Help:Image copyright tags
From Istaria Lexica
All images on Istaria Lexica must be free to use under an appropriate license or used under Fair Use. This page will help you figure out which tag to use, and how to tag your images. Most images you find on the web or in a Google image search are not free to use, even if you don't see any copyright information with them! If you do not know who created an image and what license it is under, you cannot use it.
Please tag images on their image description page with one of the tags below so we can keep track of its status.
Try to provide as much detail as possible:
- When marking an image as one of the less specific categories (such as CopyrightedFreeUse), try to specify somewhere what the actual license or other permission states.
- If you tag an image as requiring attribution, please specify who needs to be attributed! Note that the GFDL requires attribution.
- If multiple categories apply to an image, add all that apply.
Each tag should be put on a line of its own.
Tagging options[edit]
Public domain[edit]
When adding a PD tag, also specify why the image is PD. Has the author released it into the PD? Is the image old enough to be PD? Is it PD because it was created by a particular government? Is it PD because a user created it and has uploaded it as PD?
- {{PD}}. Public domain. For example, when the author has put the work into the public domain or the author died over 70 years ago (pre-1935).
Free licenses[edit]
Be as specific as possible about which version of the license the image is used under.
- {{GFDL}} - GNU Free Documentation License
- {{Other Free}} - Any free license such as the GNU General Public License or Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike
- {{Permission}} - For when the owner of the image has given full permission for it to be used freely.
- {{From Wikimedia}} - For images taken from Wikimedia. Remember to add the specific license information too.
- {{Self}} - for image you made yourself, and release under a free license. Remember, a specific license tag should be preferred.
Fair use[edit]
See Wikipedia for a wider selection of fair use tags, especially if you will be uploading many logos or album covers. Review Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Image description page#Fair use rationale.
Unsuitable / unknown copyright status[edit]
If you do not know the copyright status, do not upload the image. Non-free Creative Commons licenses are also not permitted. This includes images which do not allow non-commercial use or derivative works (NC and ND licenses), since these are considered non-free. The Sampling+ license is also not free.
Wikipedia has a range of tags explaining why an image is unsuitable. You may find it more appropriate to delete the image, or tag it specifically with the {{delete}} template.
Examples of such tags on Wikipedia include unverified, unknown, and copyrighted.
You might want to tag images with {{Template:No license}} until licensing issues can be resolved.
Rationale[edit]
- What's "fair use" in one country may not be "fair use" in another country; this allows people creating derivative works in other countries to extract images which aren't legal in their country.
- It is harder to create decent images than decent text, so the temptation to break copyright is bigger, so we like to be a bit more vigilant. For this very reason, sublicensees are going to be especially concerned about images, particularly for printed versions.
- Secondly, it's easy to rewrite text that turns out to be copyrighted, but harder (though possible) to do the same for images.
- Where users have created the images they should have a bit of fame. Putting some text on the image description page that they took it themselves, and they license it under the GFDL, is a good way to do that.
Creating new tags[edit]
Try to use the tags already available. This makes it easier for people who want to re-use content from both sites.
- First create the template, for example, Template:Asdf. This can be a quick draft version of a public domain notice, for example.
- Categorize that template to Category:Licence templates.
- Upload a new image, then edit the image page
- Add the template tag {{Asdf}} into the page.
Done.
