Wikipedia:Media copyright questions
Welcome to the Media copyright questions noticeboard, a place for help with image copyright tagging, non-free content, and media-related questions. For all other questions, use Wikipedia:Questions.
If you have a question about a specific image, link to it like this: [[:File:Example.png]] (Note the colons around the word File.) If a question clearly does not belong on this page, reply to it using the template {{Mcq-wrong}} and leave a note on the poster's talk page. For copyright issues relevant to Commons, questions may be directed to Commons's copyright village pump.
How to add a copyright tag to an existing image
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I am crossposting this from Commons with added commentary:
c:COM:TOYS considers images of toys or products to be derivative works due to the material they feature, including Lego. However, there are hundreds of images of Lego on Wikimedia Commons, many of which can be seen at c:Category:Lego, in violation of this. Despite there being occasional deletions, most remain. I will notify @HurricaneZeta of this discussion as they recently nominated many of them.
While this is technically Commons' issue, many of these images are transcluded onto Wikipedia articles (such as Lego Technic or Lego Modular Buildings). When the images are deleted from Commons, they will also be removed from here.
Lego has a lenient fair use policy, which states (speaking about official images of Lego products): "...at the present time the LEGO Group does not object to scanning of limited extracts of these materials in unaltered form for non-commercial purposes of exchange of information or good faith commentary. However, scanned /images/info should not be given such prominence as to indicate sponsorship of the Web site by the LEGO Group. We would ask that the photographs be scanned without distortion or overemphasis of the LEGO logo. A disclaimer and notice must appear indicating that the copyrights are owned by the LEGO Group (e.g. LEGO Group. This is an independent site not authorized or sponsored by the LEGO Group)." Their Fair Play policy may be read here [1]. This means that some of them may be reuploaded on Wikipedia under a fair use license. Plenty of fansites (including those within the Lego Ambassador Network) do this. NewAccount7295 (talk) 15:08, 14 July 2026 (UTC)
- @NewAccount7295: Any type of copyright licensing that place restrictions on commercial (or derivative) reuse is going to be too restrictive for Wikipedia's purposes per WP:COPY#Guidelines for images and other media files. In other words, such content would need to be treated as non-free content if uploaded and used on Wikipedia, which means each use of it would need to meet Wikipedia's non-free content use policy. Regarding this policy, it's important to understand that even though it's based on the concept of fair use, as practised under US copyright law, Wikipedia's policy is actually more restrictive than fair use by design; so, while one could say that all non-free content uploaded to Wikipedia meets the criteria of fair use, the same couldn't be said for all fair use content meeting the requirements of Wikipedia policy. In other words, there's no way to say that all of the images currently being discussed on Commons would absolutely satisfy all ten non-free content use criteria, and each image would most likely need to be individual assessed instead. Furthermore, there could actually be two copyrights that need to be assessed when it comes to non-free use: the one for the photo and the one for the photographed blocks. A non-free photo of some non-free lego blocks could run into problems per WP:NFCC#1 because of the copyright status of the photo. Finally, what fansites do has no bearing to whether something satisfies Wikipedia's non-free content use policy; it's only the latter that matters. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:44, 15 July 2026 (UTC)
- If the photographer also created the item being photographed, then they own the copyright on the 3D object too, and can release a suitable license. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:05, 15 July 2026 (UTC)
- Individual Lego bricks are unlikely to be copyrightable, and people who build things with Legos can claim copyright in their creations (example: File:Lego Penguin on the sea, Free Electrons.jpg). But I'm curious to hear others' thoughts. Qzekrom (she/her • talk) 06:54, 19 July 2026 (UTC)
- Furthermore, I think the base minifigure design is PD-US because it was published without a copyright notice in patent USD253711S - see my comment on the COM:VPC thread. Qzekrom (she/her • talk) 07:44, 19 July 2026 (UTC)
Picasso's Guernica
[edit]What is the copyright status of Guernica in the US? Was it published in 1937, and if so, was the US copyright renewed? Qzekrom (she/her • talk) 06:49, 19 July 2026 (UTC)
Comment: It was exhibited in the Paris International Exhibition of Art in 1937. That particular exhibition is a in a closed environment, and would not constitute publication in the US per COM:PUB and COM:PACUSA. I'm not sure about France's definition of publication, but if it's based of the Berne convention's definition, then it would also center around the making of copies and thus also not count as publication. Picasso died in 1973, so it would still be US copyrighted as an unpublished work.- The enwiki article mentions a tapestry created in 1955 displayed in the Headquarters of the UN in NYC, but I'm not sure that this would be the first copy of the work made. I would have to do further research, and I'm not exactly an art historian. There's also a mural reproduction in Guernica, Spain itself, but the date of the mural itself is not documented, only the date of the photograph. Additional factor is whether or not these copies were allowed by Picasso/the Picasso estate.
