Jump to content

Wikipedia:Copyright problems

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by RickK (talk | contribs) at 04:00, 11 September 2003 (The Wind Done Gone). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Add links to pages that you suspect of being copyright infringements here. Page titles should stay listed for a minimum of 7 days before a decision is made.

As well as nominating potential copyvios for deletion, you could:

  • replace them with new content of your own, or
(however, note that by replacing the content you are creating a page history that starts with a possible copyright violation, i.e. the original page history will have the infringing copyright material residing on Wikipedia. There is no clear consensus about what to do about this problem or what it means. The more prudent course of action may be to wait until the page is deleted and then create a new page without the infringing material on the page history. (this is currently under discussion, until a policy is agreed upon it is up to you to decide what to do, see the talk page and Wikipedia:Copyright violations on history pages) [added September 5, 2003]).

See also: Wikipedia:votes for deletion, wikipedia:deletion policy, wikipedia:copyrights

(newly added on 8/27/03 - subject to revision, please post comments on the talk page)

If you believe Wikipedia is infringing your content, you may choose to raise the issue using this page and the standard copyright infringement notice as described below. Alternatively, you may choose to contact Wikipedia's designated agent under the terms of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act.

Note that Wikipedians do not have the ability to remove copyright infringements from an article's page history. Therefore, if you believe that material in an article's page history infringes your copyright, you should contact Wikipedia's designated agent, rather than using this page.

Add the following text to pages that you list here, replacing whatever was previously in the article.

Removed possible [[Wikipedia:Copyrights|copyright infringement]]. Text that was previously posted here is the same as text from this webpage:
:
This page is now listed on [[Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/copyvio]]. To the poster: If there was permission to use this material under terms of our [[Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License|license]] or if you are the copyright holder of the externally linked text, then please indicate so on this page's talk page (to access the talk page, click on ''Discuss this page'' in the sidebar). If there was no permission to use this text then please either replace this message with at least a [[Wikipedia:The perfect stub article|good stub]] and an external link or leave this page to be deleted. (NOTE: unless a stub replaces this text, deletion will occur about one week from the time this page title was placed on the Votes for deletion page).
It also should be noted that the posting of copyrighted material that does ''not'' have the express permission from the copyright holder is possibly in violation of applicable law and of our [[wikipedia:copyright|policy]]. Those with a history of violations may be temporarily [[Special:Ipblocklist|suspended]] from editing pages. If this is in fact an infringement of copyright, we still welcome any original contributions by you.
Thanks, ~~~~

Notice for images

This image is a possible [[Wikipedia:Copyrights|copyright infringement]] and should therefore not be used by any article. <explain reason for suspicion here>
This image is now listed on [[Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/copyvio]]. To the poster: If there was permission to use this image under terms of our [[Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License|license]] or if you are its copyright holder, then please indicate so here (click ''Edit this page'' in the sidebar) - see our [[wikipedia:image use policy|image use policy]] for tips on this. NOTE: deletion will occur about one week from the time this page title was placed on the Votes for deletion page.
It also should be noted that the posting of copyrighted material that does ''not'' have the express permission from the copyright holder is possibly in violation of applicable law and of our [[wikipedia:copyright|policy]]. Those with a history of violations may be temporarily [[Special:Ipblocklist|suspended]] from editing pages. If this is in fact an infringement of copyright, we still welcome any original contributions by you.
Thanks, ~~~~

August 23

August 26

  • Image:Chinese Communist Party.jpg - copyvio (copied from the People's Daily) --Jiang
    • Surely the People's Daily wouldn't fetter us with capitalistic copyright laws? Or perhaps they would... --Delirium 02:51, Aug 26, 2003 (UTC)
    • It's also not used in any article. It was uploaded by User:Paektu for his user page. - Efghij 02:54, Aug 26, 2003 (UTC)
    • Is it even copyright? There is no copyright on short phrases and the image layout is no more than a generic communist hammer and sickle;could there be copyright on that? Or trade mark protection (i.e., "this text is certified communinist origin")? On the People's Daily web site [1] it is used an an article category. Is it very distinctive as a slogan? Alex756 23:18, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

September 3

  • Rotoscope - even copied the typo from the geocities site - andy 09:37, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)
  • Texts at Commercial Revolution, International Law, the original version of Thirty Years' War overview, and possibly others contributed by User:12.220.166.158 all appear to have been cut-and-pasted from some unknown source with the look of a textbook or course notes. DNS reverse lookup shows this IP address to be 12-220-166-158.client.insightbb.com. I cannot find proof of copyright violation on the Web, but I feel I should bring this to notice.

I AM THE ONE WHO WROTE THIS MATERIAL. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME THAT I HAVE RETURNED TO THIS SITE IN OVER A YEAR. THE MATERIAL IS MY OWN, BUT BASED ON LECTURES. IF IT IS THE STYLE THAT IS UNWANTED, THEN DELETE THEM, BUT IF IT IS ONLY FEAR OVER INFRINGEMENTE, THEN DO NOT WORRY, KEEP THEM. User:12.223.87.232

This user appears to have contributed to these 16 articles (earliest contribs only listed)

I have gone through them, and check the edit histories, and divided them into pages that definitely look OK, and those that are questionable:

Looks OK:

Looks questionable:

-- The Anome 20:37, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Update: I have added copyvio notices to the articles which consisted of apparently cut'n'pasted numbered paragraphs above. Charles XII of Sweden appears to contain some wording that was in the same style as some of the questionable stuff originally posted in King Charles XII of Sweden. Can someone please look at this, and re-write or clean out this material to avoid copyright problems? -- The Anome 08:52, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

  • Numbering paragraphs is a common practice in some academic disciplines. I took a look at the page history at International Law and these look like notes to me, not copyrighted publications; it does not make it a copyright violation if someone just uploads their notes to Wikipedia; some of users write off line and then upload text. Isn't it better to keep it as a source on the page history rather than deleting it? Even if it is copyrighted material that was not written by this author it is there in the pages histories to justify using it only as a source, not as text in the published version at International law (having it in the page history will make sure whoever reviews International Law will be able to remove any trace of the infringing text? If they are student notes, is the copyright on these notes very strong? They appear just to be restatements of a general outline of a history of international law, poorly written. Is there anything anyone can claim as original creative writing in these materials, or is it just a compliation of facts? These are the questions I would ask before deleting pages that have been incorporated into the texts of other pages on which many people have contributed. Alex756 02:32, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

September 4

September 5

September 6


  • Julius Nyerere -- text as given is a copyright violation [11], and the person who signed their name to it here is not the copyright holder) and thoroughly POV. We do need an article on Nyerere, but not this one. Vicki Rosenzweig 13:10, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC) Dysprosia 12:51, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)
  • Claude Jade -- andy 12:55, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC) (2nd. report)
    • First revision had been copied from [13]. Or is it public domain? -- Lupinoid 09:17, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)
    • First revision was a copyvio, but it seems to have been replaced with an okay stub. --Delirium 03:24, Sep 8, 2003 (UTC)

September 7

September 8

September 9

  • Alcoa - found only the source of one paragraph, but it seems like they all originate in a company report. andy 07:36, 9 Sep 2003 (EDT)

September 10

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Copyright_problems&oldid=1418205"