'm not sure how long it typically stays on a page, but it strikes me that a giant banner is not an ideal way of going about tagging articles that need copyright cleanup, as it presents a giant warning to readers when there is no actual issue on the page currently. It'd be better to have something that only presents a warning as an editnotice or when one views the history. I'm guessing there might be technical barriers to that, but just wanted to make the point that we should be thinking about how to do better in this area. Page banners are intended to alert readers of a potential issue with the current revision of the page, and when there's no issue, they shouldn't be displayed. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 18:17, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

I just placed it recently on Best Buy and was thinking the same thing. Perhaps a small box that can be expanded by the admin dealing with the revdel request (or by curious users)? I mean technically there doesn't need to be anything visual, and the template could just categorize the article as appropriate (which it already does) and maybe keep the parameters for the revision IDs / sources so the admin handling it can verify the issue and revdel as appropriate. Or perhaps move the template entirely to the talk page (with adjustments to make it more like a protected edit request, for example). —Locke Cole • t • c 18:38, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
The notice and display are incredibly useful, because it provides links to the first infraction, the last infraction, and copyvios reports for both to indicate if the content in question actually was removed properly or if there are more. There is a script that assists in the filling in of the {{revdel}} template, though I don't know if it would still work if the template was moved to the talk namespace. Primefac (talk) 18:56, 14 April 2021 (UTC) (please do not ping on reply)
As someone who often places those notices, I think that they are extremely useful in the current state. Not only are they easier to find for the admins who take care of it, but it is meant to be a banner; there is an issue that needs to be taken care of. It's like a CSD template; it has to be taken care of by an admin, and generally those aren't contested, but it looks like a massive banner. There is no problem right now with it, it's working as intended. Besides, those of us who frequently work copyright know that those templates don't stay up very long (sometimes less than an hour). The sysops who take care of RD1 are generally really quick about it (and we appreciate you all!) Besides, the gigantic {{copyvio}} template calls more attention to the problem than the cv-revdel one does. Sennecaster (What now?) 19:34, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
Not only are they easier to find for the admins who take care of it ... easier than just looking in Category:Requested RD1 redactions (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)? —Locke Cole • t • c 21:32, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Agreed. What I would propose is using the CSS classes we have to hide the banner for IP users (the vast majority of our readers), or maybe just collapse it into something very small, and show the full banner to normal users. We could also hide/collapse it for non-admin users, but it is at least somewhat useful for them to see so users know their revdel request has gone through. — The Earwig alt (talk) 19:35, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
...I’ll also take this opportunity to plug my new user script for admins handling these requests. — The Earwig alt (talk) 19:51, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
@Sennecaster and The Earwig: I don't contest that they're incredibly useful, but implied in that is incredibly useful for editors. And per WP:Reader and the documentation for cleanup banners, they should only be shown on a page when there is an issue that readers need to be aware of. CSD templates and such are shown to readers because it's obviously useful for readers to know that a page might soon not exist. I do not see any argument, though, for why readers need to know that a page's history has copyvios, so I think we should at least aspire to find a way to handle this queue that doesn't show a banner to them. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 20:39, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
Yes, isn’t that in line with what I said? Hide it for logged-out users and collapse it for non-admins? — The Earwig alt (talk) 21:15, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
The Earwig, it is, and that would certainly be a big improvement over the status quo. I do have a few qualms, though, about making logged in vs. logged out the fork for whether or not we show pieces of editor-focused information. We want non-editors to log in, so that they can adjust their preferences and be more easily tracked if they do start editing. If logging in starts to come with all these extra notices, it becomes a disincentive to creating and using an account. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 23:05, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
@Primefac: To address Sdkb's concern, wouldn't placing it on the talk page enable all those same things you described but out of sight of readers/uninvolved editors? —Locke Cole • t • c 21:32, 14 April 2021 (UTC) Sorry Primefac, I didn't notice the bit about not pinging until just now :( —Locke Cole • t • c 01:26, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
Not really, it's extra steps for the sysops and there's already so few of them who regularly revdelete RD1s. Article history and talk page history are also separate, so the admin needs to do significantly more page switching. Sure, it's minor, but again, there's already few admins that RD1 in the first place. Besides, most people who regularly handle copyright concerns don't check the talk page. Enterprisey's script to add the {{Cclean}} is my only visit to the talk page normally. None of the current copyvio methods or tools even link to talk pages; how will we know if it's fixed already when we are working from CopyPatrol or a case page that's hundreds of articles long? I think that a CSS autocollapse or even hiding will work best, despite Sdkb's and others concerns about it. Also, I don't think warning notices are discouraging to new editors all the time (as an editor who joined because of a maintenance template). Editing logged in already does come with extra notices anyways; talk page and watchlist notifications do be annoying. Sennecaster (What now?) 03:58, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
Just FYI if there is a change pls be aware that we have talk page and admin templates currently ..see Wikipedia:Text Copyright Violations 101 for brief overview.Moxy- 22:49, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
After reading that I feel like {{cclean}} and {{copyvio}} could be merged as one general purpose talk page template that behaves like protected edit request templates and has a parameter that when set to true disables the categorization. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:26, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
  • I occasionally perform revdels, and I agree that the visible banner is not helpful to me. Either a hidden template or a talk page template would work just fine for me. I just want to see the diff range and have the page categorized into a maintenance category. Now that you mention it, it does seem silly to brightly advertise that the page history contains copyright violations. Thanks for bringing this up! Ajpolino (talk) 01:30, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
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