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This page documents an official English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that should normally be followed by all editors. Any edit to this page should reflect consensus. If in doubt, consider discussing changes on the talk page. |
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This page in a nutshell: Do not add content to Wikipedia if you think that doing so may be a copyright violation. Contributors should take steps to remove any copyright violations that they find. |
One of the most important aspects of Wikipedia is that its text (not media; see below) may be freely redistributed, reused and built upon by anyone, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. This means it is essential that all text added to Wikipedia is compatible with this license. Contributors agree to release their original content under the GFDL when they submit it, and material from public domain sources or other GFDL-licensed sources may also be used, provided correct attribution is given. However, material copied from other sources without the permission of the copyright holder is likely to be a copyright violation. Such a situation should be treated seriously, as copyright violations not only harm Wikipedia's redistributability but also create legal issues.
The situation for images and other media is slightly different, as the GNU Free Documentation License is not required for media (though it is an option). In short, media which is not available under a suitable free license, and which does not meet the non-free content criteria, should be assumed to be unacceptable. See Wikipedia:Image use policy and Wikipedia:Non-free content for details of this.
Dealing with copyright violations
Contributors who repeatedly post copyrighted material despite appropriate warnings may be blocked from editing by any administrator to prevent further problems.
If you suspect a copyright violation, you should at least bring up the issue on that page's discussion page. Others can then examine the situation and take action if needed. The most helpful piece of information you can provide is a URL or other reference to what you believe may be the source of the text.
Some cases will be false alarms. For example, if the contributor was in fact the author of the text, then even if it is published elsewhere under different terms, they have the right to post it here under the GFDL – the text may still be unsuitable for Wikipedia for another reason, but it is not a copyright violation. Text that can be found elsewhere on the Web that was in fact copied from Wikipedia in the first place is also not a copyright violation – at least not on Wikipedia's part. In both of these cases, it is a good idea to make a note of the situation on the discussion page.
If some, but not all, of the content of a page appears to be a copyright infringement, then the infringing content should be removed, and a note to that effect should be made on the discussion page, along with the original source, if known. If the copyright holder's permission is later obtained, the text may be restored.
If all of the content of a page appears to be a copyright infringement, check the page history; if an older non-infringing version of the page exists, you should revert the page to that version.
If there is no such older version, you may be able to re-write the page from scratch or obtain permission from the copyright holder, but failing that, the page will normally need to be deleted. In limited circumstances, administrators may delete obvious copyright violations on sight; see the relevant section of the speedy deletion policy. Contributors may list pages that meet these conditions for deletion using the {{db-copyvio}} tag.
If the criteria for speedy deletion do not apply, you should replace the contents of the page with the {{subst:copyvio | url=insert URL here}} tag, and list the page at Wikipedia:Copyright problems; see instructions. If, after a week, the page still appears to be a copyright infringement, it may be deleted by any administrator.
Copyright owners
If you are a copyright owner or represent a copyright owner, and you believe that Wikipedia is infringing your copyright, we can assist you best via e-mail. You may contact info-en-c@wikimedia.org with an informal request; please cite the exact URL (the "address" or "location" of the page as shown by your web browser, beginning with http://en.wikipedia.org/...), and provide enough information to substantiate your claim of copyright ownership. Be aware that correspondence is answered by a small number of volunteers, and an immediate reply may not be possible.
If you prefer to use the slower process of a formal OCILLA request, you should send it to the Wikimedia Foundation's designated agent.
See also
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 26 October 2008, at 23:33.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Wikipedia:Copyright violations".
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