Wikipedia talk:Copyrights

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The project page associated with this talk page is an official policy on Wikipedia. Policies have wide acceptance among editors and are considered a standard for all users to follow. Before editing this page, please make sure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss on the talk page. Always remember to keep cool when editing. Changes to this page do not immediately change policy anyway, so don't panic.

	Archives for the Copyrights talk page
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 This is not phishing, this is art! Read more here what this is about.

See also:

• Wikipedia:Media copyright questions - ask all questions about whether you can use an image here
• Wikipedia talk:Copyrights/Credit repair - case study relating to external links and attribution
• Wikipedia talk:Copyright violations on history pages

[edit] PD Status of Illinois

Hi. A question has been raised about the PD status of public records in the State of Illinois. Evidently, "Information presented on the Secretary of State’s web site is considered public information and may be distributed or copied. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credit is requested." It doesn't mention modification, and I'm not sure if this is specific enough to be considered a release into public domain. With respect to text, it seems that we could defensibly incorporate extensive quotations, but can we work it directly into text to be modified as we do with US government text? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:04, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

No, it doesn't appear to allow derivative works. --NE2 12:56, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Moonriddengirl's plan makes sense. The policy doesn't allow and it doesn't forbid it either; assuming we know either way would be inappropriate. FYI: {{tl|PD-ILGov} is invalid; see Wikipedia:Public_domain_status_of_official_government_works--Elvey (talk) 19:04, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia

Wikipedia currently has the process pages for Help:Merge and WP:Split, but no clear guideline in place to ensure that contributors understand the attribution requirements for reusing text within Wikipedia. It is brushed on at WP:C, but not clear, and I believe that expanding its coverage there would muddy the waters of that policy's primary purpose. I would like to propose this new guideline to govern Help:Merge and WP:Split and to which contributors may easily be pointed when they inadvertently violate copyright by failing to attribute (and this happens all the time). Feedback and assistance at that talk page in reaching consensus would be very much appreciated. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:10, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] A board & process to address multiple point copyright infringers

• WP:CCI

Wikipedia has several processes in place for dealing with limited copyright concerns--single articles or files, even a small grouping of these--but no workable process for dealing with massive multiple point infringement. While WP:COPYCLEAN has attempted to fill this gap with Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Contributor surveys, this solution is not ideal. It is difficult to publicize and to regulate, and in addition it may seem to suggest exclusivity. I hope that generalizing clean-up will encourage other contributors as well as making it easier to publicize the investigation option at relevant policies and guidelines. (To substantiate the need for this, I need only point out the listings currently at Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Contributor surveys and those few which have already archived. Additionally, these come up routinely at ANI, where response is hit-and-miss, depending on who is reviewing ANI in a given day.) The processes proposed are based on existing policies and practices for handling copyright problems (I've worked with many of these); the board is inspired in large part by WP:SPI. More information is available at the process page and in the purpose statement at the process talk.

I think this is critically needed. Wikipedia has chosen to address copyright concerns proactively, demonstrating due diligence, and when we know a contributor has widely violated copyright, we must have a streamlined process for handling it. The primary point for text copyright issues, WP:CP, cannot handle this specific situation: a listing such as Wikipedia:CCI/Singingdaisies would bring it to a halt.

Please help address this need. Your comments are much welcome at WT:CCI. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:38, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Link to films on Internet Archive that are PD in US but not elsewhere (Things to Come and others)

Discussion moved from Wikipedia_talk:External_links#Link_to_films_on_Internet_Archive_that_are_PD_in_US_but_not_elsewhere_(Things_to_Come_and_others)

An interesting case not explicitly covered in WP:ELNEVER: According to the article about the British film Things to Come the film "lapsed into the public domain in the United States in 1964 [but] copyright remained in force in the UK, the European Union, and elsewhere". The Internet Archive, with headquarters in San Francisco, is thus distributing the film legally in the US. This case is not unique as there are several more films in PD in the US only but that may be copyrighted somewhere else in the world. It would be really sad if WP could not link to theese films. I suggest we change the sentence in WP:ELNEVER
from:
"Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work."
to either:
"Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work or is otherwise distributing the work legally."
or:
"Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work or is otherwise distributing the work legally in its country of origin."
(or some other clarification) and leave the legality of downloading to the websites' visitors. If we instead decide that this linking is not allowed the sentence should be clarified accordingly. --Bensin (talk) 00:21, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Well FWIW, since the servers are in the US, it's certainly legal to link to here. Not if it SHOULD be is a different matter of course... ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 01:10, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Are the links widely functional outside of the US? If not, then they're unacceptable as external links per WP:ELNO #7.

