Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Share Your Knowledge/Guidelines/License

A guiding path that makes the collaboration among cultural institutions and Wikipedia easier. It has been created for WikiAfrica and gives its contribution to the GLAM project.

Hints on how cultural institutions can give their contribute to Wikipedia.

This list of free license use answers has been written down on the basis of the FAQs made by Share Your Knowledge project involved institutions.

Questions about free license adoption

Why should I adopt a CC-BY-SA license?

Why should a cultural institutions adopt a CC-BY-SA license for its own contents?

A. To give its contribute to Wikipedia and promote the spreading of its cultural contents. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike free license (CC BY-SA) has been adopted by Wikipedia and other online resources looked for by millions of people everyday. The adoption of a CC BY-SA free license gives the chance to a cultural institution to spread its contents enriching the most looked for encyclopaedia in the world, in full copyright safeguard. Some of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world, like the British Museum and Versailles, have made this choice, so that they can reach a widest audience. Smaller and less famous cultural institutions can gain more advantages. It is worth adopting a CC-BY-SA license for specialized texts with minimum circulation and press spreading, because the license will let other people publish them, increasing exponentially their spreading.

Do I need to pay to adopt a license?

Do I have to pay to adopt a Creative Commons license like the CC-BY-SA o is it free?

A. The adoption of CC licenses is fully and permanently free.

Which legal validity have licenses got?

If we adopt a Creative Commons license for our contents, is it juridical acknowledged, or better, what kind of tutelage have we got? For example, how can the author safeguard himself/herself when the source or the license is not quoted? Which subject is in charge of this tutelage?

A. Someone who adopts a license (like a CC) is safeguarded on the basis of the copyright law and of contracts law according to the national judicial system. Therefore if the CC license will not be respected in some way, it will be possible to convene the responsible person for violation of copyright law and for contract duties non-fulfilment.

[Notice: this answer may require adjustments as your local laws may differ]

Can the licenses be applied to various supports kinds?

Is it possible to apply CC licenses also outside the web to paper/physical and not only digital support types (printed edition of the publications or audio-visual physical supports)?

A. Yes, it is. CC licenses can be applied to any creative work under copyright.

Is the acquired license irrevocable?

Thanks to a formal agreement with an external partner, we gained some CC BY-SA contents. But the partner retired from business and these contents are not visible on any website with the CC license indication. Can we republish them with the same license?

A. The license is irrevocable, thus the retirement from business (with a probable transfer of third party material) does not imply the annulment of the CC license that had been previously released.

May I adopt other licenses types?

Beside the CC-BY-SA license, are there other licenses types that are Wikipedia compatible?

A. In order to allow your contents use on Wikipedia you can choose the CC BY or the CC 0 (“CC zero”) licenses; finally you can also release the contents in the public domain.

How/Where can I put the license?

How can I practically have my contents under license?

A. See the practical guide for the license insert.

Questions about copyright with free license

May we use third party images?

How should we deal with third party images rights, for example with scene pictures, film posters, filmmakers photographic portrays, festival various editions posters? May we publish them under CC license?

A. Only if you have a permission to do so. Images copyrights may be owned by photographers, posters picture companies, or movie companies, ad so on. In order to publish them under a CC license, you have to gain a written authorization by those who own the rights. In the previous examples an acquittance by the picture company should be enough (this one should guarantee to own all the specified images rights and to be able to release the specified license). See the sample clauses which can be inserted in contracts. On Wikipedia there are also request and authorization forms.

You can use the guided path on Wikipedia or better on Wikimedia Commons to determine the proper license of the image to be uploaded.

May we use some contents found on a website?

As far as web research and material, which license can be used if you do not know the original author? And which are the valid copyrights in this field? (it is often told that web images are copyright free...)

A. Contents (texts, images, etc.) “taken from the web” are subjected to copyright, even if it is not specified, like contents from other media.

Images “found” in the web are not copyright free, so you have to guess that they are copyrighted, unless a different license is specified.

In order to limit the texts quotations (not uploading a whole document but just a part of it, like a quotation) you can see Wikipedia:Non-free content - it is not necessary to adopt a free license in order to make a simple quotation.

For copyright exceptions on the english Wikipedia see Wikipedia:Non-free content (note that the "Fair use" may be not allowed on other Wikipedia editions, like Wikipedia in Italian, due to different local laws. See Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights).

How can we control and grant a right use of our contents?

If I release my material under a CC license, which control may I have on how others use it? And what about my freed material used in a wrong or defamatory way?

A. Freeing your material under a CC license does not imply the authorization for wrong or defamatory uses. Local laws may implement this concept in different ways. According to the situation, the defamatory use could represent a violation of artwork paternity or integrity. In these cases you can invoke the juridical authority action against a copyright violation.

What's the difference between "quotation right" and free license?

