Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems

For image or media copyright questions, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions

Archives
Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5 Copyright issues archive Archive 6 Archive 7 Archive 8 Archive 9 Archive 10 Archive 11 Archive 12
About archives • Edit this box

See also: Wikipedia:Public domain, m:Do fair use images violate the GFDL?, m:copyright, m:fair use, m:GFDL, m:GFDL Workshop.

Linking of dates to date articles instead of subpages

Looking for a newly listed article, when I didn't see it on the main page, I clicked on the large, bold date above today's entries to see if it appeared there. I was taken to October 3. Not only didn't I go to the page I wanted, I can see no reason for this to be linked to an article instead. Why is the date linked at all, if not to the subpage? Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk)

You got me. This seems to be one of those "it's always been that way" matters...at least it's been that way for a long time. I, too, have been irritated and puzzled by it, but not so much that I've tried to puzzle out why and put it to an end. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:35, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Seems like WP:MFD has linked dates, too. I may tackle that after this. User:Zorglbot creates the new pages for each day and then adds them to the main page. Someone *cough*Moonriddengirl*cough* removes the old days manually. It should be easy enough to get the template changed for the main page addition (to link to the appropriate subpage), but is there any reason the bot can't also archive the old pages? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 23:33, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

LOL. :) It seems like a good idea to ask Schutz to take off the links for the dates or to link it to the subpage. The current system adds nothing and causes confusion. :) The reason the bot doesn't archive the old pages is because there's no easy way that I know of to communicate when it's ready to be archived. They're archived when either all the tickets for the day or done or all of them but one are, at which point I move the remaining one to "older consolidated" until the time or whatever has passed. When I got here, there were 20, 30 days of unaddressed dates. I've been hanging out here ever since. :) I think probably that system works okay; it only takes a moment. But I'm all for fixing the date link issue. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 10:55, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Done — the bot has already created tomorrow's page as a test; let me know if there is any problem. Schutz (talk) 09:41, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your fast work! One minor thing - the format of the existing dates appears (to me) as YYYY-MM-DD, but your test page appears as "17 October 2008". I'll leave it to Moodridddengirl to decide if the format matters. Thanks again. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:31, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

While YYYY-MM-DD is good for computers (it helps sorting), I usually choose DD-Mmmmm-YYYY for dates that are read by humans — especially for pages like this one, which change every day, I intuitively think the day is the most important piece of information and should be printed first. However, I don't mind changing it if users of this page prefer it in another format (it makes no difference from the bot point of view, of course). Schutz (talk) 13:58, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Starship Troopers Book

This article contains a large piece of text from the book, is that ok? (talk) 18:19, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Probably not. There are specific rules about how we can use non-free text, here. It has to be in quotation marks, it has to be attributed, and it has to fill a necessary function. If it doesn't, it should be removed. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:21, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

So I should go ahead and remove it? (talk) 18:31, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Quite likely, although it may be appropriate to summarize it or to abbreviate it so that it does meet WP:NFC, and I would put a note on the article's talk page explaining the removal. It may be worth quoting the following from NFC there: "Extensive quotation of copyrighted text is prohibited." --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:52, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

ODNB concerns

I have just added an entry for Amalie von Wallmoden, Countess of Yarmouth after the author of the ODNB article complained on the article's talk page. Our article is heavily based on the ODNB article, which is currently free to view (for the next 5 days) as one of the "Lives of the week". (See http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28579 )

That case is pretty clear-cut, but I have recently noticed a similar problem with some other articles - Falkes de Breauté, William Tresham and Alan Garrett Anderson - and their respective entries in the ODNB: [1] [2] [3] (subscription is required for these).

There is some relevant discussion at User talk:Ironholds and Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#Copyvio_and_excessive_quotations, including examples of the text which causes me concern.