If you haven't already shared this with them, I suspect that this issue will be of more interest over at WP:COPYLINK. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:40, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Bensin's quoting did not include the most pertinent information on copyright, as per the film's page:

"The film came back into copyright in 1996 in the United States under the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), which - amongst other measures - amended US copyright law to reinstate copyright on films of non-US origin if they were still in copyright in their country of origin." (emphasis added)

Despite the recent ruling in Golan v. Gonzales, this remains at best a disputed issue. Nick Cooper (talk) 10:21, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

The fact of the matter remains that the URAA was rendered unconstitutional in the United States and at this time, linking to the above mentioned films would not be violating U.S. law, copyright or otherwise. If the situation is changed in future court rulings, then the wiki can adapt. As long as the sites being linked don't violate any standards, there's no legal exclusion for their use on Wikipedia. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing wrong with it ethically, either.
-K10wnsta (talk) 19:25, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:COPYLINK#Copyright_laws_by_country:

"The Wikimedia Foundation is based in the United States and accordingly governed by United States copyright law. Regardless, according to Jimbo Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, Wikipedia contributors should respect the copyright law of other nations."

In any case, it's rather naive to think that the final word on the URAA has been written, so why link to something that may well have to be removed again later? Nick Cooper (talk) 21:43, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Of course it's naive to think that. I don't think anyone is. But not doing something because it may have to be changed later would be irresponsible methodology. One of Wikipedia's primary advantages is its fluid adaptability. Wikipedia is change.
The rationale behind Jimbo's statement was in keeping with our goal to re-use content on different language wikis. In the case of an EL (not so much article content), while its use here certainly warrants more thoughtful assessment, the ultimate decision should not be influenced in any way by speculation of how the law might change.
-K10wnsta (talk) 21:17, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Some discussion on the recent ruling on Talk:Golan v. Gonzales has put a different slant on this, in that it only applies to the URAA infringing on the rights of "reliance parties," i.e. those who were exploiting PD material at the time the URAA was passed. IANAL, but it seems to me that since the URAA was passed before IA even existed, then IA should not be hosting previously-PD films whose copyright was reinstated under URAA/GATT, which includes Things to Come. Nick Cooper (talk) 04:31, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm more interested in a general guideline for linking to films that are PD somewhere in the world but not somewhere else. Things to Come may have been an unfortunate example. There are a lot of films that are PD just in the US according to List of films in the public domain in the United States, that are not part of URAA and Golan v. Gonzales and that are available on the Internet Archive. If it's allowed to link to these films on the IA i wish it explicitly stated in the guideline. If it's not, I wish that explicitly stated.

WhatamIdoing: Yes, there seems to be some overlap between WP:ELNEVER and WP:COPYLINK. Any chance of merging the two into one guideline? --Bensin (talk) 01:38, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

It should be noted that, despite their policy statements, a production being on IA is no guarantee that it is PD anywhere. Most of the documentaries of Adam Curtis are on IA, and are an interesting example. Although the overall copyright to them is owned by the BBC, they contain much archive material that has only been licensed for TV broadcast use, and in some cases despite high demand it has been stated that it would not be possible to release them on DVD. This has not stopped people from uploading them to IA and claiming them as PD. Nick Cooper (talk) 11:49, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Bensin, personally, I'd put the odds of merging COPYLINK and ELNEVER at basically zero. COPYLINK is part of the copyright policy, and there's no compelling reason to remove it from that context, or to "demote it" to "mere" guideline status. This guideline should (and does) point people to it for more information (because editors might reasonably look here for information on that issue), but COPYLINK "owns" that issue. ELNEVER simply reports what other pages have decided. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing:I see what you mean. In that case I agree that this discussion perhaps better belongs at WP:COPYLINK. Should we move it there? --Bensin (talk) 20:48, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