Which is the difference between quoting/using a text source (for example a graduation thesis or a written book or a chapter written for a book) and using the same text with a CC license?

A. The quotation is a free use of artworks under copyright or an exception to the sole-right (see Wikipedia:Non-free content); the adoption of free licenses is not essential to make a quotation.

CC license allows a different and wider use of a text: with a CC BY-SA license people can edit the text, republish it (also with commercial purposes) and - for example – insert wider extracts and chapters on Wikipedia.

When the adoption of a CC BY-SA license is advisable?

A. A compilation, general and encyclopaedic text – for example – can be very interesting for Wikipedia and its spreading under CC BY-SA license is highly meaningful.

It is worth adopting a CC BY-SA license even on specialized texts with few circulation and press spreading, because the license will let other people publish them with an exponential spreading increase. Maybe CC BY-SA license is not fit for a potential best-seller.

For more details, see the answers about contents use on Wikipedia.

How do we have to deal with third party images?

We often publish third party pieces of information (such as pdf files, with or without pictures, logos, etc.) in our newsletters: do we have to gain the specific authorizations for their use under a CC-BY-SA license?

A. Yes, you have to ask for authorizations for the release of already published material and to make precise agreements, so that the material that will be created/published in the future will be released with the same CC BY-SA license.

As far as the part which cannot be released under CC license, you can indicate (in an explicit way) that the material is © <copyright subject> and that all the rights are reserved.

As far as Wikipedia use is concerned see Wikipedia:Copyrights and Wikipedia:Image copyright.

How can we adopt the license on third party contents?

What do we have to do to adopt a CC BY-SA license on photographic/audiovisual material that has been created by other institutions within the projects financed by us, publications in collaboration with (or co-financed by) other subjects, publications created by third party subjects and financed by our institution, material created within multiple-partner projects?

A. It depends on the publication agreements that have been made with each institute. Generally speaking, the presence of an explicit clause or authorization is needed in contracts (examples), since CC BY-SA license allows the content to be reused by a third party also for commercial purposes. If you own all the copyrights, they already include the possibility to publish them under a CC BY-SA license.

See the clause examples.

Can we release artwork images under license?

Can artworks (installations, sculptures, public works) and public artworks in general be photographed and the pictures released under CC BY-SA license?

A. As far as artworks (even public, if your country has no panorama freedom) and contemporary architecture works are concerned it is necessary to be authorized by the authors/copyright holders to spread the pictures, unless authors died more than 70 years ago. In this circumstance the artworks become part of the public domain (even though local laws may vary: for example in Italy they could be subject also to the Codice dei beni culturali e del paesaggio). The Wikimedia Foundation (based on USA) considers that a reproduction of a bi-dimensional public domain artwork, remains in the public domain.

Can we publish video frames?

Is it possible to extract images from video or pictures frames and publish these images?

A. Generally speaking, the copyright of a frame follows the entire work. However there are some exceptions. In case of frames of a picture produced in Italy more than 20 years ago: according to art. 87 and art. 92 of the law 22nd April 1941, n° 633 and following editing, the picture frame belong to the public domain from the solar year after the twentieth one from the date when the picture had been transmitted to the audience.

As far as the use on Wikipedia is concerned see Wikipedia:Copyrights.

Can we use/publish photos or videos taken during an art exhibition?

f I take a picture of an exhibition artwork are the rights exclusively mine or can the artist decide not to free it? Or, if there is an artist’s image in my press release, do we both own the property each for his/her own part? Finally: if a make a video-documentary of exhibition artworks and interview the artist, for the future we will prepare acquittances, but as far as those already created, whose is the property?

A. Pictures of exhibition artworks need an acquittance given by their authors also as far as already created photographic material is concerned, like its spreading or its use on other means.

As far as the press release is concerned – similar to the newspaper article – you could spread the article under CC BY license, openly asking for the pictures authorization.

And for a journalistic interview?

We know that we have to ask the texts and pictures authors for the authorization, indicating the license that will be used. In case of interviews do we have to ask both the interviewer and the interviewed?

A. No, you don’t. It is usually taken for granted that the author of a journalistic interview is the interviewer. If the article is not copyrighted, then its copy is free.

While if the interview is part of an audiovisual work (like a documentary), it adopts the audiovisual works rights (see previous point. The copyright owner will release the rights of the audiovisual work).

Share Your Knowledge project suggests to communicate the license adoption to the author and to the people he/she knows.

Related pages

Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Share Your Knowledge/Guidelines/Wikipedia - FAQs about how to upload contents on Wikipedia
Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Share Your Knowledge/Guidelines/Enforcing the license - practical guide on how to insert license on documents
Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Share Your Knowledge/Guidelines/Procedures - sample clauses to be inserted in the institution contracts
Help:FAQ - FAQs on Wikipedia in general