Wikipedia talk:Copyrights/Archive 4

message: (William M. Connolley 09:20, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Photos from concerts which ban photo-ing...

message: Why is the word libre included in the text after "free" in the fair use section. We don't carry translations of other words and there is nothing underneath the link or in the text to imply any special legal significance of the word? --BozMo|talk 10:05, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a clarification of free (as in speech) as against free (as in beer). PhilHibbs 10:17, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Surely it should be liber, not libre.   :) — Helpful Dave 10:45, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Libre" 

message: There appear to be a number of images on pages relating to this years games that have been lifted directly from the official Athens 2004 website . On reading their Media Guidelines & Contact Information it appears that we may be breaching their re-production guidelines. 
Images that we may have problems with:
*:Image:Archerylogo.jpg
*:Image:Athens 2004 logo.jpg
*:Image:Footballlogo.jpg
*:Image:Route of Olympic Flame Worldwide.gif
*:Image:Route of Olympic Flame Greece.gif
*:Image:Route of Olympic Flame Europe.gif
Scraggy4 23:18, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  2004 Summer Olympics 

message: :PS: while for once in a while the topics treated below are not about what can go "in" Wikipedia exclusively, but on other important topics that relate to copyright too, I copy-paste this to: Wikipedia talk:Copyrights and Warranty Disclaimers (proposal), and propose to continue the discussion there. --Francis Schonken 15:52, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a matter of some concern to me also. The issue of other encyclopaedias "grabbing" WP content is also pertinant. They shouldn't be allowed - WP "knows" who its contributors are, and has histories, these others do not. Bah! People getting confused between "copyleft" and "copyabsent". Sue them all I say :o) <B>zoney</B> ███ <B>talk</B> 00:47, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: It does look like copying and pasting anything that is not solely one author's contribution is against the GFDL. If you export the history that should be fine, and you don't need to link to wikipedia, likewise manually attributing to the authors in the history would be ok. If, however, you copied a chunk of text from one article to another within Wikipedia, and failed to attribute it to it's author (or its constituent parts to the relevant authors) that would be a violation.
(--Francis Schonken 21:51, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

text: Wikipedia content can be copied, modified, and redistributed so long as the new version grants the same freedoms to others and acknowledges the authors of the Wikipedia article used (a direct link back to the article satisfies our author credit requirement)
I want to focus on the last part of this sentence (the part I put in bold), because I have some questions about it (and this is the only discussion I found that relates to some of these questions I have myself):
#It's not only about author credit, but also about wikipedia contributors/authors being copyright holders, in the sense of how GFDL becomes "legal" by using copyright law and its terminology, am I right?
#Presently, the wikipedia:copyrights page gives clear instructions regarding what people have to do when they want to use content from wikipedia articles. As a GFDL requirement, and for whatever just reason that is imaginable, these same people ought to be able to find back any author that contributed to the article (unless the author deliberately obfuscated his name by using an intracable nick, or a TCP-IP number that happens to be non-traceable). From the examples given above, and from personal experience that includes some more "cases" than what is mentioned above in this section, this seems not always to be possible: what can be done about that? Anyway, I'm willing to put my energy in this when someone has clues how this issue can be tackled!
#Presently it is Wikipedia policy that someone wanting to re-use wikipedia content only has to mention "Wikipedia" as source (besides all other obligations following from GFDL). Being a fervent wikipedian myself, I can nonetheless only agree with no individual authors needing to be mentioned (which they should if GFDL is applied in all its severity), when the list of authors of that content is only one (or maximum two, say in extremis three) clicks away when opening the wikipedia URL that is prescribed for the copyright notice in that derived work and if wikipedia web-usability is such that people with few Wikipedia experience immediately find where to click to find that list. Presently this appears to be all but true. What I propose is that a section "Copyright holders" would be added to the Wikipedia:copyrights page that in brief, but unambiguously clear & understandable terms, explains how lists of contributors can be retrieved. Is it OK that I start writing such paragraph on that page?
#Is there a list of all Wikipedia contributors? Maybe there is, but I didn't find it yet? Can someone help me on this one? -- (End of this intervention)
I may add a very concrete suggestion about this problem of authorship attribution ; I have been looking at the question today concerning Wikipedia clones (I posted comments on Wikipedia_talk:Mirrors_and_forks, see under "GFDL compliance and author listing"). Indeed I am among the minority who think that Wikimedia Foundation does not do enough to respect paragraph 4B of the GPDL. Looking throughout clones, I saw that one and only one of them, that is http://www.knowlex.org (example page at http://www.knowlex.org/lang/en/lexikon/Landscape.html ) had the excellent idea to link to the history page on the wikipedia with a text clarifying clearly the meaning of the nick list that is to be found there : The list of all authors is available under this link. I would greatly appreciate a similar improvement from the Wikimedia Foundation, that is a sentence appearing on each page pointing clearly to a non-expert reader that the "history" link is the door to the author list. (Indeed my remark applies to every language version and I should have posted it on Wikimedia, but nobody would have read it there...) --French Tourist 17:21, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Licensing 

