Commons:लाइसेंसिंग

This is often problematic, if the artwork is not the primary content of the image or is not clearly recognizable: in that case, usually only the creator of the resulting picture (recording, etc.) holds a copyright. For instance, when taking a photograph of a group of people in a museum, the photo may also show some paintings on the walls. In that case the copyright of those paintings does not have to be taken into account. The distinction however is not very clear. The Commons:De minimis policy has more information about this concept.

Note that the license for all aspects has to be determined and mentioned explicitly. Also note that most reproductions do not allow the person doing the reproduction to claim a new copyright; the creator of a digital image / reproduction of a picture owns no new copyright to the resulting digital image. The only relevant copyright is that of the original picture. This also applies to Screenshots.

Material released under a license like CC0 is considered the equivalent of public domain material; works that lack originality and edicts are in the public domain; a few governments around the world, including the US Federal, California, and Florida governments place most of their works, including most of their public records in the public domain; the English Wikipedia's guideline on public domain material more precisely defines these many exceptions.

Commons accepts material that is in the public domain, that is, documents allowed by the above exception, or that are not eligible to copyright, or for which the copyright has expired. But the "public domain" is complicated; copyright laws vary between countries, and thus a work may be in the public domain in one country, but still be copyrighted in another country. There are international treaties such as the Berne Convention that set some minimum standards, but individual countries are free to go beyond these minimums. A general rule of thumb is that if the creator of a work has been deceased for more than 70 years, their works are in the public domain in the country the creator was a citizen of and in the country where the work was first published. If the work is anonymous or a collaborative work (e.g. an encyclopedia), it is typically in the public domain 70 years after the date of the first publication. If the author is unknown after an extensive search, a work may be presumed to be in the public domain 120 years after creation (see {{PD-old-assumed}} for more details).

Many countries use such a copyright term of 70 years. A notable exception is the U.S. Due to historical circumstances, the United States has more complex rules:

• Works published before १९२८ are in the public domain.
• For works first published before 1964, copyright lasts 28 years after publication, and is therefore currently expired unless the owner filed for renewal during the window between 27 and 28 years after publication.

  If renewed during that window, copyright lasts until 95 years after first publication.

  The large majority of works published before 1964 have passed into the public domain, but it is imperative to determine that copyright was not renewed. (The US Copyright Office online catalog can be used to search for renewals in 1978 or later—useful for works published in 1951 through 1963; Google has scans of the paper catalog including works registered from 1923 up to 1978).

• For works first published before 1978: until 95 years after the first publication.
• For works first published 1978 or later: until 70 years after the author's death. Anonymous works or work made for hire: until the shorter of 95 years since the first publication or 120 years since the creation of the work.

For works created before 1978 but only published 1978 or later, there are some special rules. These terms apply in the U.S. also for foreign works.

However, the year and location of publication is essential. In several countries, material published before a certain year is in the public domain. In the U.S. this date is January 1, १९२८. In some countries, all government-published material is public domain, while in others governments claim some copyright (see Commons:Copyright rules by territory).

In the US, the copyright situation for sound recordings (including those published before १९२८) is a special case. Under Title II of the Music Modernization Act, recordings that were first fixed prior to February 15, 1972 are copyrighted for a period of time under US federal copyright that depends on when the recording was first published. This federal copyright applies regardless of any formalities (copyright notice, registration, and/or renewal.) The specific copyright term lengths are as follows:

• Recordings that were first published prior to 1923 entered the public domain on January 1, 2022.
• Recordings that were first published between 1923 and 1946 are copyrighted for a period of 100 years after first publication.
• Recordings that were first published between 1947 and 1956 are copyrighted for a period of 110 years after first publication.
• Recordings that were published after 1956 and first fixed prior to February 15, 1972 will enter the public domain on February 15, 2067.

Sound recordings that were first fixed on or after February 15, 1972 are subject to the same US copyright law term lengths and provisions as other works.

In some jurisdictions (like the United States), one can also explicitly donate work one has created oneself to the public domain. In other places (like the European Union) this is technically not possible; instead, one can grant the right to use the picture freely with, for example, the Creative Commons Zero Waiver, which waives all rights granted by copyright, but the waiver might not be legally binding in the full extent of what is normally understood as “public domain” (e.g. regarding authors' moral rights).

The Hirtle chart is a tool for helping to determine if something is in the public domain in the United States. Commons:International copyright quick reference guide helps to determine if a work first published outside the United States can be uploaded.

Commons is an international project, but its servers are located in the U.S., and its content should be maximally reusable. Uploads of non-U.S. works are normally allowed only if the work is either in the public domain or covered by a valid free license in both the U.S. and the country of origin of the work. The "country of origin" of a work is generally the country where the work was first published.

When uploading material from a country outside the U.S., the copyright laws of that country and the U.S. normally apply. If material that has been saved from a third-party website is uploaded to Commons, the copyright laws of the U.S., the country of residence of the uploader, and the country of location of the web servers of the website apply. Thus, any licence to use the material should apply in all relevant jurisdictions; if the material is in the public domain, it must normally be in the public domain in all these jurisdictions (plus in the country of origin of the work) for it to be allowable on Commons.

