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This is a guide for administrators and editors working through Wikipedia:Copyright problems, CopyPatrol, and Category:Possible copyright violations. The main copyright problems page has a link to each day's daily log page. The 'edit' link for the daily log page can be reached from the main copyright problems page. There are also some suggestions at the bottom of the page for addressing image violations, although these are not listed at WP:CP.

Clerks, see Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Advice for clerks

Investigation process

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It is important to thoroughly investigate each article before deciding to keep, alter, or delete it. The investigation process includes evaluating the article and source and, if copyrighted text has been used, ensuring that proper permission to use the text has been granted. For listings at the copyright problems board, there may be relevant comments from other editors at the board itself or on the article's talk page; remember to check for these.

Identifying the source

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Sometimes articles are tagged with {{copyvio}} without a source being named. Frequently, articles tagged for {{Close paraphrasing}} or {{Copy-paste}} do not identify their sources. If the source is not obvious, a Google search using quotation marks "" around suspicious sentences or a scan with The Earwig's tool can help. Most articles copy from the sources cited; only a few rare cases do not. If you cannot find a source, consider who placed the tag, and who added the alleged copyright violation. If it looks like disruption, remove the tag. Otherwise, handling depends on which tag it is.

  • {{Copy-paste}} tags are frequently used when people have a sense that something is off, but no evidence. If no source is given or found, remove the {{Copy-paste}} tag from the article and place {{cv-unsure|1=[[User:Username]]|2=permanent link to the tagged version}} on the talk page, replacing the usual ~~~ with the username or IP of the contributor who tagged the article.
  • {{Close paraphrasing}} tags are not generally used for hunches that there was copying, but if no source can be found and no examples are given, we cannot process them. Remove the tag with a note at the talk page requesting more information if it is restored.
  • {{Copyvio}} tags also are not generally used for hunches. If the tag seems to have been placed in good faith by a registered contributor or active IP, ask for the source. If the tagger is not available for comment and you cannot find the source, the tag may be removed and the content may be restored, though it is a good idea to place {{cv-unsure}} on the talk page, as above. This will invite further scrutiny.

If a source is located, you can proceed with evaluating the issue.

Evaluating the issue

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At each stage, an answer of "yes" or "maybe" to the core question indicates a need to continue. An answer of "no" does not. If a copyright problem cannot be substantiated, you should communicate your findings at the image's or article's talk page to help avoid future mistaggings.