message: How exactly an author of a text copied into wikipedia confirms the permission?
(See, e.g., Talk:Florin Popentiu Vladicescu Is it enough?) Mikkalai 00:45, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: How a webpage owner confirms that he gives permission?

message: I had an x-ray of my teeth a while ago, I need my wisdoms out :(
I was wondering who owns the copyright on the x-ray?
I know the guy who did the x-ray (although i don't know if it was him or a student who pushed the button), so he could give me GFDL permission if he had copyright. The problem is that it was done at a Dental School, so do they have copyright over everything their employees produce?
It's my health information, so I own the 'information' (whatever that is), but the film is owned by the Dent School.
I'd appreciate others thoughts/facts on this T 04:57, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: If X-ray photography follows the conventions of other professional photography, the person taking the picture has the copyright unless you agree otherwise with them. I do not know whether this is the case though.
This is an interesting case. UK and European data protection laws say that you have some control over the image, but this is primarly what is *not* done with it, rather than what *is* done with it (for example, the person who took the x-ray couldn't post it on wikipedia without your permission - even if he owns the copyright). I'd contact the dental school and ask them for permission, just to be sure though. Darksun 10:04, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: This is a problem of privacy rather than ownership of the image. The doctor cannot publish your photo (x-ray, etc.) without your consent in the same way as he cannot publish your clinical data without your consent. He owns the x-ray in the same way as the person who takes a photo of you owns the negative. Pfortuny 15:55, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: If someone takes your photograph, sie owns the (copy)rights to it. In some juristictions, there are limitations to how it can be used, and that is especially true for clinical data, I believe. However, the person who took the photo definitely owns more than the negative. — David Remahl 19:00, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: Imagine this thought experiment. A professional photographer takes your photograph. He owns the copyright. If you step into a photo-me boothe, put your dollar in, and get the photo, who owns it? You, or the company that owns the boothe? I think you do. But what if there is a person opperating the booth - let's say loading the film and making sure you are sqaure to the camera, then pressing the button, in much the same way the X-ray technician does. Who owns it?
I've asked my friend to make a copy for me, and i'll try to get a nice digital photo of it. I think the best bet is to ask the dental school, although I don't think they'll actually care. It's unlikely that they'll ever want to publish my boring x-ray in any other source.
In terms of privacy, I always thought a doctor/dentist/etc could use the photos without my permission, as long as I was not identifiable. It'll be quite cool to have my dental records on wikipedia, just in case i ever go missing. :-) I'll try to get a copy of the post-wisdom teeth removal if i can too. T 05:15, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright on tooth x-ray 

message: Although it states that they are PD http://www.history.navy.mil/warning.htm ,
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-w/dd77.htm
are these still PD if has e.g. "Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1971"? I want one for smoke-screen. Dunc_Harris|☺ 19:12, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  US Navy History site: how PD are photos? 