Our articles are, I believe, very thinly rewritten versions of the ODNB - not blatant copy & paste, but the same facts, presented in pretty much the same order, often using the same or very similar words. What should be done about these? -- Testing times (talk) 11:48, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

If they are very thinly rewritten, and it certainly looks like they are from the examples you give, they may constitute derivative works or, at best, plagiarism and should be revised. Because copyright law protects creative expression of ideas and not the ideas themselves, many people think that slight revisions eradicate copyright concerns. Of course, as you know, this is not the case. US Federal Courts utilize a "substantial similarity" test. McCarthy's Desk Encyclopedia of Intellectual Property notes about this, "Exact word-for-word or line-for-line infringement does not define the limits of copyright infringement." (Part of this source, including that quote, is available online here). This concept is divided into two: "fragmented literal similarity", which essentially covers lifting chunks and phrases from a source sufficient to outweigh fair use considerations; and "comprehensive nonliteral similarity", where the same language may not be utilized but the derivative work copies the basic form and structure of the original. Substantial similarity is generally tested in courtrooms through two questions: first, does a paraphrase borrow enough from the source to constitute a "substantial taking" from the original (representing a significant portion of that work, for instance, or a key element of it)? If it does, does the use of the material meet the test of fair use? If the answers to these are yes and no, then you've got copyright infringement. Even if the answers are no and yes, however, you may have plagiarism.

It may be helpful to point editors who seem to have trouble with this regards to these university hosted documents: here, here. Also useful is this publication aimed at medical professionals which gives a succinct overview of how to tell when paraphrase crosses the copyright line: this.

As for handling these, the first thing I would do is clarify this for the contributor. This is probably a good faith misunderstanding of copyright & plagiarism; after all, even Wikipedia's user copyright warning suggests that everything is a-okay as long as you have access to a thesaurus. Since this problem has first started to arise here, I've been wondering if we need to make that point more clear in policy somewhere.

The next thing to do is either revise the material or remove it. If the source were openly published, I'd suggest you tag it with the {{copyvio}} to give contributors an opportunity to eliminate substantial similarity concerns. However, when it comes up at the end of the week, I am likely to be the admin reviewing it, and I don't have access to that source. Do you or somebody else involved in these conversations? If so, would it be possible for one or more of you to help revise these articles? Alternatively, earlier versions of them can be restored with a note of explanation at the article's talk page. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:20, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the guidance. I will direct the author of these articles to this discussion. I have ODNB access, as I suspect does the author here (it is widely available from UK public libraries), but I don't really have time to revise these articles. In the absence of revisions, presumably they should be removed? -- Testing times (talk) 11:37, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, first noting that I am not a lawyer though consideration of US copyright application to text is part of my "day job", I would say yes. Earlier versions should be restored until a complete revision can be done that eradicates "substantial taking". Obviously, we want to be careful not to be overzealous in the application of this, particularly as definition is nebulous and even copyright attorneys cannot always predict where the court will come down. :) But your examples seem to me to closely enough replicate the pattern of the original that they should be regarded as infringement. I can't speak to the rest of the text, but if you remove it with a note of explanation and others disagree, the matter can be opened for wider discussion, hopefully with additional contributors who are able to compare the original. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:26, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Other articles

I'd appreciate it if someone here could take a look at a few representative articles I prepared based on the ODNB when I had access to it. Lord Robert Manners (Royal Navy officer), Thomas Chamberlayne, and Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk (long) are representative. For short biographies, where the article is almost a prose list of positions held and dates, it's very difficult to avoid "comprehensive nonliteral similarity", insofar as one has a limited number of facts which are generally best understood in chronological order. User:Choess 22:10, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, don't I know it. It's one of the banes of my existence. :/ Not having access to the source, I can't weigh in on this, but hopefully somebody will be able to take a look for you and reassure you. :) Perhaps Testing times could take a glance? Again, we don't want to be overzealous in this, but we do want to consider the question. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 22:17, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, from a quick look at Lord Robert Manners (Royal Navy officer), the Wikipedia article is clearly based on the ODNB entry[4] - as one may expect when the ODNB is given as the sole reference. Both recite broadly the same facts in broadly the same order, but the specific language used to convey the facts in each article is generally quite different. As people will appreciate, this is very much a question of shades of grey, but my general impression in this case is that there has not been a "substantial taking" in the sense outlined above (unlike the examples that I mentioned further above, where this is a real concern, in my view - but see below about the 1900 DNB).

