Jump to content

Wikipedia:Copyright problems

Page semi-protected
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Wikipedia:Copyright issues)

"WP:CP" redirects here. For other uses, see WP:CP (disambiguation).
    Wikipedia copyright
    Policy
    Guidelines
    Advice
    Processes
    Resources
    Shortcuts

    This page is for listing and discussing possible copyright problems involving text on Wikipedia, including pages suspected to be copyright violations. Listings typically remain for at least five days before review and closure by a copyright problems clerk or administrator. During this time, interested contributors are invited to offer feedback, propose revisions, or request copyright permission.

    Listed pages appear in the bottom section of the page. For additional guidance, see Instructions for dealing with text-based copyright concerns.

    To add a new listing, go to today's section.

    Copyright owners: If you believe Wikipedia is infringing your copyright, you may request immediate removal by following these instructions.

    Instructions

    Handling previously published text on Wikipedia

    Further information: Wikipedia:Copy-paste

    Under the United States law that governs Wikipedia, copyright is automatically assumed as soon as any content (text or other media) is created in a physical form. An author does not need to apply for or claim copyright, for a copyright to exist.

    Only one of the following allows works to be reused in Wikimedia projects:

    A) Explicit Statement. An explicit statement (by the author, or by the holder of the rights to the work) that the material is either:

    B) Public Domain. If the work is inherently in the public domain, due to its age, source or lack of originality; or

    C) Fair Use. United States law allows for fair use of copyrighted content, and (within limits) Wikipedia does as well. Under guidelines for non-free content, brief selections of copyrighted text may be used, but only if clearly marked and with full attribution.

    Even if a source is public domain or compatibly licensed, material should be properly attributed in accordance with Wikipedia:Plagiarism in respect of local customs and attribution requirements of compatible licenses. If the terms of the compatible license are not met, use of the content can constitute a violation of copyright even if the license is compatible.

    Contributors who repeatedly post copyrighted text or images may be subject to contributor copyright investigations, to ensure the removal from the project of all copyright infringement. Contributors who repeatedly post copyrighted material after appropriate warnings will be blocked from editing, to protect the project; see 17 United States Code § 512.


    Instructions for dealing with text-based copyright concerns

    "WP:CPI" redirects here. For the page that protects extremely high-risk templates, see Wikipedia:Cascade protected items.
    Shortcut

    Blatant infringement

    Pages exhibiting blatant copyright infringements may be speedily deleted if:

    • Content was copied from a source which does not have a license compatible with Wikipedia, and was not copied from a mirror source.
    • The page can neither be restored to a previous revision without infringing content, nor would the page be viable if the infringing content were removed.
    • There is no credible assertion of public domain, fair use, or a free license.

    To nominate an article for speedy deletion for copyright concerns, add one of these to the page:

    Both of these templates will generate a notice that you should give the contributor of the content. This is important to help ensure that they do not continue to add copyrighted content to Wikipedia. An administrator will examine the article and decide whether to delete it or not. You should not blank the page in this instance.

    Suspected or complicated infringement

    If infringement is not blatant or the speedy deletion criteria do not apply:

    • Remove or rewrite the infringing text avoiding copyright violations or revert the page to before the text was added.
      The infringing text will remain in the page history, and it may be tagged for {{copyvio-revdel}}. Administrators hold discretion on the appropriateness of revision deletion for each case. Please note the reason for removal in the edit summary and at the article's talk page (you may wish to use {{subst:cclean}}). Please identify and alert the contributor of the material to the problem, unless advised not to. The template {{Uw-copyright}} may be used for this purpose.
    • However, if all revisions have copyright problems, the removal of the copyright problem is contested, reversion/removal is otherwise complicated, or the article is eligible for presumptive deletion:
    to the bottom of the list. Put the page's name in place of "PageName". If you do not have a URL, enter a description of the source. (This text can be copied from the top of the template after substituting it and the page name and url will be filled for you.) If there is not already a page for the day, as yours would be the first listing, please add a header to the top of the page using the page for another date as an example.
    • Advise the contributor of the listing at their talk page. The template on the now blanked page supplies a notice you may use for that purpose.