message: I presume that it is ok to make quotations from copyrighted texts, as long as it is clear that it is a quote and a reference given to where it came from? What about long quotes, is there a limit on the length of quotes allowed before it infringes copyright?
:This would often come under fair use. There are no fixed rules on how long the text can be, but you should make it clear it is a quote and cite the source. See Wikipedia:fair use for more about this. Angela. 17:18, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
:Quotations are a well-recognized form of fair use - the Berne convention explicetely reocgnizes it. See Wikipedia:Copyright FAQ. →Raul654 17:22, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
Sure, I agree to your concerns.  I'll post something in that forum a bit later.  Although, my question is because I have about 9 other articles waiting to be posted, all along the same lines.  PZFUN 22:08, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quotations 

message: Hi, if I choose to directly licence text and photos I created under PD, is this possible? Or must anything I write or take be simultaneously licence with the GFDL? --DF08 (English) 17:43, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: All text here is GFDL. Images you can licence under whatever terms you wish, including public domain, despite what the edit war on Special:Upload would have you know otherwise --BesigedB 02:13, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Direct licencing under PD 

message: Is it okay to make an external link to a webpage that does not infringe copyright when some other webpages on the same website does break copyright? Thanks in advance. Andries 15:56, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Question about external links, website versus webpage

message: How are the rules if I translate a Wikipedia article in some language to a Wikipedia artcicle in some other language, for example translations from English to Danish or inverse? Do I have to follow the normal rules of GFDL in such cases, and if so what exactly is required to do so? (The license text is hard to understand)? Byrial 00:02, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Translation of Wikipedia articles

message: dear admin -- please add link pl:Prawa autorskie to interwiki. thanks! =} kocio 08:14, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I assume you meant pl:Wikipedia:Prawa autorskie? I've added that link. —No-One Jones 07:21, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  interwiki pl 

message: Would an admin please add :it:Aiuto:Copyright to the Interwikis? TY, --M7it 20:49, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. —No-One Jones 07:21, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  InterWiki  it: 

message: I'm not sure this is even worth asking, since the Christopher Lee page has an Attack of the Clones screenshot and this is even more minor, but would it violate copyright law to add an image of biochemist Rupert Sheldrake to his Wikipedia page? I figure it's better that I should ask this and wait a few days rather than assume and be wrong. Thanks in advance for any help.
--BDD 22:00, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Photograph of a person

message: I was wanting to use lines from a wikipedia in a Power Point presentation for a class room and I'm wondering how I would place the copyright info. 164.104.1.36 17:58, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Power Point projects 

message: Wikipedia:Copyrights#Contributors'_rights_and_obligations currently says:
:If you contribute material to Wikipedia, you thereby license it to the public under the GFDL (with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts).
which I read to mean that Wikipedia should not contain invariant sections. But then, it also says:
:...if you incorporate external GFDL materials, as a requirement of the GFDL, you need to acknowledge the authorship and provide a link back to the network location of the original copy. If the original copy required invariant sections, you have to incorporate those into the Wikipedia article; it is however very desirable to replace GFDL texts with invariant sections by original content without invariant sections whenever possible.
which is where it gets confusing. That could be interpreted to mean that Wikipedia articles can have invariant sections, but only if the text was licensed under the GFDL for some other purpose prior to being submitted to the wiki (preposterous, I think). I realize that the Wikipedia:Copyrights page is not legally binding, and Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License is what really matters. Can someone please clarify Wikipedia's policy on invariant sections? And if there are actually articles with invariant sections, can someone point out where they are and how they are preserved? ~leif ☺ HELO 21:50, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Or even a non-GFDL license that doesn't allow anything. However I believe that the non-invariance requirement makes sense here, since Wikipedia is by no means required to carry the material and hence it can place arbitrary restrictions (here: the material must be licensed under GFDL with no invariants, else it may not be submitted at all) for the material contributed to it. --SLi 09:15, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Invariant sections