I have not reviewed Thomas Chamberlayne or Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk, but if the language in these articles is similarly distanced from the original, then they should not be a matter for concern either, I guess. -- Testing times (talk) 16:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

DNB

I have been dumping DNB text directly into Wikipedia as a starting point for several articles. Note: this is direct literal copying, word for word. However, my article source is the 1900 version of the DNB, not the ODNB, and each article is specifically attributed, with a link to the Wikisource version, which in turn is specifically attributed to the page scans and OCR text at archive.org. As far as I can tell, there can be no question that the 1900 DNB published in the US is in the public domain, and that the process by which I am introducing the material into Wikisource and then into Wikipedia is acceptable. (But please tell me if I'm wrong...) I take this approach to ensure that the edit history captures an audit trail of the transformation from the public domain text to the current text. I do not have access to the ODNB. My question is this: If someone updates one of these articles with facts that have been added to the ODNB version, and the update is then substantially identical to the ODNB version, are we in trouble? Note that the ODNB version is likely a derived work, and so is ours, so we run the risk of "convergent evolution" of the articles. -Arch dude (talk) 17:59, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

This is a question I haven't encountered, but at that point we would have the defense of the article's history, which should bear out that the version we duplicated was public domain. If the ODNB sent a take-down to the Wikimedia Foundation, it would be up to our lawyer to decide how to handle it. If all else failed, we could probably revert the updates substantially identical to the ODNB. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:39, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I think there may be some tricky questions lurking here. Certainly the 1900 DNB is as public domain as the 1911 EB, and can be copied wholesale without copyright concerns (ideally with attribution, of course).

But what if someone essentially copies an ODNB article which is substantially similar (or even identical) to the 1900 DNB? Are my concerns above misplaced, because the ODNB article is public domain anyway? How would we know? Is there an easy way to look up an article in the DNB copies at the Internet Archive (here)? -- Testing times (talk) 16:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

The Wikipedia project is Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/DNB. It has a "sister project" at Wikisource, at s:Wikisource:WikiProject DNB. I go to the WP project page to get a pointer to the DNB1900 volume at archive.org, and from there I retrieve the PD article and create the Wikisource version, with strict attribution. After that, I create the WP article by starting with a straignt copy of the Wikisource article, again with strict attribution. This results in a absolutely horrible initial article, but is also causes the article history to become an audit trail, and as long as nobody looks at the article before the first wikification pass, The ugliness doesn't show too much. (Whether the result is a good starting point for a WP article is an aesthetic issue, not a copyright issue.) Now to your question: What if an editor dumps an ODNB article into WP, but the ODNB article is itself a strict copy of the old 1900 DNB article with no copyrightable derivative inclusions? I don't know if any such articles exist, but if one does, and if we are challenged, then we will need to create the equivalent article at Wikisource from the original DNB 1900 material, and then verify that the ODNB version has no copyrightable changes, and then change our references to ref the old DNB version. depending on the later revisions history, it may be easier to re-create WP article. Conclusion: Don't copy from the ODNB even if you think the article is actually DNB1900: it's more trouble than it's worth. -Arch dude (talk) 17:31, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

It could be difficult to tell. Wikipedia:PD#Derived works and restorations of works in the public domain notes that when a new work is built off of a public domain source, only the creative elements in the new work are subject to copyright. If the ODNB article is identical to the 1900 DNB, it's not protected by copyright. If it is identical save for a few new sentences, only those new sentences are protected. I've spent part of this morning addressing your copyright concerns at Amalie von Wallmoden, Countess of Yarmouth. I don't have access to the current ODNB article, but I did have access to the 1909 version, the whole of volume XX being online. :) (And downloadable, it seems, as a 120 mb pdf.) If we're lucky, the article we're comparing will be archived in googlebooks, as that is. If not, given demonstrable duplication, we may have to err on the side of caution. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:35, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all of that (the Wikiproject's index to the pages at Archive.org could be very useful, and I was not aware of the DNB archive link on the ODNB pages).