    Instructions for special cases

    • Probable copyvios without a known source: If you suspect that a page contains a copyright violation, but you cannot find a source for the violation (so you can't be sure that it's a violation), do not list it here. Instead, place {{cv-unsure|~~~|2=FULL_URL}} on the page's talk page, but replace FULL_URL with the full URL of the page version that you believe contains a violation. (To determine the URL, click on "Permanent link" in the toolbox area, and copy the URL.)
    • One contributor has verifiably introduced copyright problems into multiple pages or files and assistance is needed in further review: See Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations.
    Further information: Wikipedia:Guide to image deletion

    Image copyright concerns are not handled on this board. For images that are clear copyright violations, follow the procedure for speedy deletion; otherwise list at Files for Discussion. To request assistance with contributors who have infringed copyright in multiple articles or files, see Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations.

    Copyright owners and people editing on their behalf or with their permission, please see below.

    Any contributor is welcome to help investigate articles listed for copyright concerns, although only administrators, copyright problems board clerks, and VRT (formerly OTRS) agents should remove {{copyvio}} tags and mark listings resolved.

    Assistance might include supplying evidence of non-infringement (or, conversely, of infringement) or obtaining and verifying permission of license. You might also help by rewriting problematic articles or removing infringing text (without removing {{copyvio}}).

    Supplying evidence of non-infringement

    Articles listed here are suspect of copyright concern, but not every article contains infringement. The content may be on Wikipedia first, in the public domain, compatibly licensed, or falls below threshold of originality for copyright. Sometimes, the person who placed it here is the copyright owner of freely-licensed material and this simply needs to be verified.

    Information can be provided to prove compatible licensing or public domain status under the listing of the article on the copyright problems board or on the talk page of the article. A link or a clear explanation can be very helpful when a clerk or administrator evaluates the matter. As listings are not immediately addressed on the board, it may take a few days after you make your note before a response is provided.

    If the article is tagged for {{copyvio}}, you should allow an administrator or copyright problems clerk to remove the tag. If the article is tagged for {{copy-paste}} or {{close paraphrasing}}, you may remove the tag from the article when the problem is addressed (or disproven), but please do not close the listing on the copyright problems board itself.

    Obtaining/verifying permission

    Sometimes material was placed on Wikipedia with the permission of the copyright owner. Sometimes copyright owners are willing to give permission (and proper license!) even if it was not.

    Any contributor can write to the owner of copyright and check whether they gave or will give permission (or maybe they in fact posted it here!). See Wikipedia:Example requests for permission. In either case, unless a statement authorizing the material under compatible license is placed online at the point of original publication, permission will need to be confirmed through e-mail to the Wikimedia Foundation. See Wikipedia:Confirmation of permission. If a compatible license is placed online at the point of original publication, please provide a link to that under the listing for the article on the copyright problems board or on the talk page of the article.

    Please note that it may take a few days for letters to clear once they are sent. Do not worry if the content is deleted prematurely; it can be restored at any point usable permission is logged.

    Rewriting content

    Any contributor may rewrite articles that are or seem to be copyight problems to exclude duplicated or closely paraphrased text. When articles or sections of articles are blanked as copyright problems, rewriting is done on a temporary page at Talk:PAGENAME/Temp so that the new material can be copied over the old. (The template blanking the article will link to the specific temporary page.)

    Please do not copy over the version of the article that is a copyright problem as your base. All copied content, or material derived from it, should be removed first. Other content from the article can be used, if there is no reason to believe that it may be a copyright issue as well. It is often a good idea – and essential when the content is copied from an inaccessible source such as a book – to locate the point where the material entered the article and eliminate all text added by that contributor. This will help avoid inadvertently continuing the copyright issues in your rewrite. If you use any text at all from the earlier version of the article, please leave a note on the listing to alert the administrator or clerk who review the rewrite. The history of the old article will then have to be retained. (If the original turns out to be non-infringing, the two versions of the article can be merged.)

