Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems

Why is this not appearing on the main page?

 * Draft:Qefweqf ([ history] · [ last edit] · rewrite) from . I wasn't able to find their license. Both articles are clearly promotional. I see I've broken the syntax somehow, sorry. Why isn't there a template? Doug Weller  talk 09:58, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Also  Doug Weller  talk 10:34, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Are large quotes from studies fair use?
https://copyvios.toolforge.org/?lang=en&project=wikipedia&title=Bernese_Mountain_Dog&oldid=&action=search&use_engine=1&use_links=1&turnitin=0 Earwig just for ease of viewing. Do these particular quotes qualify as fair use or lean into copyright concerns? I'm unsure but leaning towards them being problematic. Traumnovelle (talk) 04:23, 17 June 2024 (UTC)


 * No this far beyond OK and I would reject this anywhere it showed up—AfC, NPP, DYK etc. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  23:31, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The content has been removed, should I request revdel? Traumnovelle (talk) 23:32, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I would. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  23:33, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Copying an entire sentence from a source without attribution or quotation marks
Is [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Software&oldid=prev&diff=1230471608 ok? I thought the limit was more like 3 words before you have to use quotation marks. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  23:19, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

How much can an article match a public domain source?
I came across the article Autobiographic Sketches tonight, and noticed that the language seemed a bit unusual/formal ("reminiscent articles"), which made me suspect potential machine translation or copyright violation.

The sole reference on the article is the entry on the book from the 1920 Encyclopedia Americana, which is in the public domain. If you look at the entry in wikisource (linked from the article), you can see that large chunks of it are repeated verbatim in the article (and have been since the very first version of the article). I am aware that we can "incorporate text" from a public domain source, but I hadn't seen an article before that hews so closely to the source. It seems like this is probably okay with the acknowledgement, but I do not have much experience with the public domain, so I figured I'd check here to see if this is okay or if the content needs to be changed.

Thanks! Cleancutkid (talk) 06:43, 7 July 2024 (UTC)


 * @CleancutkidPretty much as much as you like, as long as its attributed! In the early days of Wikipedia, it was really common for people to create articles by copying from old, out of copyright editions of various encyclopedias. This has fallen out of fashion as of late, since a lot of public domain text isn't suitable for inclusion to Wikipedia on non-copyright grounds. (Typically it presents original research in Wikivoice, doesn't maintain neutrality, or is simply too outdated to be of any use. If dealing with a non-European/American topic, sometimes they're overtly racist). But if something is public domain, that means it cannot be protected by copyright laws anymore and can freely be uploaded to Wikisource, Commons, or even Wikipedia. I hope that's an okay answer? GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 07:00, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I still do this frequently. I write a lot of articles about 19th-century judicial figures, and there are often contemporaneous public domain biographies of these persons that contain material that requires only a little language tweaking to fit into our modern encyclopedia. Our purpose here is to provide information to our readers, not to engage in an academic exercise in original thinking. BD2412  T 14:49, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * @GreenLipstickLesbian@BD2412 Thanks, this was quite helpful! I knew that whole public domain sources can be uploaded, but I wasn't 100% sure about articles which are mostly a source but also partially original. Cleancutkid (talk) 15:17, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Adapting table of example words
Hello! I'm working on Gwoyeu Romatzyh, and a source I'm working from already has just what I felt I needed to add: a very basic table listing a handful of words and how they appear when written using different systems. I know information itself is not copyrightable, and there's not a lot of "work" here other than picking representative examples (the table uses 3 × 4 = 12 examples total), but I still figured I'd ask whether it's alright to use the same examples adapted to a table in the article? Cited, it goes without saying. Remsense 诉  02:46, 9 July 2024 (UTC)