Wikipedia:Media copyright questions
Welcome to the Media copyright questions noticeboard, a place for help with image copyright tagging, non-free content, and media-related questions. For all other questions, use Wikipedia:Questions.
If you have a question about a specific image, link to it like this: [[:File:Example.png]] (Note the colons around the word File.) If a question clearly does not belong on this page, reply to it using the template {{Mcq-wrong}} and leave a note on the poster's talk page. For copyright issues relevant to Commons, questions may be directed to Commons's copyright village pump.
How to add a copyright tag to an existing image
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The Smiths "Meat is Murder" album cover
[edit]This is the image in question.
The final image only uses a public domain photograph that is arrayed in four, with the only change to the image being lighting and replacing text with a hand drawn "Meat is Murder". On the left is simple text saying "The Smiths".
Are these changes original enough for the image to be only classified as Fair Use in Wikipedia, or would fall below the originality threshold, and be public domain? Crafts97 (talk) 23:22, 28 April 2026 (UTC)
- Sorry, this is a bit of a wildcard here and possibly not the right place, but might the original image not have a valid Vietnamese copyright and thus this be a derivative work of that in the UK, which is the source of this image. Obviously your logic still could hold within the United States. Morwen (talk) 23:57, 1 May 2026 (UTC)
- Crafts97: I believe the derivative quadruple image of File:"Make War Not Love" Vietnam War photo.jpg cannot be considered anything other than being in the public domain. The addition of the simple text turned through 90˚ does not change that. UK copyright, while strict, may, or may not, consider the text copyrightable though even there is no manipulation of the typeface as there is with File:EDGE magazine (logo).svg. We don't really care about that if it is not on the commons. In that case the EDGE logo is only held on the enwiki and not on the commons. I suggest you do the same using this template
{{PD-ineligible-USonly|the United Kingdom}}. ww2censor (talk) 13:15, 11 May 2026 (UTC)
- Crafts97: I believe the derivative quadruple image of File:"Make War Not Love" Vietnam War photo.jpg cannot be considered anything other than being in the public domain. The addition of the simple text turned through 90˚ does not change that. UK copyright, while strict, may, or may not, consider the text copyrightable though even there is no manipulation of the typeface as there is with File:EDGE magazine (logo).svg. We don't really care about that if it is not on the commons. In that case the EDGE logo is only held on the enwiki and not on the commons. I suggest you do the same using this template
Photo slides acquired from EBay ineligible for Commons usage?
[edit]I believe I just found myself in a bit of a fiasco, if anyone here is willing to look into it.
So I have a small private collection of slides I acquired from EBay, and I uploaded a small portion of it on Commons Wikimedia to add EV to certain pages. Here is a list of my last 100 uploads over there that should list all the slides I'm referring to. And then I nominated one of them for Featured Image status, and then I spoke with one of the users there, who pointed out that the slides may be ineligible to be publicly uploaded. There could be a loophole for those that have existed prior to 1987 without actual copyright protection, but that user wasn't sure and suggested that I speak with someone much more knowledgeable in the copyright field, and that brought me here.
