# விக்கிப்பீடியா:கட்டுப்பட்ட உள்ளடக்கம்

## Explanation of policy and guidelines

### Background

"Free" content is defined as that which meets the "Definition of Free Cultural Works".  
Material that is not free is permitted only if it meets the restrictions of this policy. This has been explicitly declared since May 2005. The stated mission of the விக்கிமீடியா நிறுவனம், which runs Wikipedia, is "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally." These concerns are embodied in the above requirements that all non-free content must meet, and our policy of deleting non-compliant content. Being generous to the world sometimes means being hard on ourselves. Please understand that these rules are not arbitrary; they are central to our mission.  
Wikipedia distributes content throughout the world with no restrictions on how people use it. Legally, we could use any copyrighted material for ourselves that is either licensed to us by the owner, or that fits the definition of "fair use" under US copyright law. However, we favor content that everyone can use, not just Wikipedia. We want them to be free to use, redistribute, or modify the content, for any purpose, without significant legal restrictions, particularly those of பதிப்புரிமை.  
To honor its mission, Wikipedia accepts incoming copyright licenses only if they meet the definition of "free" use. This is a higher standard than we would need just for our own use. But our ability to use a work does not guarantee that others may use it. We reject licenses that limit use exclusively to Wikipedia or for non-commercial purposes. Commercial use is a complex issue that goes well beyond a company's for-profit status, another reason to be careful. In fact, we reject any licenses with significant limitations. That is not free enough.  
Similarly, Wikipedia imposes higher fair-use standards on itself than US copyright law. There are some works, such as important photographs, significant modern artworks, that we cannot realistically expect to be released under a free content license, but that are hard to discuss in an educational context without including examples from the media itself. In other cases such as cover art / product packaging, a non-free work is needed to discuss a related subject. This policy allows such material to be used if it meet U.S. legal tests for fair use, but we impose additional limitations. Just because something is "fair use" on a Wikipedia article in the US *does not* mean it is fair use in another context. A downstream user's commercial use of content in a commercial setting may be illegal even if our noncommercial use is legal. Use in another country with different fair use and fair dealing laws may be illegal as well. That would fail our mission. We therefore limit the media content we offer, to make sure what we do offer has the widest possible legal distribution.  
We do not want downstream re-users to rely solely on our assurances. They are liable for their own actions, no matter what we tell them. We therefore *show* them and let them make their own decision. To that end we require a copyright tag describing the nature of a copyrighted work, sourcing material saying exactly where any non-free content comes from, and a detailed non-free media rationale for every use of copyrighted content in every article, justifying why use in that article is permitted.  
A further goal of minimizing licensed and fair-use material is to encourage creation of original new content, rather than relying on borrowed content that comes with restrictions.