    Rewrites can be done directly in articles that have been tagged for {{close paraphrasing}} and {{copy-paste}}, with those tags removed after the rewrite is complete.

    Please review Wikipedia:Copy-paste and the linked guidelines and policies within it if necessary to review Wikipedia's practices for handling non-free text. Reviewing Wikipedia:Plagiarism is also helpful, particularly where content is compatibly licensed or public domain. Repairing these issues can sometimes be as simple as supplying proper attribution.

    Shortcut

    If you submitted work to Wikipedia which you had previously published and your submission was marked as a potential infringement of copyright, then stating on the article's talk page that you are the copyright holder of the work (or acting as his or her agent), while not likely to prevent deletion, helps. To completely resolve copyright concerns, it is sufficient to either:

    See also Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials.

    Please note that it may take a bit of time for letters and e-mails to clear once they are sent. Do not worry if the content is deleted prematurely; it can be restored at any point usable permission is logged. Your e-mail will receive a response whether the permission is usable or not. If you have not received a response to your letter within two weeks, it is a good idea to follow up.

    One other factor you should consider, however, is that content that has been previously published elsewhere may not meet Wikipedia's specific guidelines and policies. If you are not familiar with these policies and guidelines, please review especially the core policies that govern the project. This may help prepare you to deal with any other issues with the text that may arise.

    Should you choose to rewrite the content rather than release it under the requisite license, please see above.

    Clerks and patrolling administrators

    For a more complete description of clerks and their duties, as well as a list of active clerks, please see Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Clerks.

    Copyright clerks are experienced editors on Wikipedia who are familiar with copyright and non-free content policies and its enforcement. They are trusted to evaluate and close listings and request administrative actions when necessary. Clerks are periodically reviewed by other clerks and patrolling administrators.

    For a more complete description of administrators on Wikipedia, please see Wikipedia:Administrators.

    Any administrator may work the copyright problems board. This may involve evaluating listings personally or using tools as necessary to complete closures by clerks. Clerks have been evaluated in their work, and their recommendations may be implemented without double-checking, although any administrator is welcome to review recommendations and discuss them with the clerks in question.

    Closing listings

    Pages can be processed at any time by anyone, but are not formally closed until a clerk or administrator verifies that all problems are resolved. Pages listed for presumptive deletion stay open for a minimum of 7 days before being processed. VRT agents may close listings at any time.

    For advice for resolving listings, see:

    {{CPC}} may be used to denote resolutions of listings by administrators, clerks and VRT agents.

    Update this page

    Older than 7 days

    Below are articles that have been listed here for longer than 7 days. They will be processed at any time by clerks or administrators (see WP:CPAA). When every issue on a day is clear, the day may be removed.

