Forum:So for someone who doesn't feel like reading a lot of legal mumbo jumbo, what is the gist of free- and fair-use licensing?

For one, I understand that you are not allowed to make galleries. So what are the other basic Yes's and No's of image licensing?TheUnderfaker 14:18, July 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * You should read Fair use, but in a nutshell (to my understanding): Say you make a site/wiki about PDF documents, images from PDF readers and their interface, icons of document and adobe logos etc. are Fair Use. Anything else is NOT fair use. Wikipedia has alot of potential for fair use since it's an encyclopedia of everything, each article has fair use on the subject its about, more or less. Individual wikis like here on wikia does not. Take The Sims Wiki: Anything related to The Sims is fair use, but users pimping their user pages with anything copyrighted and not from The Sims is NOT fair use. Hope this helps, but I really must recommend you read the wikipedia article. Duskey ( talk )( blog ) 14:36, July 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * Fair use is a very gray area. Duskey's examples are okay, but shouldn't be taken as gospel. There are different levels of legitimacy when using images. This is a rough list based on my experience:
 * Permission from the source is best.
 * Permission from a representative is almost as good (i.e. I asked Castle Age support if I could use verbatim game images and they said it was probably okay).
 * Using screenshots from a released version of a game that you took yourself are safe. Same with using those others took.
 * Using parts of images from official websites is fine if you give your source link somewhere associated with the image (the File: page).
 * Using images without watermarks that promote the product or service are pretty good. Even if you forget to source it.
 * Datamined images are okay, if they can be seen without datamining. Sometimes datamining is used just to isolate an image or get it easier than playing N levels to get a screenshot.
 * Using images images with watermarks is generally not a good idea unless you give source info where the image appears.
 * Using images from non-released or pre-release sources is generally bad.
 * Datamined images for content not seen in game (like unused art or inadvertently left in the code) are usually not okay.
 * Images of cheats, exploits, or hacks are not okay, unless the access to them has been closed and even then it is dubious.
 * Did I miss anything obvious? -- Fandyllic  (talk &middot; contr) 10:15 AM PST 16 Jul 2010