Wikipedia:Copyrights
- See the GFDL (GNU Free Documentation License) or the Simple English version of the GFDL.
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This page is an official policy on Wikipedia. Many people agree with it. They see it as a standard way that all users should follow. When changing the page, please check that the other people agree with your changes. Use the talk page when you are not sure or when you want to propose a change. |
Only add pages that you are sure are allowed under the terms of the GFDL.
Copyright is a kind of law that says we can't make people think that we made something that was really made by another person.
Copyright law says that we cannot pretend that we made something that was really made by another person. Copyright is used for books, movies, songs, and Web pages, including pages on Wikipedias.
Laws about copyright were created so that people who write books or songs or make Web pages or movies could get money for their work in a fair way. If I write a good book, I want people to buy my book and give me money for it. I don't want someone else to sell my book and take the money from selling it. I also want people to know that I was the first person who could write a book like that one; if the book is good, it means I am good at writing and people can hire me to write things for them.
The rule of all the Wikipedias, including this one, is that nothing in the Wikipedia can be copyrighted by someone else unless we have permission to use it. This means that we are only allowed to copy things from books or from other Web pages into the Wikipedia if the writer has said that anyone can copy these things and make changes to them.
Fair use
editThere is an exception to the rules of copyright called Fair Use. This says that we can copy a very short amount of something -- maybe one or two sentences, or a picture. But because people could get very angry at the Wikipedias if we copy the wrong things, it's better not to copy anything onto the Wikipedias unless we are sure it's allowed.
Moving things from other Wikis
editYes, we can move things from other Wikipedias to here. But do you have to say you did this? There is no easy answer. Under GFDL, you really should, but when a person writes for Wikipedia, they know that their work can be changed because the edit screen tells them their writing will be edited at will.
This means that copying between pages (or projects) is ok. The changes you make are more than just making the words correct, so copyright is not kept. This makes you a co-author.
You can show respect to other people by saying they did this work. You can add interlanguage links which link to the page that you got the information from. You could write on the page where it was from, or write it in your edit summary.