    17 July 2024

    28 August 2024

    13 September 2024

    16 September 2024

    27 September 2024

    • Talk page posts created using User:DErenrich-WMF/Add A Fact Experiment. This is an AI tool for suggesting additions to a page; it creates a talk page section including a piece of information and a pre-formatted citation. Because of its basis in AI, the suggested additions are either quotations or very close paraphrases. As such, they appear to violate copyright, and if naively transferred to the article, they will introduce copyvio in mainspace. Yngvadottir (talk) 23:49, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Yngvadottir: thanks for bringing this to my attention though I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. The extension doesn't suggest particular text to add to the article. It saves a short snippet of a source and a reference to that source to the talk page so someone can later add that information to the article in a non-copyright violating manner. Are you saying the snippets are too long? DErenrich-WMF (talk) 00:33, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        • I'm saying they are inherently copyright-violating, because AI can't paraphrase sufficiently. There's a bit more leeway on talk pages, but the quotes are indeed over-long. Also, although the tool uses the wording "See the quote below", by referring to the suggested material as "a fact" and presenting a suggested citation, it risks a naive editor simply importing the text into the article (possibly not even realising it's a quote, since it's indented rather than in quotation marks). The presentation ignores the basic guidance to summarise sources in one's own words in favour of suggesting accreting points taken directly from sources. Yngvadottir (talk) 01:03, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
          The AI isn't doing paraphrasing. Those are literal quotes from the source. The AI is involved primarily in identifying the article and checking if the fact is already present in the article. I agree we could do a better job clarifying that the quoted text is indeed a verbatim quote (we're using the blockquote element but we could also add quotation marks). What would you say is the longest a quote should be in this context? We could truncate it. DErenrich-WMF (talk) 01:17, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
          I suggest changing to quote marks and also changing the suggestion text from I found a fact that might belong in this article. See the quote below  ... The fact comes from the following source: to An AI search has found a source online that might be a useful reference for this article. The source is: The passage that provides information about the topic is: "...". And remove the second quotation from the wikitext snippet. I've tried to minimise the chance of an editor coming across the suggestion and simply copying it into the text by eversing the order of URL and quotation, removing the suggestion that the editor quote the passage in the reference, and defining it as a potential source of information rather than a recitation of a fact. It would also be a good idea to make the quotes shorter, simply because excess use of quotation skirts copyvio in itself. But I have no idea of quantification, because it partly depends on the length of the source: quoting the entirety of the relevant paragraph from a 3-paragraph news snippet is clearly more dubious than quoting the exact same number of words from the middle of a scholarly article, but quoting the entire concluding paragraph or summary of a scholarly article is also excessive. Yngvadottir (talk) 08:26, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      @Yngvadottir; is there a specific action that a clerk needs to take to clean this up? This isn't the place where we can extensively go through and clean up someone's contributions, and a CCI would just be excessive for this unless there's 100s of these to go through. Sennecaster (Chat) 19:33, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree this isn't the best place, can't think of how best to deal with it except for the suggestions I made above for going forward. The acute problem will come if anyone simply transfers the suggested text to an article. But I wanted to place the issue on record at this noticeboard. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:42, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm going to consider this listing as issue resolved for now since this seems more like a filing of record. Yngvadottir, in the future, this kind of thing is better suited for the talk page I think since we tend to handle singular articles. DErenrich-WMF, I really recommend taking in Yngvadottir's recommendations from both a copyright and content policy perspective. I'd say 2-3 sentences at most for quote lengths, since there isn't an element of human judgment here and it's better to err on the side of caution. Sennecaster (Chat) 18:52, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    28 September 2024

    Off-by-one error (history · last edit · rewrite) From this page, however I am not sure who copied from who and the text on the article may have come from another one given this edit. However, I can't investigate any more at the moment. JoJo Eumerus mobile (main talk) 18:00, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    30 September 2024

    2 October 2024

    4 October 2024

    • FoCuSandLeArN (blocked now for several years) has created three taxonomic articles I've seen so far where they completely stole, verbatim, the entire prose from a single journal article (Chaceon atopus, Chaceon bicolor, and Chaceon crosnieri). This editor created a ton of taxonomic articles, and I get the feeling that a fair few of them are going to be need to be G12'd for egregious copyvio based on the pattern I've seen with them so far (depending on if any editor has stepped in and completely rewritten the article yet or if FAL even put in the effort to plagiarize in the first place). I'm going to go through and review hopefully all of them, but I wanted to put this on somebody's radar, because this could be a lot more extensive than just three articles. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 00:07, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    5 October 2024

    6 October 2024

    7 October 2024

    8 October 2024

    • Peshtigo fire: Storzeme1852 in 2021 added copyvio that has now been removed by Firefangledfeathers. Kaya098, another SPA editing in the same time period (not outright socking, I don't think, but maybe a class?), lifted a quote from [8] (search "Modern students of such matters"), which appears to in turn be a quote from Fire at Peshtigo by Robert W. Wells (so not public domain despite appearing in a government document). I sadly don't have time to sort it out right now, but both editors' contributions to the article should be investigated. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 19:57, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    9 October 2024

    Hassan Kamel Al-Sabbah (history · last edit · rewrite) I declined a revdel on this as a probable backwards copy - the text has full matches all over the place. Our article is pretty old. Would appreciate if someone could verify that ours isn't copyvio and attach the relevant backwards copy templates. asilvering (talk) 15:10, 9 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    10 October 2024

    13 October 2024

    15 October 2024

    17 October 2024

    18 October 2024

    New listings

    Update this page
    Some issues may not be displayed on this page due to template transclusion limits. This can be alleviated by clearing the backlog.