message: :Image:Mkgandhi.jpg
I downloaded the above from http://www.consciouslivingfoundation.org which says that all images there are believed to be in the public domain. I have added a "fairold" tag to it, since the photo is atleast 57 years old, used for informational purposes, and a photo of a famous personality. 
Could someone please take a look at the above image and let me know if the rationale I provided at the image description page is ok? And can we go ahead with using it under vintage fair use? Thanks in advance. --ashwatha 06:10, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gandhi 

message: Are texts from Library of Congress websites in public domain, so are they free to copy them to Wikipedia?  example: Myrtle Hill Cemetery Myrtle Hill Cemetery article was submitted to LOC by one Congressman, but its on public (.gov) site, so it should be free to use. Wikipedia is non-profit educational organization. Darwinek 15:07, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The important part is that Bob Barr wrote that text in his official capacity as a federal employee. Material hosted by loc.gov is not a free-for-all -- you need to check for each individual item -- but that piece is a government work. It doesn't matter that Wikipedia is nonprofit, because text on Wikipedia must allow both nonprofit and for-profit copying. --iMeowbot~Mw 16:33, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Library of Congress texts 

message: Is there a chance, that the American Civil War era photos are NOT in a public domain yet? Specificly, I'm thinking about these. The librarian wrote to me: we are unable to grant permission to individuals or groups wishing to mount images from our collections on their websites. Instead, we ask that links be created directing researchers to the site of the original images. Can we use them then? Pibwl 00:04, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: American Civil War era photos

message: There seems to be an assumption (even implied by our image copyright tags) that works derived from U.S. government works are also in the public domain.  It's not so, derivative rights and license requirements still work as normal.
17 USC 403 expressly recognizes that copyright is afforded to such derivatives, provided that the government and original contributions are identified. --iMeowbot~Mw 00:55, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title 17 Sec. 105 is not viral. 

message: What is the copyright status of the Otto Bettmann Archive images which were acquired by Corbis a few years ago and vaulted in a mine in PA? Does Corbis now own the copyright on all these images as they claim? They have claimed copyright to images in the past to which they certainly do NOT own rights....There are 11 MILLION pieces in the collection. It would be a tragic shame for the entire archive to be locked away under Corbis' thumb forever.--Deglr6328 06:24, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Otto Bettmann Archives

message: As regards section 4 of the GFDL, "MODIFICATIONS", does the article history as available from the "history" link constitute a "section Entitled 'History'" ?
Andrew Rodland 19:46, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  GFDL History Requirement 

message: Can a sysop please add the following interwiki link to the page, directly after the th: link:
 vi:Wikipedia:Quyền tác giả
Thanks. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs, blog) 02:06, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vietnamese Wikipedia 

message: Hi, forgive me if this has been covered anywhere, but I can't find it.
Does it still fall under free use for an album cover, book cover, etc. to edit it? For instance in an article on Joe Blow, can one provide a picture of Joe Blow cropped from the cover of the book the Life of Joe Blow, captioned as "picture of Joe Blow from cover of The Life of Joe Blow" under free use? Does it matter at all if the book is referenced in the article? Gzuckier 15:39, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editing free use covers, etc. 

message: The image :Image:Branstock.jpg is taken from an Internet site. Since it is placed in a relevant article, I judged it to be fair use (such as images taken from movies). If I am wrong, please delete it. I just want to make sure.--Wiglaf 10:28, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Branstock

message: We need better coordination of pages which deal with people who use our articles without permission.  Can someone please link to Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks/GFDL Compliance and perhaps meta:Non-compliant site coordination in a prominent way?  All the relevant pages are hard to find in google, but I just put a link here from Copyright as a start.  Lunkwill 03:16, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need link to [[Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks/GFDL Compliance]] 