  • Is the article the same as or similar to the suspected source?
Compare the article with the text of the suspected source. If the suspected source is not online or is not freely or fully accessible, which is not uncommon when it comes to content possibly copied from books or journals, you may need to seek help in comparing elsewhere. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request, seeing if the source is available through The Wikipedia Library, requesting an Interlibrary loan at a local library, or buying the content yourself are some possible work arounds.
  • Superficial alterations to copyrighted text are insufficient to avoid copyright infringement. Close paraphrasing may also be infringement. (Likewise, images that incorporate major elements of other images may constitute derivative works, even if some material is original.)
  • An unauthorized translation from a foreign language can also be a copyright violation, if the original remains copyrighted.
  • Extensive quotations may also be a copyright infringement, even when clearly marked. The non-free content criteria details what non-free content must pass in order to be kept.
  • Aside from Earwig's Copyvio Detector, the Duplication Detector is an older tool that can be used for comparison. Be sure to check for close paraphrasing in the text surrounding the bolded matches. When using this tool, it is always best to use specific diff revisions (even if it is the current) as it sometimes compares an archived version of the Wikipedia article. If the edit that introduced the alleged copyright violation is a recent one, CopyPatrol may have a report on it. Entering the article's name (if the article is a Draft, remove the "Draft:" from the title, otherwise you will get no results) into the search bar and selecting "All cases" will show all reports made involving the article.
  • Did the suspected source publish the content before Wikipedia?
There are many Wikipedia mirrors and forks, and Wikipedia articles may also be copied to personal or commercial websites (in accordance with GFDL and CC-By-SA requirements). If substantial similarity exists,
  • See if the page mentions Wikipedia by name, links to Wikipedia pages, and/or has the same citation placement as the Wikipedia page.
  • Which came first? If it is unclear, compare the date of the webpage with the Wikipedia article's history.
  • The Internet Archive can help determine the age of a particular page or text.
  • If you cannot verify age, examine the introduction of text. Large chunks of unwikified text added in one revision are usually copied from another website, a book, or other material. If the text seems to have evolved naturally at Wikipedia, particularly if it was gradually edited to become more like the suspected source, then it probably is not a copyright violation.
  • Consider the history of the contributor who added the text. Do they have a history of copyright violations? Are there changes in tone from article to article more dramatic than might be expected in a simple change of subject, such that the user may be using somebody else's words?
  • Consider the history of the source. Official or reputable sources are less likely to have mirrored Wikipedia's content without attribution, although it sometimes does happen. Be suspicious of blogs and cheap-to-set-up websites, especially if they are not cited as sources. In particular, almost all articles on Wikipedia have been duplicated by three to five different BlogSpot sites.
If you confirm that another source is duplicating a Wikipedia article without obvious credit, consider tagging the article's talk page with {{Backwardscopy}}.
  • Is copyright on the suspected source reserved?
Check the copyright status of the suspected source to see if the content is public domain or licensed under a compatible license. (See license compatibility table)
  • Wikipedia:Public domain offers some guidance on what is and is not copyrighted. Wikisource:Help:Public domain can also offer guidance.
  • Statements like 'all rights reserved', 'Copyright 2XXX', 'non-commercial use only', 'educational use only' or 'permission granted to Wikipedia' are not compliant with our licensing requirements.
  • If the copyright status is unclear from the URL itself, check the 'About this site', 'copyright' 'FAQ', or 'Terms of use' sections of the site, if available. However, Copyright is presumed unless it can be explicitly verified otherwise.
  • Is the suspected source a licensed computer program?
The Creative Commons has not declared compatibility with any software license. Text from Wikipedia should not be similar to text used in the interface, or source code, of a program.
  • The only exception is text from computer programs in the public domain.

Checking for permission

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When a contributor gives credible claim of permission or ownership, they should be given notice of how to proceed under Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials or Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission and permitted time to verify before an article is deleted. Seven days is commonly allowed, and the article remains templated while awaiting verification, or reverted to the last clean version in the history.

To see if permission is asserted, check the talk page, edit summaries, and the user talk page of the contributor who added the text. Sometimes new editors are unsure where to claim permission and could state their claim in unlikely places. You may choose to operate as though a credible claim of permission has been asserted if the contributor's username suggests an affiliation with the suspected source. If a contributor has asserted permission but was not recently notified of the process for verification, relist under an appropriate date to extend that deadline. If the contributor was not notified how to verify at all, remedy that and relist under today's date.

Some common sense is necessary here. The "copyright problem" template that blanks an article's face itself provides instruction for verification. If a contributor has been routinely contributing to the talk page of a blanked article, they may be presumed to have seen the template and read it. Likewise, if a contributor has been advised how to verify in the past, they do not need to receive a separate notice how to verify for each new copyright problem.

No matter how credible an editor's claim is, every claim of permission must be verified officially through one of the processes below. If permission is verified through either of these processes, close the listing, as the article is not a copyright violation. Text for which permission has not been verified in due time is treated substantially the same as text for which permission is not asserted, although it is courteous to alert the contributor to deletion with {{Cup}}.