As it happens, the DNB article for Amalie von Wallmoden, Countess of Yarmouth (available from here in various formats, or a long way down here in a 2.4MB text file - search for "Wallmoden") is very much shorter than the ODNB version, and quite different in several respects, so congratulations on the comprehensive re-writing of our article. -- Testing times (talk) 18:03, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Another one

I have similar concerns about User:Ironholds's article on Terence Fox, which bears more than a passing resemblance to the ODNB entry.[5] Here are some examples:

This chap died in 1962, and the ODNB entry is almost the same as that first included in the 1981 DNB, so there is no chance of the ODNB entry being public domain. -- Testing times (talk) 12:53, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I've been vaguely following this debate, and often use ODNB as a source myself, so want to make sure I'm doing it right. When writing a biographical article, surely it's harldy surprising that there is a similar structure, it's natural to write chronologically. ODNB articles fairly frequently cite newspaper obits as references, and if you can track down two or three different obits they will have broadly similar structures. The facts of the life can't be copyrighted, yes? and is chronological treatment actually particularly original? David Underdown (talk) 13:00, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Exactly the problem I encounter. I've actually rearranged the text I use from the ODNB source in several cases because they sometimes don't do things chronologically. ODNB articles are encyclopedic, and so are ours; there's only so much difference you can get from a source text without resorting to a thesaurus. Ironholds (talk) 13:02, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

(EC) The facts of the life can't be copyrighted, but the creative expression, including the basic structure, can. By that I do not mean "chronological organization." But this example follows very closely on the original, including minor rearrangement of material (in the last sentence) and some chunks of literal duplication ("to study for the mechanical sciences tripos"--changing caps and removing the plural from Science is insufficient). Note, also, "He was the only son born to Corelli Fox, a electrical engineer, and his wife Mabel". (I've emphasized the text copied, in same order, from the source.)

There are tricks in paraphrasing to help avoid this, though sometimes it can be like going around one's back to scratch one's elbow. Helpful here is the use of multiple sources, as incorporating information from various can go a long way to eliminate this concern. Also potentially useful is Wikipedia's own MOS. Some of this information would be included in a WP:LEAD, others in a body. If organized accordingly, we would not be following the basic structure of ODNB anyway. As I've said above, we don't want to be overscrupulous in this respect, but we do need clear separation. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:14, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I understand the problem. Honestly, I do. But a thin paraphrase is just not enough, in my view. Here are some more examples from Terence Fox:

Particularly telling, in this context, is the phrase in our article "a series of nervous breakdowns in the 1950s which caused him to resign as shell chair in 1959". ¡¿ resign as shell chair ?! Looking at the ODNB, it is clear where the peculiar turn of phrase "shell chair" in this sentence came from - "a succession of nervous breakdowns in the early 1950s which caused his resignation from the Shell chair in 1959". I could go on. -- Testing times (talk) 18:17, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

"Shell Chair" is not a "telling phrase"; the chair was a Shell endowment, it is perfectly acceptable to refer to it as "shell chair" or "resign as Shell professor". As for the second half; how the hell would you express it differently without being unencyclopedic?Ironholds (talk) 18:49, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to get bogged down in the details, but would you really say "to resign as shell chair"? Would you say "Stephen Hawking has resigned as Lucasian chair"? It seems a bit odd to me, but it does directly parallel the phrasing of the original.

You could rephrase the last bit in many ways: how about:

According to his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Fox's natural inclination to intellectual rigour and inability to delegate effectively caused him mental strain which ultimately led to a series of nervous breakdowns in the 1950s. In the end, he resigned as Shell professor in 1959 in favour of Peter Victor Danckwerts. Fox died three years later at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases in London. He never married.

YMMV, but I think this is substantially better. -- Testing times (talk) 19:13, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Shell chair seems fairly standard phraseology in British English to me too (though I'd probably cap-up Chair, he is the Shell Professor, holding the Shell Chair, as in the original ODNb, saying "from the" would be better grammatically, but I wouldn't say there's any particular originality in the phrase), same about the earlier comment about the mechanical science tripos, tripos is simply the proper name for a Cambridge degree course. The chagne to Shell Professor is better grammatically if you have "as" in front of it. David Underdown (talk) 09:32, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I've now tracked down his obit in The Times (Saturday 6 October 1962, p.12 Issue 55515, col A), this has "he was forced by ill-health to resign his chair in 1959", and "he read for the mechanical sciences tripos", so you could argue that the ODNB itself isn't being particularly original in using this phraseology-I've seen similar parallels in other ODNB articles where I've also been able to track down the obits. David Underdown (talk) 09:43, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh, well done in tracking down the original obituary. Using several independent source to write and article almost always helps, as they use phrases to describe the same events.