Quick disclaimer that I may be missing something, as I haven't really gotten into the weeds of the definition of the word 'publication' that much. Cawfeecrow (talk) 22:48, 19 July 2026 (UTC)
This is a series of four sketches/paintings and together they're quite long. Did I upload the correct size, or can a larger one be uploaded? At the current size I can't really make out much of the artwork. APK hi :-) (talk) 06:57, 19 July 2026 (UTC)
- I looked at WP:IMAGERES and still not sure what would be the appropriate size. APK hi :-) (talk) 07:32, 19 July 2026 (UTC)
I noticed that Zingo156 uploaded this to enwiki as a non-free logo, while I uploaded another version to Commons (File:Avatar Seven Havens title card (cropped).webp) on the belief that it is below COM:TOO US. Is it? Qzekrom (she/her • talk) 18:16, 24 July 2026 (UTC)
.webp){kind=link}
- Hi Qzekrom. You might want to ask at c:COM:VPC about this since it's the Commons file which is being claimed as being below c:COM:TOO US. If that file turns out to be OK for Commons, then the local file should be OK to relicense and move to Commons since the only difference between the two seems to be the black background. If the Commons file, on the other hand, ends up being deleted, then the local file should stay non-free. The Commons file could then be reuploaded locally to English Wikipedia as non-free, but that should only be done if there's a valid non-free use for the file. It's quite possible that the uploader of the non-free one simply didn't know about the Commons one you upoaded. The non-free was uploaded several hours after the Commons one, but the Commons file doesn't ever seem to have been used on English Wikipedia. The English Wikipedia article where the non-free is being used was only moved to the mainspace yesterday, and it had no logo (free or non-free) in the main infobox at that time. The uploader could've just assumed that no logo file existed, and that all logos need to be treated as non-free content. FWIW, the Commons file is being used on several other language Wikipedias and the non-free won't affect the file's use on those projects. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:07, 24 July 2026 (UTC)
Done, see c:COM:VPC#Avatar: Seven Havens logo Qzekrom (she/her • talk) 22:27, 24 July 2026 (UTC)
Christopher Morcom
[edit]Hi I'm aiming to bring the Christopher Morcom article to featured article status but I've been confused about whether this image is in the public domain or not. It was created in 1927 in England. I would really appreciate it if someone here could check whether it's in the public domain or not! Panamitsu (talk) 00:17, 25 July 2026 (UTC)
image use
[edit]can i use this image on Al Jazeera Media Network Astropulse (talk) 08:01, 25 July 2026 (UTC)
- Hi Astropulse. I noticed your question about this file's removal on User talk:JJMC89#Is this removal correct? The The pic says you can use it on the English wiki. before I saw you asked essentially the same thing here at MCQ. Please see my response I added to JJMC89's user talk page for more details, but the bot was correct in removing the file. It would also be really quite hard to justify another use of the file the "Al Jazeera Media Network" article, particularly given the file's non-free use in the "Al Jazeera English" article itself is also quite questionable (at least in my opinion). -- Marchjuly (talk) 12:46, 25 July 2026 (UTC)