For example, if a person in the UK uploads a picture that has been saved off a French website to the Commons server, the uploader must be covered by UK, French and US copyright law. For that person to upload that photograph to Commons, the photograph must be public domain in France, the UK and the US, or there must be an acceptable copyright license for the photograph that covers the UK, US and France.

Exception: Faithful reproductions of two-dimensional works of art, such as paintings, which are in the public domain are an exception to this rule. In July 2008, following a statement clarifying WMF policy, Commons voted to the effect that all such photographs are accepted as public domain regardless of country of origin, and tagged with a warning. For details, see Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag.

Main page: Commons:URAA-restored copyrights

The Uruguay Round Agreements Act or URAA is a US law that restored copyrights in the U.S. on foreign works if that work was still copyrighted in the foreign source country on the URAA date. This URAA date was January 1, 1996 for most countries. This means that foreign works became copyrighted in the U.S. even if they had been in the public domain in the U.S. before the URAA date. See also Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights.

Because the constitutionality of this law was challenged in court, Commons initially permitted users to upload images that would have been public domain in the U.S. without the URAA. However, the constitutionality of the URAA was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Golan v. Holder. After discussion, it was determined that the affected files would not be deleted en masse but reviewed individually. There was further discussion about the best method for review of affected files, resulting in the creation of Commons:WikiProject Public Domain (not active anymore).

Files affected by the URAA should be tagged with {{Not-PD-US-URAA}}.

Files nominated for deletion due to the URAA should be evaluated carefully, as should be their copyright status under US and local laws. A mere allegation that the URAA applies to a file cannot be the sole reason for deletion. If the end result of copyright evaluation is that there is significant doubt about the freedom of a file under US or local law, the file must be deleted in line with the precautionary principle.

Old orphan works are accepted, provided that

• the works were created before Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "२".;
• or, the works were created before the pma duration in the country of origin, which would satisfy {{PD-1996}} if published at the time of creation (e.g. works created before 1946 for 50 years pma countries, if the URAA date is 1996).

The Creative Commons Public Domain 1.0 mark (PDM) is often applied to images on photography websites such as Flickr.com, and is not a license. Despite this, the community found that when a user applies PDM to their own work, they are releasing their work to be in the public domain, and these works are believed to be freely licensed. For further information, see Accept files published by the copyright holder with a Public Domain Mark.

Wikimedia Commons does not accept content under the condition of fair use. See Commons:Fair use.

You want a picture of Mickey Mouse, but of course you can't just scan it in. Why not take a picture of a little action figure and then upload it? Don't. The reason why you can't upload photographs of such figures is that they are considered as derivative works. Such works can't be published without permission of the original creator.

The US Copyright Act of 1976, Section 101, says: "A derivative work is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”." A photograph of a copyrighted item is considered a derivative work in US jurisdiction. US Copyright Act of 1976, Section 106: "(...) The owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: (...) (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;"

Therefore, "unauthorized" derivative works, like photographs of copyrighted action figures, toys, etc., must be deleted. For more information, see Commons:Derivative works.

Exception: So-called useful articles - objects with an intrinsic utilitarian function, even if commercial designs, are not subject to copyright protection in the US. Consequently, images thereof are not derivative works under US law. For details and applicability of this exception, see the Supreme Court’s decision in Mazer v. Stein, and {{Useful-object-US}}.

Regarding trademarks (see also Commons:Copyright rules by subject matter: Trademarks): Most commercial items and products are protected by intellectual property laws in one way or another, but copyright is only one such protection. It is important to make the distinction between copyright, trademarks, and patents. Wikimedia Commons generally only enforces copyright restrictions, for these reasons:

1. Almost anything can be trademarked, and it wouldn't make sense to forbid everything.
2. Trademarks and industrial designs restrictions are pertinent to industrial reproduction, but photographs of such items can otherwise be freely reproduced.

→ For these reasons Commons accepts any trademark whose copyright has expired. Moreover, Commons accepts images of text in a general typeface and of simple geometric shapes, even if it happens to be a recent trademarked logo, on the grounds that such an image is not sufficiently creative to attract copyright protection.

Such images should be tagged with {{PD-ineligible}} or one of the list of more specific tags for this kind of works (e.g. {{PD-textlogo}} for simple logos).

Raster renderings (i.e. PNG images) of uncopyrighted simple designs can themselves be regarded as being uncopyrighted. For vector images (i.e. SVG files) of uncopyrighted simple designs, the question as to whether the vector representation has its own copyright is less clear; see the English Wikipedia copyright information about fonts and the {{PD-textlogo}} talk page for more information.

It is often very difficult to determine whether a design is protected by copyright or not, and images of these sorts are frequently nominated for deletion, with various results. See Commons:Threshold of originality and/or “Threshold of originality” (in Wikipedia) for some guidance.