File:Copyright.svg - Wikimedia Commons (2024)

FAQs

Is everything on Wikimedia Commons copyright free? ›

Wikimedia Commons only accepts free content, that is, images and other media files that are not subject to copyright restrictions which would prevent them being used by anyone, anytime, for any purpose.

Using Wikimedia Commons

Everyone is allowed to copy, use and modify any files here freely for any purpose including commercial ones as long as the source and the authors are credited and, in many cases, as long as you release your copies/improvements under the same freedom to others.

Media on Wikimedia Commons are either in the public domain or published under a Creative Commons copyright license that allows them to be reused free of charge. The main requirement for reusing Creative Commons-licensed content is that you provide proper attribution.

Wikimedia Commons is not uniformly peer reviewed; while readers may correct errors or remove erroneous suggestions they have no legal duty to do so and thus all information seen here is without any implied warranty of fitness for any purpose or use whatsoever.

Images in the public domain are completely free from copyright, so they are free to use. Photos whose copyright expired or never existed are part of the public domain.

Yes, there are forms of permissible commercial use of free stock photos. Carefully check the license terms before doing so. The licensing conditions available include Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licenses or licensing terms that limit commercial usage or require attribution.

WIkimedia Commons

However, they must be cited for attribution because most have a Creative Commons license. After picking an image, save it to your computer to use it. Like in PIxabay, information for the three-point attribution and the full citation might be difficult to locate at first.

Public Domain

Generally, the copyright for an image will last for the lifetime of the author, plus 70 years after their death. After that, if the copyright is not renewed, the image can become part of the 'public domain', and the copyright no longer applies. Public domain images can be used freely in your books.

What is the controversy with Wikimedia Commons? ›

Controversial content

In 2010, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger reported Wikimedia Commons to the FBI for hosting sexualized images of children known as "lolicon".

This page in a nutshell: Wikimedia Commons is a repository for public domain and freely-licensed educational media content. It is not an encyclopedia, dictionary, or book, and it is not Wikipedia. It is also not a personal web host, social network, or advertising platform.

Wikimedia Commons does not accept "fair use" media files (such as non-free logos, covers, screenshots, or reproductions of other copyrighted works) because fair use laws vary from country to country—thus, content deemed acceptable under, for instance, US fair use concepts is not usable in the majority of other ...

Text from other Wikipedias is copyrighted and we can only use it if we follow the rules of the GFDL. According to the GFDL, you must provide attribution (that means, you must say where you got it from) when using someone else's work. This means that copying between pages (or projects) is OK.

The licensing policy of the Wikimedia Foundation expects all content hosted on Wikimedia projects to be free content; however, there are exceptions. The policy allows projects (with the exception of Wikimedia Commons) to adopt an exemption doctrine policy allowing the use of non-free content.

There are several different Creative Commons license types. Only images with the CC0 license may be used without attribution. That's because the zero in CC0 means “no rights reserved” – in other words, the author gives up all claim to the material they created, thereby contributing their creations to the public domain.