Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission
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| The request for copyright assistance page co-ordinates the various issues and requests related to copyright queries about content on Wikipedia. | |
| Preinclusion Help Can I use... | Could we get... | Can I donate... Postinclusion Problem Solving General Copyright Advice and Discussion |
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| This page is part of a series about Copyright on Wikipedia. |
| Policy and information Wikipedia copyright information Processes Items with copy-issues |
- This page is about editors who would like to get permission to use other people's work in Wikipedia. For information on using Wikipedia content in your own work, please see Reusing Wikipedia content.
To use copyrighted material on Wikipedia, it is not enough that we have permission to use it on Wikipedia alone. That's because Wikipedia itself states all its material may be used by anyone, for any purpose. So we have to be sure all material is in fact licenced for that purpose, whoever provided it.
To do this, we must often email or contact the copyright holders and ask them to allow us to use it under the GFDL or a GFDL-compatible license, which would be compatible with how we want to use it. See Wikipedia:Copyrights for more.
The main legal thing that is important to explain to potential contributors: they would be agreeing that their picture (or text) can be used freely by Wikipedia AND its downstream users, and that such use might include commercial use, for which the contributor is not entitled to royalties or compensation. Wikimedia itself is a non-profit organization, and any money raised from the re-use of Wikimedia content would go to furthering our aims—buying new servers to keep the websites running efficiently, producing print runs, making Wikipedia available on CD/DVD for schools and developing countries. However, not all of those who re-use our content are so high-minded.
This means that a contributor's work might appear in print or digital versions of this encyclopedia that are sold in stores. It might appear in WikiReaders, or other specialized subsets of the full text—teacher curriculum packets, publicity brochures, other uses we haven't thought of yet. It will certainly be used by other websites that legally copy our content.
About half the people we ask say yes, especially if it's explained that the license terms mean it is more widely appreciated and that we do not want to use all their material, but just one image or item. See Wikipedia:Example requests for permission for more.
This page explains what must be done, if you want to use content that's copyrighted, whether you know who produced it or you don't.
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[edit] More
It sometimes happens that users post text from other websites claiming to have permission to do so. Sometimes, images from other websites are uploaded and claimed to be under a free license (GFDL, public domain, {{No rights reserved}}, or others.) If the external website does not have any indication that such claims are well-founded, it sometimes is a good idea to try to verify such claims by contacting a representative of that website directly. You should, however, basically assume good faith and judge for yourself whether a claim made appears credible or indeed does warrant following up with an attempt to have it confirmed.
If the poster or uploader claims to be the copyright holder and website owner him- or herself, leave them a message on-Wiki telling them to include a license statement on their website that says that the text or image in question is indeed published under the claimed license. That's the easiest way to confirm such a claim. If they don't do that, or claim to have permission from some third party (usually the original author or photographer), contact them or the third party via e-mail.
If you yourself have found an image and want to contact the photographer or copyright holder up-front to secure permission before uploading the image, you should also follow these guidelines.
[edit] How to ask for permission
Search the external website and try to find a contact address. Most websites give an e-mail address of the webmaster; if the author of the text or the photographer of an image is known, try to contact the author or photographer directly. In general, do not send an inquiry to an e-mail address you find posted on Wikipedia: if you have reason to question a license claim made on Wikipedia, you also have reason to wonder whether contact data given on Wikipedia is correct. Try to find a contact address from a source other than the Wiki. Send them an e-mail explaining the situation and asking for their permission. If authorship is unclear, ask them to confirm that the text or image is indeed theirs.
[edit] For text
Text in Wikipedia articles must be licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. When asking for permission, you should explain that this means that
- The text or image may be freely redistributed and used.
- It may be freely modified, and modified versions may also be freely redistributed and used.
- Any redistribution must include the full text of the GFDL itself.
- In all cases, the GFDL requires proper attribution of the author(s).
- The GFDL allows commercial re-uses provided such re-use is also under the GFDL.
You may also choose to explain that the author does not give up any of his or her rights to use the text: he or she is still free to publish the text elsewhere or to license the same text to other parties under any other license. You may also want to mention that the requirement to include the full text of the GFDL with any redistribution makes stand-alone commercial reuse of the item unlikely in practice.
[edit] For images
For images, you are not limited to the GFDL: any free license will do. If the photographer's identity is unclear (for instance, if an image was uploaded stating the photographer's name and claiming a free license, but the image cannot be found on the web), ask them to confirm that the image is theirs. In any case, ask them to confirm the claimed license. For the GFDL, point out the points mentioned above. Any free license must allow all of the following, for both the image itself as well as any modified versions based on it:
- Modification
- Redistribution
- Use for any purpose, including commercial purposes.