Could anyone explain this to me? Someone who likes train writing (talk) 17:32, 4 May 2026 (UTC)
- As these images were uploaded to Commons, I suggest you raise the question there. You can post at c:Commons:Village pump/Copyright. -- Whpq (talk) 17:34, 4 May 2026 (UTC)
Image usage
[edit]Not sure I understand how an image can be OK for the Hans von Dohnanyi page but that same image is a violation and gets flagged for the Zossen documents page. Can somebody please clarify why the image was removed, as this is utterly confusing. Thanks Obenritter (talk) 18:38, 7 May 2026 (UTC)
- Hi Obenritter. Wikipedia's non-free content use policy has been intentionally set up to be quite restrictive with the goal of keeping non-free use a minimal as possible. There are ten criteria that each use of non-free content needs to satisfy, and one of these (actually one part of one of these) is WP:NFCC#10c: each use of non-free content needs to be provided with a spearate, specific non-free use rationale which explains how it satisfies all ten criteria. My guess is that you added a non-free file to the "Zossen Documents" article but failed to add a corresponding non-free use rationale for that particular use to the file's page; so, the bot which has been tasked with looking for 10c violations found the file and removed it per WP:NFCCE. There's nothing unusual about what the bot did, and it's actually what it has has been asked to do: it also why it left an edit summary linking to WP:NFC#Implementation.Now, if you feel the file's non-free use in the "Zossen" article does satisfy all ten criteria, adding the missing rationale to the file's page explaining how and then re-adding the file should stop the bot from removing it again. However, 10c is WP:JUSTONE of the criteria that needs to met, and adding a rationale doesn't automatically make a particular non-free use valid. In general, non-free images of deceased individuals are considered OK when they're used for primary identification purposes at the tops of of in the main infoboxes of stand-alone (biogrraphical) articles about the individual in the photo, but other non-free uses in other articles or in other ways tend to be much harder to justify per non-free content use criterion #1, non-free content use criterion #3, and non-free content use criterion #8.After looking at the way you were using File:Hans-von-Dohnanyi low res.png in the "Zossen " article, I think you'd have a really hard time establishing a consensus in favor of the file's use there. A non-free photo of the actual documents might be OK (if one could be found), but a photo of von Dohnanyi itself doesn't really significantly improve the reader's understanding of the subject matter to the degree that not seeing that photo would be detrimental to that understanding, at least in my opinion; so, simply linking to article about von Dohnanyi, where the reader can see his photo, seems a sufficient alternative to another use of the the non-free file. Again, this is just my opinion, but I really don't think you'd be able to establish a consensus in favor of such use at WP:FFD if tried to re-add the file (with a corresponding rationale this time), and the use was subsequently challenged by another Wikipedian. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:55, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
- Well, as a professional historian, I disagree that Dohnanyi's photo is more or less irrelevant in this regard, considering his role in building the documents. That logic would be like saying Stauffenberg's picture is not helpful to a reader learning about Operation Valkyrie. What do I know? Evidently not enough to worry about justifying anything, let alone the finer matter of photo copyrights. I'm walking away from the matter. --Obenritter (talk) 05:09, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
- It has less to do with copyright and more to do with (English) Wikipedia policy on non-free content use. My answer was mainly based on how I've seen this policy applied over the years to similar types of non-free use. I don't, however, unilaterally decide such things. If you, as a professional historian, feel that the addition of that particular image to the "Zossen" article significantly improves the reader's understanding of the subject matter, then you can seek a WP:CONSENSUS to add the image to the article. Typically, this can be done via WP:FFD (not really like you tried to do on the file's page which was subsequently removed by another user), but you can seek less formal feedback to test the waters so to speak at WT:NFCC first if you want.As for Stauffenberg and Operation Valkyrie, there don't seem to be any non-free photos of any type being used in that article; all the photos are from Wikipedia Commons and, thus, are not subject to same restrictions as non-free content. Now, it's possible that that Dohnanyi photo doesn't need to be licensed as non-free content any longer because it's copyright has expired since it was uploaded first to Russian Wikipedia in 2015 and then subsequently to English Wikipedia in 2019, or it was never eligible for copyright protection to begin with. Assuming the photo was originally first published in Germany, someone at c:COM:VPC might be able to help determine that. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:55, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
- No worries. Thanks for the detailed explanation. It's not something I am interested in pursuing further...my level of effort ends here. It's probably why I rarely do anything tied to photos. --Obenritter (talk) 12:33, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