VRT
Permission that is stored in Foundation's Volunteer Response Team is logged at the article's talk page by an VRT agent, usually with {{Ticket confirmation}}. The VRT agent who responds should remove any copyright warnings from the article's face and add any required attribution. {{Permission pending}} and {{Permission received}} are not verifications of permission. However, if the article's talk has been tagged {{Permission received}}, you may wish to check with the VRT agent who tagged it for an update before deleting the article as unverified (see below). If the article has been tagged {{Permission pending}} for a few months with no change, it may be considered unverified. VRT agents can restore deleted articles if the VRT permission clears past deadline.
External website
If no VRT verification has been provided, check to see if a link has been provided to a licensing statement somewhere on the article's source. (You will have presumably already checked the obvious locations during the investigation process.) If it has, check the provided link to see if it holds a usable licensing statement which specifies that the material is licensed compatibly with CC-By-SA. If you verify that a usable licensing statement exists, log your confirmation at the article's talk and provide attribution if needed in the article.
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If a copyright violation is substantiated (that is: if the text is the same as or too similar to that of a source that has or may have been previously published, and that source is not in the public domain or compatibly licensed) and there is either no credible assertion of permission or an assertion has not been verified in due time, the text will need to be removed.

If new, clean text has been proposed
Always investigate first to see if new content has been proposed at the temporary subpage /Temp linked on the copyvio notice or at the article's talk page. If so,
  • Check to be sure that contributors to the new version have not violated the attribution rights of earlier creators, but have properly attributed,
  • Make sure that all copyright infringement has been removed and that there are not new issues with close paraphrasing,
  • If the new content is clear of licensing violations or copyright concerns, it may be used to replace the original article (when the original article does not have salvageable content or history) or history merged into it (if the original does have usable content). If merging, you may wish to use Wikipedia:Revision deletion on the versions that contain the copyright infringement to help avoid inadvertent restoration in the future.
If the article is a copyright violation without salvageable content or history
Delete the article if it meets the current criteria of WP:CSD#G12 or if it has been listed at the copyright problems board for seven days and meets all of the following conditions:
  1. all/most of the text on the page infringes on that of a source that was or may have been previously published and that cannot be verified to be public domain or compatibly licensed,
  2. there is either no credible assertion of permission or an assertion has been made but not verified in due time, and
  3. there is no clean version in the article's history which could be restored and no content on the page worth saving (that is, which would survive WP:CSD if the copyrighted content were removed).
Use a suitable deletion rationale - such as one of the appropriate pulldown rationales or "blatant copyright infringement of <place URL here> with no assertion of ownership or permission" or "deleted after listing at [[Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Year Month Day]]". If new content exists (see above), move it into the space previously occupied by the copyright violation.
If there are clean versions in history or salvageable content on the page
Revert back to the last clean revision or remove the infringing text from the article, using an appropriate edit summary. Leave a note at the article's talk page explaining the removal (the template {{cclean}} may be used). Within discretion of the size of the violation and respect to large-scale use, use Wikipedia:Revision deletion on the versions that contain the copyright infringement, not including the removal. Long-standing content or content that has many intervening edits may be revision deleted with extra care, however, this runs the risk of causing attribution problems. Note that Wikipedia presents notices to readers that content in old revisions may contain copyright violations.
If revision-deletion of salvaged content is still desired, and the salvaged content is dated after 2020 September 11, steps must be taken to notify readers that the GFDL license is void. Place {{CCBYSA4Source}} or {{CC-notice}} with parameter bysa4 below the references section, and fill the 'source' parameter with the URL of the last revision prior to the copyright violation being detected. If there are intervening edits without the proper notices, only {{CCBYSA4Source}} can be used.

Closing the investigation

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  • If there was no copyright violation, then remove the {{copyvio}} notice from the article or revert to the last version prior to insertion of the template. A short explanation on the article talk page will help prevent future reports for the same copyright problems.
  • If you deleted the article, then it's not necessary to do anything else. The red link on that day's log page will indicate the page was deleted as the resolution of the issue.
  • If the page was not deleted (i.e. there was no violation, or violations were deleted, rewritten, etc.), than leave a brief explanation of your actions threaded below the article's listing. The template {{CPC}} may be used for this purpose.
  • If you have confirmed copyright violation, consider checking the contributor's talk page and history to see if additional steps need to be taken to prevent future copyright problems or to clean up previously existing ones. See Wikipedia:Copyright violations and Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations.
  • When all entries on a day's log at Copyright problems have been resolved, remove the day's daily log page from Copyright problems. (Please make sure that each article has been reviewed by an admin; non-admins do sometimes help at CP, but while their work is frequently correct, an admin should also check to ensure that.)