The only restrictions allowable are proper attribution of the creator and the requirement that derivative works are similarly licensed.
[edit] Declaration of consent for all enquiries
Due to the large number of ambiguous answers to enquiries concerning a permission of reuse for an image, text or similar (such as "I allow Wikipedia to reuse my photos") it is advisable to attach to your enquiry email a standard declaration of consent (and point to it in the email), which can be returned by the author/copyright owner in the email reply. The precedent below should be amended, as necessary, with the required additional information:
I hereby assert that I am the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of WORK [ insert link ].
I agree to publish that work under the free license LICENSE [choose at least one from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Copyright_tags ].
I acknowledge that I grant anyone the right to use the work in a commercial product, and to modify it according to their needs.
I am aware that I always retain copyright of my work, and retain the right to be attributed in accordance with the license chosen. Modifications others make to the work will not be attributed to me
I acknowledge that I cannot withdraw this agreement, and that the image may or may not be kept permanently on a Wikimedia project.
DATE, NAME OF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER
The WORK, LICENSE and DATE, NAME OF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER need to be filled out for this to be acceptable. This also helps clarify to the owner what they are agreeing to.
[edit] When permission is confirmed
Once you have received a written/email confirmation that permission has been given, you should forward that written/email confirmation to the Wikimedia Communications committee at the e-mail address "permissions-en AT wikimedia DOT org" (an OTRS address), where it will be securely archived. Forward both your request and the answer received to that e-mail address, preferably together as one message (e.g., as attachments to one message of yours that would say that you received such-and-such release of which article or image). In the confirmation that you forward to "permissions-en AT wikimedia DOT org", ensure that both the Internet URL for the image and the Wikipedia link to that same image is provided so that the Wikimedia PR department may cross reference the Wikimedia uploaded image to the Internet URL image.
After sending the email message to the Communications committee, drop a note on the talk page (not the article itself) or on the image description page mentioning that permission has been sent to the OTRS system, but avoid disclosing unnecessary personal details such as email addresses or telephone numbers. Afterwards, somebody with access to OTRS will come along and tag the article or image with {{PermissionOTRS|ticket=http://linktoticket.org }} providing evidence of the received email and clearing the status of the item in question. Please note that providing the link to the ticket number is essential to easy verification. See also: Wikipedia:copyrights, Wikipedia:Possible copyright infringements, new editors claiming copyright thread on Wikilegal-l
For images, they should be uploaded to Commons before the permission e-mails are sent in to OTRS. The permission E-mail should then be sent to "permissions-commons AT wikimedia DOT org", also an OTRS address. Be sure to include the URL of the image on Commons.
[edit] Typical request letter for confirmation
Dear [NAME],
I am writing to confirm whether permission is granted to use *[a page/content] from your website under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GFDL ). A user with the *[IP xxx/ username xxx] has pasted in text from your website [WEBSITE ADDRESS] to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text concerns [TOPIC OF PAGE] and the original submission can be viewed at [Address of Pre-copyvio boilerplate version].
This user claims on the talk page [TALK PAGE ADDRESS] to *[have the authority to release this material under the GFDL/ be the original author of the material], but for the page to remain on our site, we need further evidence that this is the case. Please be assured that if you do not grant permission, your content will not be used at Wikipedia; we have a strict policy against copyright violations.
You can read the GNU Free Document License in full at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GFDL . (To keep things simple, we do not use Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts, or Back-Cover Texts.) The license stipulates that any copy of the material, even if modified, must carry the same license. This means that anyone would be licensed to distribute the material, possibly for a fee (we would distribute your work free of charge). Under the license, no distributor (commercial or otherwise) can restrict future distribution, so your work would never become proprietary. In addition, the license does not grant the right to imply your endorsement of a modified version.
Please note that your contributions may not remain intact as submitted; this license and the collaborative nature of our project entitles others to edit, alter, and update content at will, i.e., to keep up with new information, or suit the text to a different purpose. There is more information on our copyright policy at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights .
The article will be deleted in seven days time if permission is not confirmed, though it can be restored at a later date if you choose to respond later to state that such use is allowed.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to your response.
Yours faithfully,
[NAME]
*delete as appropriate
[edit] See also
- Requesting a free photo — "How-To" guide for acquiring free images (5 steps). More useful for novice editors still gaining experience with copyright licenses and uploading free images.