I agree, "Shell chair" would be a standard phrase to talk about the professorship, but I think you would usually talk about someone holding the chair rather than being the chair.

As I said above, I don't want to get too bogged down in the details of individiaul phrases: the overall impression I get from our article is that it is a thinly rewritten copy of the ODNB entry. The parallels go further than simply repeating the phrases "Shell chair" or "mechanical science[s] tripos". The small extracts from The Times you have given seem to use fairly different terms to report the same facts as the ODNB. By contrast, our article seems to use very similar turns of phrase as the ODNB. -- Testing times (talk) 10:26, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

This article has just appeared on the Main Page in the WP:DYK section. Not great, when we are concurrently discussing whether it is a copyvio. -- Testing times (talk) 11:20, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

"/Temp"

I think the template should be changed. I noticed that the "/Temp" page of a copyright problem page was speedy deleted as a "test page" . I would think that the name of the page probably has something to do with it, perhaps a different name would be in order. 70.55.200.131 (talk) 10:37, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

If anyone is curious, it's talk:Okayama Planet Search Program/Temp 70.55.200.131 (talk) 10:38, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing it out. I'll consult with the admin who deleted it. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 10:43, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I've left a note for the admin who deleted it. I've never seen one of these deleted as a test page before, but one known case may be sufficient to indicate a more widespread problem. It's possible that many of these have been tagged and simply never noted. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 10:48, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Good catch, folks. I think we could rename the link in Template:Copyviocore to something more descriptive. Stifle (talk) 11:22, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

TV synopsis copyrights

On the List of LazyTown episodes article, an IP has repeatedly added show synopses copypasted directly from the BBC's website. I reverted as copyright violations, but now a registered user has undone my edits with no comment or edit summary (other than the standard "undid" template). Is this indeed a copyright violation? 22:03, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is. I have removed the episode summaries and left a note at the article's talk page warning against restoration. I have also warned the editor who restored it. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 22:25, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Copyright notices on User pages

I noticed that the User Page User:Dotnine has a copyright notice at the bottom of a page of javascript. Does this automatically make it a copyright violation and do copyright violations include User Pages? ChemGardener (talk) 00:03, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

yes, copyright violations include User Pages. Copyrighted material cannot be placed anywhere on Wikipedia. Thanks for bringing up this one. Whether it's a violation or a misunderstanding by the user that he can retain all rights to material placed here, it's worth pointing out to him (or her), and I have done so. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:52, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Clarification on removing copyrighted material

I have recently been advised that reverting pages which contain copyright violations is needlessly disruptive and the process could better be served by merely removing the offending material, a move which is supported on WP:COPYVIO. However this page's instructions section is ambiguous on the matter: it says that "Material whose presence on Wikipedia infringes copyright ... should, as a general rule, be removed". However it then goes on to state in the instructions for where the speedy criteria would not apply (which would presumably be the case for only parts of a page being copyvios) that the first option is to revert the page. Furthermore, I had thought that merely removing the copied text would still leave the page open to derivative works issues. Could someone please clarify the situation, thanks? Icalanise (talk) 18:24, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi. The instructions here are minimal, I know. :) Infringing material is removed, though that doesn't always require deletion—reversion to an earlier non-infringing version or simple excising of the material may be appropriate depending on circumstances. If there's been substantial non-infringing improvement to the article since the copyright violation was introduced, reversion can have the unfortunate effect of removing that. In that case, if the copyvio can be easily identified and removed (say if it is one chunk of text), then removing it with a note at the article's talk page warning against restoration may be sufficient. If the copyright violation is diffuse throughout the article, that may not be possible. In that case, it may be necessary to revert to the earlier version. Sometimes if the copyright violation is particularly egregious, I will delete it altogether when I'm the admin addressing. When I do that, I incorporate as many improvements as I can without infringing on GFDL. (Categories and whatnot.) It is a risk, of course, that somebody will utilized violations from earlier versions in history; this is the purpose of the note at the article's talk. See Wikipedia:Copyright_problems/Advice_for_admins#Articles. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:51, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so it definitely doesn't cause any derivative works issues then? Icalanise (talk) 23:46, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. Do you mean a risk that somebody will resurrect part of the material, incorporating it into a new derivative work? Yes, it can cause those issues. That's why we should make not of what we're removing and why at the article's talk pages. (For example, I've created my own template warning since I personally address a lot of these; you can see it at User:Moonriddengirl/cclean.) If you mean something else, I'm evidently not following you. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:16, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I mean that if the article incorporates copyrighted material, any further revisions subsequent to the addition might be regarded as derivative work, which would (I think) imply that any additions since then are also in violation of the copyright, even if they are not taken directly from the copyrighted material itself, since they are effectively edits to a copyrighted work. However I am not a lawyer, so I might be getting confused. Icalanise (talk) 11:56, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I think I get you. Original material is not added to the pre-existing copyright, though the work in whole would be a derivative work of the original. For example, if you illegally utilize a photograph in a collage, you have a derivative work. If you cut the illegal photograph out and replace it with a free image, you no longer have a derivative work. The collage surrounding the original copyrighted image is not tainted by its former association. Similarly, if you remove the copyright infringement from the article, then you no longer have a derivative work. However, obviously, care must be taken to ensure that all infringing text is removed. If instead of being cut away, the text is insufficiently revised, it might remain close enough to continue as infringement. Picking back up with my example, you can't put a color tint over that illegal photograph and call it okay. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:07, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