Old daily log pages can be found at [[Wikipedia:Copyright problems/year month day/Articles]] or [[Wikipedia:Copyright problems/year month day/Images]].

Notation templates

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Notations used on the copyright problems board by admins and clerks are found below. They can also be located in the edit notice at the top of every page in the "copyright problems" space.

Extended content
These templates are optional ways to quickly generate a signed explanation of how a matter was handled. Notes may be left manually as well.
Code Alt. code Usage Produces
a alreadyrewritten {{subst:CPC|a}}
  • Already rewritten. No infringing content remains. ~~~~
b backwards {{subst:CPC|b}}
  • Backwardscopy. Tag placed at talk page. ~~~~
ba backwardsattributed {{subst:CPC|ba}}
  • Backwardscopy. Attributes Wikipedia. ~~~~
bl blanked {{subst:CPC|bl}}
  • Blanked and relisted. ~~~~
c cleaned {{subst:CPC|c}}
  • Article cleaned by investigator or others. No remaining infringement. ~~~~
d deleted {{subst:CPC|d}}
  • Article deleted due to copyright concerns. ~~~~
do deletedother {{subst:CPC|do}}
  • Article deleted for a reason other than copyright concerns. ~~~~
f fail {{subst:CPC|f}}
  • Failed to verify copyright status, VRT permission refused. Content removed with no remaining infringement. ~~~~
h histpurge {{subst:CPC|h}}
  • Article cleaned, revision deletion requested. ~~~~
m move {{subst:CPC|m}}
  • Rewrite moved into place. ~~~~
n no {{subst:CPC|n}}
  • No copyright concern. Material is PD, license compatible, or ineligible for copyright protection. ~~~~
o VRT {{subst:CPC|o}}
  • VRT ticket received, verification pending. ~~~~
p purged {{subst:CPC|p}}
  • Revision deletion completed. ~~~~
r relist {{subst:CPC|r}}
rdr redirect {{subst:CPC|rdr}}
  • Article redirected to a non-infringing target. ~~~~
re resolved {{subst:CPC|re}}
  • Issue resolved. ~~~~
t ticket {{subst:CPC|t}}
  • VRT ticket verified, article now licensed and compatible with CC BY-SA 4.0. ~~~~
u user {{subst:CPC|u}}
  • User was not notified, relisted. ~~~~
v viable {{subst:CPC|v}}
  • Viable rewrite proposed; rewrite on temp page can be merged into the article. ~~~~
w where {{subst:CPC|w}}
  • No vio found, claim cannot be validated. Tag removed from article. ~~~~

Images

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See also: Wikipedia:Guide to image deletion

Wikipedia:Non-free content is the policy governing non-free images. Images that are blatant copyright infringement should be tagged for speedy deletion with {{db-f9}}. Images that are less clear should be listed for investigation at Wikipedia:Files for discussion.

Images tagged with {{db-f9}} should be blatant image copyright infringements, images for which the source is known and which cannot be used under a free license or fair use doctrine. Examples include derivative works of copyrighted images and images for which free alternatives exist.

If the image is identical to the image found at the given URL and it cannot be used on Wikipedia under fair use or a free license:

  • Delete the image with an edit summary such as "copyright infringement of <place URL here> without permission".

If the image has been tagged by the uploader with a free license when that is obviously not the case:

If the image seems like a copyright infringement but there is no URL given in the report for the source, or you're uncertain about its copyright status:

If the image is a logo or cover art, or an image that can be used under WP:NFC but lacks a rationale or a license:

  1. Remove {{db-f9}} from the image.
  2. Add the appropriate template(s) instead:

As a courtesy, tag the captions in the article(s) in which the image is used and notify the uploader per instructions.

If there was no copyright violation:

  • Remove the {{db-f9}} notice from the article by reverting to the last version prior to insertion of the template.

See also

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