Animepedia:Fair use policy
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| Make sure to use the {{Fair use rationale}} and select a proper {{Fair use}} license if you are uploading non-free material. |
"Fair use" is a legal doctrine which may permit the use of copyrighted material in Wikia ACG under a restricted set of criteria. It is not a blanket permission to use text, images or other copyrighted materials freely in Wikia ACG.
Content used under this doctrine on Wikipedia must meet the United States legal tests for fair use. Furthermore, Wikia ACG places additional restrictions on "fair use" of copyrighted material; the image or content can only be used if it is not replaceable with a free content image of equal or better quality. This might, for example, allow for the inclusion of a photo documenting a historical event such as the Hindenburg disaster, but a simple publicity still of a vehicle, building or living person will be subject to much greater scrutiny.
An editor uploading copyrighted material to Wikipedia must provide a detailed fair use rationale; otherwise the uploaded material will be deleted.
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[edit] Legal position
Under U.S. copyright law, almost all work published after 1922 has an active copyright (there are exceptions, however — see United States copyright law for details). In general, the use of copyrighted work without the permission of the copyright holder is copyright infringement, and is illegal. As such, on any wikia in Wikia ACG, which is hosted in the United States by Wikia, Inc., we are normally only able to use material that is not under copyright or is available under a sufficiently free license.
An important exception to this rule exists, recognized in a clause in the copyright act that describes a limited right to use copyrighted material without permission of the copyright holder — what is known as fair use (or "fair dealing" in other countries, where standards may differ). This clause exists to protect criticism and commentary; to prevent copyright holders from restricting free speech. This page is meant as a guideline for dealing with fair use materials on the English Wikipedia — it provides general guidance on what is or is not likely to be fair use and how you can best assist editors when attempting to include material under fair use. However, it is not official policy. You, as the uploader, are legally responsible for determining whether your contributions are legal.
If you use part of a copyrighted work under "fair use" (except for short inline quotations), you must make a note of that fact (along with names and dates). It is our goal to be able to freely redistribute as much of Wikipedia's material as possible, so original images and media files licensed under a free content license or in the public domain are greatly preferred to fair use of copyrighted files.
Never use materials that infringe the copyrights of others. This could create legal liabilities and seriously hurt the project. If in doubt, write it yourself. The Wikia ACG reserves the right to remove unfree copyrighted content at any time.
Note that copyright law governs the creative expression of ideas, not the ideas or information themselves. Therefore, it is perfectly legal to read an encyclopedia article or other work, reformulate it in your own words, and submit it to the project.
[edit] Law
The Copyright Act of 1976 sets out four factors to consider when deciding if the copying of a copyrighted work is fair and allowable without the consent of the copyright holder (17 U.S.C. § 107):
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of Fair Use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.[1]
- the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
- the nature of the copyrighted work;
- the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
- the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
Briefly, these indicate that
- The use must not attempt to "supersede the objects" of the original, but rather, must be scholarly or critical.
- The less of the original that is used in relation to the whole, the more likely that use is fair, though the importance of the specific portion is also considered (as quoting the most important part may attempt to "supersede" the original).
- The use must not infringe on the copyright holder's ability to exploit his original work (for instance, by acting as a direct market substitute for the original work), though not through criticism or parody.
To these, the project adds that if the media could be repeated by an editor then 'fair use' is not sufficient criteria for inclusion. Editors are asked to upload a free equivalent instead.
There is also a substantial body of case law which can be consulted, and is useful for determining what some of the vague terms in these factors (such as "substantiality" and "purpose") have translated to previously in a court of law. Stanford University Libraries has put together a summary of some of the most relevant cases on the subject.
On Wikia ACG, copyrighted, unlicensed material may be used under fair use if we firmly believe that the use would be judged to be fair if we were taken to court. Whenever possible, however, "free" material should be used instead of fair use material to avoid compromising the goal of a free encyclopedia and to avoid unnecessary legal exposures.