- It has less to do with copyright and more to do with (English) Wikipedia policy on non-free content use. My answer was mainly based on how I've seen this policy applied over the years to similar types of non-free use. I don't, however, unilaterally decide such things. If you, as a professional historian, feel that the addition of that particular image to the "Zossen" article significantly improves the reader's understanding of the subject matter, then you can seek a WP:CONSENSUS to add the image to the article. Typically, this can be done via WP:FFD (not really like you tried to do on the file's page which was subsequently removed by another user), but you can seek less formal feedback to test the waters so to speak at WT:NFCC first if you want.As for Stauffenberg and Operation Valkyrie, there don't seem to be any non-free photos of any type being used in that article; all the photos are from Wikipedia Commons and, thus, are not subject to same restrictions as non-free content. Now, it's possible that that Dohnanyi photo doesn't need to be licensed as non-free content any longer because it's copyright has expired since it was uploaded first to Russian Wikipedia in 2015 and then subsequently to English Wikipedia in 2019, or it was never eligible for copyright protection to begin with. Assuming the photo was originally first published in Germany, someone at c:COM:VPC might be able to help determine that. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:55, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
- Well, as a professional historian, I disagree that Dohnanyi's photo is more or less irrelevant in this regard, considering his role in building the documents. That logic would be like saying Stauffenberg's picture is not helpful to a reader learning about Operation Valkyrie. What do I know? Evidently not enough to worry about justifying anything, let alone the finer matter of photo copyrights. I'm walking away from the matter. --Obenritter (talk) 05:09, 8 May 2026 (UTC)
International creative commons license
[edit]I uploaded a file that is under the CC BY 3.0 NL (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/nl/) license, which is a free license. However, there is no license tag that exists for this specific license. It seems inappropriate to use the normal CC-BY-3.0 license tag as well. What license tag should I use for this image? Jcuhfehl (talk) 17:12, 9 May 2026 (UTC)
- @Jcuhfehl, if you are trying to upload a free file, you should do it on Wikimedia Commons. There is a template for the NL license there: commons:Template:Cc-by-3.0-nl. To save you the trouble I have exported the files for you. -- Reconrabbit (talk) 19:48, 13 May 2026 (UTC)
- Thank you very much @Reconrabbit Jcuhfehl (talk) 21:46, 15 May 2026 (UTC)
Image tag for album cover
[edit]Which copyright license tag should I use for an album cover image? (Boards of Canada - Prophecy At 1420 MHz) I don’t know much about the rules, and would appreciate help since it’s ‘untagged’ right now.Bucephalusbouncing28 (talk) 10:04, 10 May 2026 (UTC)
- This one (File:Prophecy At 1420 MHz.webp), right? It's a non-free album cover, so let's not use it yet at Draft:Prophecy at 1420 MHz until the draft is ready to be at the mainspace, especially per WP:NFCC#9. Rather you should use the {{db-g7}} on the file you uploaded. When the draft is moved to mainspace, then you can re-upload the album cover... preferably via WP:Upload Wizard, much easier for those less experienced in copyright law around the world, especially copyright law of the United States. George Ho (talk) 10:19, 10 May 2026 (UTC)
- Hi Bucephalusbouncing28. File:Prophecy At 1420 MHz.webp is recent enough and complex enough to certainly be eligible for copyright protection; so, unless you're its creator/copyright holder, it will need to be treated as non-free content if you want to use it on Wikipedia. You can use the non-free copyright license Template:Non-free album cover and the non-free use rationale Template:Non-free use rationale album cover to resolve the reasons why the file was tagged by a bot for review: non-free file files require both a non-free copyright license and a non-free use rationale (seperate and specific for each use) per WP:NFC#Implementation. However, Wikipedia's non-free content use policy is quite restrictive, on one of these restrictions has to do with non-free content use criterion #9. Criterion #9 states that non-fre content can only be used in the article namespace, i.e., it can't be used in drafts like Draft:Prophecy at 1420 MHz. So, once you add the missing copyright license and missing non-free use for the file, the file will need to be removed from the draft and only re-added after the draft as been approved as an article. This could mean that the file will end up deleted as "orphaned non-free use" per WP:F5 if it remains without a valid non-free use for more than a week, but don't worry about that; the file can be easily restored by a Wikipedia administrator per WP:REFUND once the draft has been approved as an article or once a valid non-free use for it is found. -- Marchjuly (talk) 10:30, 10 May 2026 (UTC)
- @Bucephalusbouncing28The file and the draft article are both duplicates for Introit / Prophecy at 1420 MHz and File:Boards of Canada Introit Prophecy at 1420 MHz.jpeg so while the information above is correct, both are superfluous. Nthep (talk) 20:34, 13 May 2026 (UTC)
File:Disincanto (Madame album).jpg
[edit]File:Disincanto (Madame album).jpg seems fairly simple to me, at least simple enough to be {{PD-ineligible-USonly}} even if still protected in Italy per c:COM:TOO Italy. Does this need to remain licensed as {{Non-free album cover}}? -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:27, 11 May 2026 (UTC)
- Unsure. Perhaps ask at WP:FFD then? George Ho (talk) 02:37, 11 May 2026 (UTC)
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