If you think that the information above requires a specific action from Wikipedia, then yes. Discussions at WP:EL cannot change the text at WP:COPYLINK. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

←I'm not entirely sure what's wanted here with respect to this policy. :) At this point, I don't think I would support amending it to include this specific situation. Policies typically need to remain general to avoid bloat. While the Internet Archive itself may merit the mention it has, it is prone to being cited in any article. This would seem to affect a small subsection. The sentence amendments proposed at the head seem rather specific to WP:ELNEVER. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:29, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree that the policy must remain general. But I want it to also include the case mentioned above, namely when a website is distributing a work worldwide and this distribution is only legal in some areas (for example where the work is in the public domain) but the distribution may be illegal somewhere else where the work still remains copyrighted. I want it to be explicitly allowed to link to sites like these from Wikipeida as it is up to the distributing website to block foreign IP-addresses or up to its visitors to refrain from downloading the material. --Bensin (talk) 17:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, while Wikipedia tries to respect copyright laws of other nations, it is itself bound by US law, which means that if the work is illegal in the United States, it doesn't matter if it's legal in (say) Korea. Our linking to it could be seen as contributory infringement in our own governing nation, regardless of the legality of the material in another country. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 22:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Then I suppose the opposite is also true. That linking to a site that is legally distributing a work in the US is OK regardless of the work's copyright status in other countries. --Bensin (talk) 15:35, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Legally, yes, as indicated in Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights: "While Wikipedia prefers content which is free anywhere in the world it accepts content which is free in the United States even if it may be under copyright in some other countries." However, while consensus can't override the copyright laws that say we can't use if it's copyrighted in the US, consensus can impose stricter standards than law requires. There is Foundation mandate to respect US copyright law; the degree to which we respect (or not) the copyright laws of other nations (as this policy notes Wales says we should) is a matter for community discussion. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:47, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, but by way of a "nota bene": see National Portrait Gallery copyright conflicts. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:48, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights (and National Portrait Gallery copyright conflicts) is referring to material uploaded to Wikipedia, I assume you mean the same is true for external links from Wikipedia to another site by means of extrapolation? --Bensin (talk) 22:32, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sorry if that wasn't clear. Wikipedia is subject to prosecution under US laws, which makes staying within them (including on matters of contributory infringement) mandatory. Everything else is up to community consensus (or additional Foundation mandate). But National Portrait Gallery copyright conflicts is a bit of a warning to contributors that this situation may someday change. Depending on how the dust eventually settles on such matters, it is possible that a contributor could link to a film that is legally free in the United States only to be sued by an entity in a nation where it is not. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:48, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Linkable source for song lyrics

18-Nov-2009: I have found a legal source for song lyrics, LyricsTime.com, which (for 2 years) has had no slow, pop-up adverts, but might not have some particular songs. See:

• http://www.lyricstime.com/show-boat-soundtrack-cant-help-lovin-dat-man-lyrics.html

That webpage, for the musical Show Boat, has a bottom DISCLAIMER:

"You must agree to the following statement or leave this website. All Show Boat Soundtrack - Cant Help Lovin Dat Man lyrics, artist names and images are copyrighted to their respective owners. All Show Boat Soundtrack - Cant Help Lovin Dat Man song lyrics are restricted for educational and personal use only." [bold type from original]

I think that disclaimer sufficiently covers the copyright concerns, and plus having no sluggish pop-up ads (for over 2 years), I think it should be considered an acceptable, linkable source for text that describes or analyzes song lyrics. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:42, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Unless they have legally licensed the lyrics, we can't use it. I don't see any indication that they have been legally licensed. What makes you believe they are legal? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:45, 18 November 2009 (UTC)