    New listings are made on daily reports transcluded on this page and are not directly added to it. To add a new listing, please go to today's section. Instructions for adding new listings can be found at Instructions for listing text-based copyright concerns. Editors may resolve issues within listings by removing the copyrighted content or rewriting content on the temporary pages at any time, save for presumptive deletion. See the section on responding for more information. Western blot (history · last edit · rewrite) from [12]. Shares large portions of text with the site, which does not appear to be freely licensed, and appears to have been published before the material was added. Sdkb talk 01:31, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Tinā (history · last edit · rewrite) from https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2024/10/03/44th-annual-hawaii-international-film-festival-kicks-off-with-inspiring-story-healing-redemption/ and https://hiff.org/events/mothertin/. Detected using Earwig's Copyvio Detector. Royiswariii (talk) 02:06, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    It was a quote, and I removed it. It's fine now. Dhantegge (talk) 02:31, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Wikipedia article was created in 2012 as can be seen here: [13]
    • The Canadian Encyclopedia article, was "Published Online March 15, 2016.
    That's unexpected. The Canadian Encyclopedia author's bio doesn't match that of the wiki editor who wrote largely wrote the article either so it doesn't look like the CE article happened to be written by a Wikipedia editor. Wellington Bay (talk) 14:16, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Another possibility is that this CE article was adapted either from another CE article or from another published article by the same author. Wellington Bay (talk) 14:22, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    26 October 2024

    Hi, I was just doing some cleanup at mukimono and removed a sentence almost directly copied from the website sourced. Did I handle this okay? Reporting this to be revdeleted either way. diff of what I edited here. thanks, Sarsenet (talk) 09:27, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    27 October 2024

    28 October 2024

    • Taifa-1 (history · last edit · rewrite) from [15]. I had discussed their close prapahrasing issues with the editor a few months ago (User talk:Abishe/Archive 15), but when I compare e.g. the "Background" section with the source, I see the exact same issues of taking the copyrighted source, and adding lots of superfluous flowery language to avoid straight or obvious copyvio. "The manufacturing of parts, testing and qualification were done in collaboration with EnduroSat AD, a Bulgarian aerospace manufacturer." thus becomes "The manufacturing of parts, testing as well as the quality control process were facilitated in a friendly effective collaboration with EnduroSat AD, a renowned aerospace manufacturer headquartered in Bulgaria." Or "The project entailed research and development of the different components of satellite mission design, full satellite development cycle, in-orbit control, and data reception and processing." becomes "The project undertaken by both EnduroSat and team of Kenyan engineers made a comprehensive analysis paying attention to every technical aspects to avoid bottlenecks and any possibilities of disruption that could otherwise hinder the progress of the research and development of the different components of satellite mission design, full satellite development cycle, in-orbit control, and data reception and processing. " (bold mine to show how it is done, the inserted text is meaningless promo-fluff). "The payload of the Taifa-1 satellite is a multispectral imager for imaging. " becomes "The payload of the Taifa-1 satellite was methodically processed as a multispectral imager for imaging." And so on, all we get is copied text with promo-adjectives and clauses added. Fram (talk) 12:23, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    29 October 2024

    Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2024 October 31

    Wikipedia's current date is 31 October 2024. Put new article listings in Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2024 October 31. Files should be handled by speedy deletion or Wikipedia:Files for discussion.

    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Copyright_problems&oldid=1253570833"