message: I have some photos that I took of the location of the monastry at Athelney (located on private land) while I was on a visit as part of my job with Defra. The photographs weren't taken for any official purposes, but as part of an informal record of a training event. The land owner had no objections to photographs being taken of his land, but I didn't think to ask about the photos being used on the Internet. The photographs do not show any people, and do not show anything that could lead to the landowner being penalised by Defra.
In the normal course of events, I would upload the image to the commons with a creative commons liscence (), but as offical works of the UK Government are Crown Copyright would I be allowed to do this?
*I assume that other photos I have taken under similar circumstances, but are taken from a public place would be acceptable?
*What about photographs taken on a visit by Defra staff to a visitor attraction (which doesn't yet have an article) at a time when it was not open to the public? (i.e. they were taken in March or April, but the attraction doens't normally open until May). 
If any of them are not possible for me to upload with a copyleft liscence, would it be allowable to upload them here as fair use or possibly copyright free use? Thryduulf 13:44, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright status of photos taken by a UK Govt worker while on official duties, but not taken for official purposes 

message: I am confused by the text at the bottom of Special:Upload. If I have interpreted it correctly, the following is our policy for image uploads.
# If I own the copyright to an image, then 
## I may upload the image to en.wikipedia under the GFDL
## I may upload the image to en.wikipedia, releasing it into the public domain, or releasing it under an equivalent license such as 
## I may not upload the image to en.wikipedia under any other circumstances
## I may upload the image to the commons under any free licence
# If someone else owns the copyright to an image, then
## if the image is GFDL-licensed, then I may upload the image to en.wikipedia 
## if the image is in the public domain or released under an equivalent license, then I may upload it to en.wikipedia
## in fact, if the image is released under any free license, then I may upload it to en.wikipedia
## if the image is released under any free license, then I may upload it to the commons
Is this correct? If so, then I have two questions:
* Where is this policy documented?
* Are not these rules highly bizarre? The situations 1(3) and 2(3) seem at odds with one another. For example, if I own the copyright to an image and I wish to license it under a creative commons license and place it on en.wikipedia, then I may not upload it myself, but I can release it under the creative commons and then ask anyone else to upload it for me. So in this case the procedure for upload is more complicated for the copyright holder than for a licensee! What's the rationale for this?
I've been trying to find answers to these questions on MediaWiki talk:Uploadtext without much luck so far. Lupin 04:51, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I upload photographs that I have taken and want to release under a creative-commons liscence to the commons, and use the image from there. This seems to be fine. Thryduulf 15:33, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, this is covered above, situation 2(3). I still find it really odd that you can't upload them to en.wikipedia, and I don't know why this appears to be the case or what discussion lead to this policy. Lupin 17:20, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: AFAIU uploading free images to the commons is preferable, as it allows the picture to be used on all languages and projects, rather than just the English Wikipedia. Thryduulf 18:20, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please clarify our upload licensing policy - is it really this bizarre? 

message: The section Wikipedia:Copyrights#U.S._government_photographs is somewhat misleading. Photographs on .mil and .gov websites are only generally PD if they are labeled as having been produced by the federal government. However if they have been produced by contractors of the federal government this is not necessarily true, i.e. Brookhaven National Laboratory has their own copyright policy separate from the fact that they are a DOE national laboratory, as does Sandia National Lab. Additionally, photographs on government websites may not have been produced by the federal government at all. I.e. Los Alamos has a photograph on their website without a credit given  which I happen to know was taken by wire-press photographers and is held under copyright . Some more caution should be injected into this paragraph, because it incorrectly makes it seem that photos from .mil and .gov websites are always in the PD, which is unfortunately not true in a number of important circumstances worth highlighting. Something should be added which implies that you should 1. first check to see if the site has its own copyrights/permissions policy (they often do) which implies something other than it being in the public domain, and 2. one should try to verify as well as possible that the photograph itself was likely produced by the government agency in question (the Los Alamos one above is a pretty hard one to check as there was no obvious reason to suspect it was not produced by the government). --Fastfission 17:07, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: US federal works and websites