Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2021 February 18

18 February 2021

 * Press Freedom Index ([ history] · [ last edit] · rewrite) from https://rsf.org/en/ranking/2020 and prior ranking tables from the website. Since they use their own criteria as to how to arrive at the rankings, the resulting list is copyright. For this type of list we usually only show the top ten, or perhaps for a list of this type we might show the top ten for each year or even a few from the top ten and bottom ten for each year. I have listed the article here so that interested editors will have time to modify the article.— Diannaa (talk) 13:40, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
 * This is not a copyright violation, at least not between the Wikipedia article and the URL you've given. The data content of tables cannot be copyrighted. What is copyrightable is the particular style of presenting the data. The fact that RSF used its criteria to arrive at the rankings does not give it any copyright on the numbers that it calculated. The URL you've given, as an html file, shows nothing. If some of the javascript is enabled in addition to the html itself, then the 2020 rankings are listed in what to me looks like a completely different format to that in the Wikipedia article. You should revert your edit. Boud (talk) 23:22, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The people who create the index select unique criteria to do so. Creativity has gone into producing the list by selecting which facts are included in the resulting rankings. It goes far beyond a numerical listing of facts, and therefore enjoys copyright protection in my opinion.— Diannaa (talk) 23:46, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The creativity used in creating the index is completely irrelevant to copyright. Copyright is about the particular style of presenting information. Creativity by the people preparing the sources underlies almost all the information presented in Wikipedia. Newspapers are assumed to do fact-checking: that's not just straight-forward bureaucracy, it requires thinking, creativity and work. Copyright is about the resulting text, not about the work that goes into producing it.To consider this as a copyright violation would imply that the WMF should quickly delete the whole of the Wikidata project before someone notices that it exists. I strongly recommend that you revert the copyright notice. Boud (talk) 19:47, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Simple lists that do not contain any creative content are not considered copyrightable - for example a list of organizations or a chronological list of guests on a TV show. Subjective lists should not be copied verbatim. Articles such as Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and Forbes list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women show top ten only. This article is a similar example of that concept, because of the creativity that has gone into the selection criteria.— Diannaa (talk) 22:06, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * See WP:Copyright in lists, although it is an essay. Other resources are: Lists, Directories, and Databases, When Lists, Directories, and Databases Have No Copyright Protectio and so on.―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 22:39, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Even though lists can be copyrighted and RSF claims to "copyright" the data, what they're actually doing is promoting users to help share the data online and in print form (including Wikipedia) and the creativity of the list is irrelevant to copyright, so I think that the ranking table should be restored. Bsslover371 (talk) 19:36, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Since there seems to have been no progress on this issue and the page still has a clunky copyright notice I have taken the liberty to actually contact RSF in a personal capacity for clarification on whether they are happy for the data to be shared. I will escalate to a copyright clerk if/when they reply, since that seems to be the process. I can only speculate but I think they will almost certainly be happy for the data to be made made available here, since they encourage sharing of the index on their webpage. It would also seem sensible to me to bring in the opinion of others so that going forward there is more certainty about the copyright situation for lists such as these; however, I'm not at all experienced with editing Wikipedia so that would be a task for someone else. SageMint (talk) 01:35, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
 * If they wish for the list to be copied here, it would need to be released under a compatible license, via an OTRS ticket. See WP:Donating copyright materials for more information.— Diannaa (talk) 14:29, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
 * That doesn't address the point that it's not a copyright violation in the first place. 2600:8806:409:5600:4801:6597:E870:C932 (talk) 17:05, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
 * These rankings are factual information and their inclusion does not, in my opinion, violate copyright. ~ El D. (talk to me) 00:32, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Greetings. I am from Ukrainian Wikipedia and I have been editing international rankings-related articles in Ukrainian Wikipedia for a while. I wonder if the administrators came to any conclusion about this case since Wikipedia has a lot of articles with a full list of countries (example: Global Peace Index, Good Country Index, Democracy Index and so on) and somehow administrators never found any copyrighting there before. Removal of the table by Diannaa without discussion is strange to me, considering the fact that Wikipedias are full of such articles with full list of countries and then they should be removed too. Hope to hear any updates about this case.—Ivgemytlig (talk) 08:44, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not necessarily convinced that this is a copyvio, but I've removed the table and converted it into a Top 10 list as suggested. – Thjarkur (talk) 16:21, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting keep.svg Article cleaned by investigator or others. No remaining infringement. — Diannaa (talk) 01:36, 12 April 2021 (UTC)


 * George Walker (composer) ([ history] · [ last edit] · rewrite) from http://georgetwalker.com/bio.html. Seems like the material was copied in 2014 and no one noticed. somethingintheshadows (talk) 23:11, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting keep.svg Article cleaned by investigator or others. No remaining infringement. MER-C 19:25, 26 February 2021 (UTC)