sysnopsises and copyright

On the pages about movies and fictions on wikipedia, there are sysnopsises or summary sections which shows plots (which may be copyrighted) in detail. Can anyone explain why these are allowed ...? Jtm71 (talk) 21:32, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I'm not sure entirely what you mean. If you mean that these synopses have been pasted from copyrighted sources, then it's not allowed. Keeping on top of that, especially in television episodes, is getting to be a bit of a pain in the neck. If you're talking about the question of whether and when summary infringes on the copyright of the original work, fair use makes allowances for critical commentary. This is one of the reasons why summaries are supposed to be limited in length. (You can see a bit more about this at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)#Fair use and Wikipedia:Plot summaries#Length of plot summaries.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 22:17, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for helpful information. Jtm71 (talk) 04:09, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Copyright on format?

I am writing an article for another language edition of Wikipedia on global warming, inspired by the BBC documentary: The Climate Wars. I have used only the format of the program, for example, these themes regarding the history of climate change:

• the program starts with "Letter to Nixon about global cooling in 1971" ->
• "Environmental issues of the 70's" ->
• "Filler" ->
• "Filler" ->
• Ehrlich's "Eco Catastrophe" ->
• Scientists' opinion on new ice age ->
• Cold periods of the 40s to 60s ->
• Heating up during the 70s.

"Filler" refers to sections I didn't cover. I didn't use the narrative as presented in the program, but basically just used the format as used by the program, in other words, discussing issues in the same sequence as they did. Many parts, as presented by the program, differ a lot from my article (since I'm fact-checking everything, lots of sections tend to get rewritten). Am I on safe grounds, as far as copyright is concerned, or can they sue me for the creativity involved in choosing and ordering the information the way they did? Anrie (talk) 11:04, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

User:CarloscomB

CarloscomB added alot of quotes from "Steve Gottlieb", I'm not sure if they're acceptable or not, could someone take a look? [6] 70.55.86.100 (talk) 22:00, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Image of Wolfgang Paul

A Image of Wolfgang Paul which I found on the net states: Photo: Humboldt Foundation Reproduction free of charge - specimen copy requested Would a use in Wikipedia be OK? --Stone (talk) 07:21, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Template

I believe there is/was a talk page header template warning users not to re-add excessive fair use images to articles (e.g. "List of" articles). I am however unable to find it. Can someone please point me in the right direction? 08:03, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Good faith disagreement

A very experienced editor disagrees with me over the interpretation of the policy. I challenged and removed some article text on grounds of possible copyright violation (diff) (and possible plagiarism). If I understand his comments at Talk:Anglia Regional Co-operative Society#History (and the edit summaries) correctly, he believes that it is ok for him to restore the challenged material (diff), while he works on satisfying the licence requirements. I would prefer the text remain deleted until the issue is resolved.

It would be helpful if a third party assists in editing the article, or joins the discussion at the talk page, to help us resolve this cordially.

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:42, 18 November 2008 (UTC)