[edit] Policy
[edit] Downstream use
The mission of Wikia ACG is to create a set of free content ("free" as in "free speech") encyclopedias about Anime under a free license, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. For this reason we do not accept material on the merits of a license exclusively for use on the project, or a license exclusively for non-commercial usage (which is not "free enough"). Such works may still be used in the project, provided they meet all of our's strict criteria for inclution unfree material (see the policy section above), but then under a fair use defence rather than by virtue of an exclusive or limited permission. There are many conceivable circumstances in which the use of unfree materials would be fair on Wikia ACG, which might not be in other contexts. Just because something is fair use here does not mean it is automatically fair use in any other context — content re-users must evaluate their own circumstances on an individual level. Furthermore, the project's fair use standards are tailored for United States copyright laws, and though fair use/fair dealing laws exist in many other countries, they are often very different from those in the United States.
For reusers, particularly commercial reusers, the most important part of a fair use description is good information on the original source of the image. This is essential to allow them to make their own determination of whether their own use is legal. They can't just rely on our judgement, since they are legally liable for their own actions, regardless of what we say. Identifying the original source is good practice in general, as it bolsters our claim that we are not trying to defraud the original copyright holder.
[edit] Acceptable uses
Content which meets all the tests given in Policy but does not also fall under one of the designated categories listed below may or may not be fair use depending on what the material is and how it is used.
[edit] Text
Inclusion of brief attributed quotations of copyrighted text, used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea is acceptable under fair use. Text must be used verbatim: any alterations must be clearly marked. Removed text is marked by an ellipsis (...), insertions or alerations are put in brackets ([added text]). A change of emphasis is noted after the quotation with (emphasis added), while if the emphasis was in the original, it may be noted by (emphasis in original). All copyrighted text must be attributed.
In general, extensive quotation of copyrighted news materials (such as newspapers and wire services), movie scripts, or any other copyrighted text is not fair use and is prohibited by policy.
- Example, from Wikipedia
Original text:
- "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. Editors should provide a reliable source for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or it may be removed." (Wikipeda:Verifiability, 2007)
Quote:
- "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. (...) Editors should provide a reliable source for [potentially controversial content] or it may be removed." (Wikipeda:Verifiability, 2007; emphasis in original)
[edit] Images
Some copyrighted images may be used in Wikia ACG, providing they meet both the legal criteria for fair use, and the project's own fair use guidelines. Copyrighted images that reasonably can be replaced by free/libre images are not suitable for use.
- Cover art: Cover art from various items, for identification and critical commentary (not for identification without critical commentary).
- logos: For identification..
- Other promotional material: Posters, programs, billboards, ads. For critical commentary.
- Film and television screen shots: For critical commentary and discussion of the cinema and television.
[edit] Counterexamples
Some people find it easier to understand the concept of fair use from what is not fair use. Here are a few examples of uses that would almost certainly not be fair use under Wikia ACG's policy:
- An article containing one or more unattributed pieces of text from a copyrighted source.
- An image of a rose, cropped from an image of a record album jacket, used to illustrate an article on roses.
- A detailed map, scanned from a copyrighted atlas, used in an article about the region depicted. The only context in which this might be fair use is if the map itself was a topic of a passage in the article: for example, a controversial map of a disputed territory might be fair use, if this controversy is discussed in the article.
- A work of art, not so famous as to be iconic, whose theme happens to be the Spanish Civil War, to illustrate an article on the war.
- A photo from a press agency (e.g. Reuters, AP), not so famous as to be iconic, to illustrate an article on the subject of the photo. If photos are themselves newsworthy (e.g. a photo of equivalent notoriety as the Muhammad cartoons newspaper scan), low resolution versions of the photos may be fair use in related articles.
- An image of a Barry Bonds baseball card, to illustrate the article on Barry Bonds. A sports card image is a legitimate fair use if it is used only to illustrate the article (or an article section) whose topic is the card itself;
- An image of a magazine cover, used only to illustrate the article on the person whose photograph is on the cover. However, if that magazine issue itself is notable enough to be a topic within the article, then fair use may apply.
- An image of a living person that merely shows what they look like.
- Any image found on the Internet where the original source is unknown or not verifiable.
- A chart or graph. These can almost always be re-created from the original data.
[edit] Tagging fair use image files
Labeling images as fair use can be done with the fair use copyright tag. If you have found a file that appears to be fair use, you can add a tag corresponding to the type of material to the image description page:
Please also add the source from which the image has been reproduced. Remember there is no "general rule" about fair use, each fair use must be explained and a rationale must be established for that specific use (in other words every page that uses the image will have a distinct rationale for using the image on that page even though fair use is claimed on the image page).
