Forum:Can any image on Commons be copied to a wikia?

I don't understand this real well- I have operated with the understanding that we may freely copy over any material on WP, including images. But some of these images do not have PD or GFDL, but stuff like Cc-by-sa-2.5,2.0, or 1.0. We are moving on the order of thousands of images (coats of arms and other genealogy associated fiddle faddle).

Question- which do I do:
 * 1) If not PD, Mark them as GFDL, making note of their earlier permission (CC2.5 or whatever)
 * 2) Delete anything not GFDL, PD, or Fairuse
 * 3) copy the CC2.x templates and similar, but only allow them to be applied to commons or WP sourced images.

Until I hear which of these options I should follow. my default is to continue to copy anything we need off of commons, but not to copy over the cc based rights templates. (As I understand it, these are not compatible with Wikia policy on PD/GFDL/or FairUse only licensing tags).
 * ~  Ph l o x  05:33, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Nope, you're a bit mixed up in things. What allows us to copy images is not that they are uploaded on Wikipedia, it's what license they are under. We can use images under any free-use license. And in some cases fair use images if there is a proper rationale. The truth is that you are actually allowed to use cc-by-sa images more than you are allowed to use Fair use images. The truth is that while an image may be Fair use on Wikipedia there is the possibility that the fair use will not apply to your wiki and use of the image would be considered copyright infringement.

You should copy the various Free-use image license templates to the wiki. Please do not mark anything as GFDL if it is not listed as GFDL because that would be relicensing a image which is most likely not relicenseable and would be illegal. Don't delete images that are not under those licenses because most of them are actually more valid for use than Fairuse images actually are. And images other than ones on commons and Wikipedia can use the templates, what matters is what the image is actually licensed under. You should check for that information from whatever location you have as a source for the image; For example KDE-Look lists the license that the author listed the work under, Flickr uses CC licenses, and some other sites use various licenses.

The most common free-licenses you will see used are GFDL, GPL, LGPL, CC-BY (SA is ok, but not NC or ND), Artistic-2, FAL, BSD, and there are a few others. Though you might not really need all of them, I actually built some combined license templates. My template works for all CC licenses (even the ones you can't use ^_^) and gives them all the ability to use the various /licensed/self licensing/licensed by another user/ stuff. And my template includes most of the Fair-use licenses other than CC that you will see in use. Though both of those use my Box class for styling so they may not work that great for you. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Oct 27, 2007 @ 05:54 (UTC)
 * Thanks Dan. I was a somewhat active Commoner for a while (commons:user:Makthorpe) and understand a bit more than I intimated.  I was a bit tongue in cheek about changing a cc to a gfdl, but I was just listing alternatives.  Actually, I am averse to changing any licensing statements from the original uploader in even subtle ways, even if it is to collapse some of the myriad commons tags to more general ones- eg. Translating Commons:Template:PD-Morocco to a more simple PD tag, since it would drop information (in this case that in applying the tag, the commoner editor claimed that the image was published >50years ago).


 * Everthing on Commons is Free use. (That is, everything that has been vetted- some haven't been- there is a backlog of images that probably will be nuked due to wrong tags.) So unless I hear otherwise, my practice will be to have the Bot copy the image description verbatim, not changing the license tag, and also copy the license tag template verbatim (crediting Commons for both with a GNU statement on the text, and refferal to the license tag for rights on the file).  If anyone thinks that is not quite right, please comment- My Py bot copied 2K images the last few days, and there will be a lot more in the coming weeks.  ~  Ph l o x   17:08, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair Use question

 * So, most Gaming wikis (including the french GW Wikia) are somewhat illegal because they have so much FairUse screen captured images ? ­­­&#8212; TulipVorlax
 * This is Off topic, and maybe should be copy pasted to a new thread, but here goes. I am not a lawyer, but these are probably ok, since they illustrate the subject/ don't do commercial harm (actually probably do the opposite and work to promote the products of) the copyright owner.  On the other hand- even the illustration principle has limits- If the game owner sells high quality posters and the wikia has duplicate 6meg images illustrating an article of the same subject that they invite the users to print out, then that would be commercial harm.  Lots of details in Fair Use.   ~  Ph l o x   17:08, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Guess this was spawned by one of my comments. But just to specify. My note on some Fair use images from Wikipedia being illegal for use on a Wikia, is where the wiki's subject does not match a good fair use rationale; ie: A nature wiki, using a Fair use video game screenshot. The wiki has no topic relation to the screenshot. So it's not fair use. The image is Ok on Wikipedia because they actually have articles that it would fit in.
 * I'd say that topic focused wiki actually can use more Fair use images than Wikipedia can. WP's goal is to create a general resource, but the wiki's goal is to create a more focused and detailed resource on that one topic. Because they're not using fair use for anything else, they need more detail on the subject, and they need to illustrate the topic more than Wikipedia does they would probably be allowed to use a few more fair use images than Wikipedia. ~ NOTASTAFF Daniel Friesen (DanTMan, Nadir Seen Fire) (talk) (tricks) (current topic) Oct 27, 2007 @ 22:42 (UTC)
 * Ok, it's good then. It was just not really well explained else where. If really related to subject of the wiki it make fair use more useable... Thanks. ­­­&#8212; TulipVorlax 00:20, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep in mind that the line between "fair use" and "abuse" isn't clearly defined. In most cases it's defined by the tolerance limit of the person from whom you are copying the images. And their tolerance limit can change without fore-warning, and the result being a cease and desist letter from their lawyer. If you want to be a good wiki administrator, go and talk to the company where you are getting the images. Tjoneslo 12:15, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
 * They already know : . Some of their staff are watching that kind of things since the begining of Guild Wiki. Many staff have made contributions on Guild Wiki long before they decided to open an official wiki. But they dont say they are staff. Anyways... — TulipVorlax