Help:Using copyrighted material
<Frequently Asked Questions
This page is part of the Frequently Asked Questions help scheme.
How do I use material here that others own the copyright to?
It is vitally important that we do not infringe the copyright of others. Copyright is important intellectually and financially to the copyright holder. Using any material that is subject to copyright without proper permission is illegal.
In order to use copyrighted material the person deciding to use it must take the following actions:
- Ask permission
Write to or email the copyright owner to ask for permission. A useful form of words would be:
I am an editor on Train Spotting World. This is a website at http://train.spottingworld.com which publishes material under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), which may be inspected at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
I am writing to ask for your permission to publish without fees the following material at Train Spotting World:
(please create an accurate and restricted list of the material here)
If you give permission we will also publish that permission in a manner directly associated with the material that you agree that we may publish. We would prefer to publish that permission in full, but will, if that is your wish and is so stated in the permission, obliterate any information in it that identifies you or your colleagues personally.
Before giving permission for this event please read the GFDL and be clear that any publication under it permits the free reuse (see section 2 of the license). The permission effectively releases the material into the public domain.
It will be our pleasure to link this material to a relevant page of your choice your own website if you would like us to.
- Wait until permission is received
It is illegal to publish copyrighted material without permission
- When permission is received
If in any doubt, check with any administrator here. If in no doubt please go ahead and publish the material and the permission, suitable defaced if required.
For images, use the correct copyright attribution class, and link the image to the permission and vice versa
For audio or video, use the correct copyright attribution class, and link the item to the permission and vice versa
For text, use the talk page of the article in question, define the text that has been used, and link the item to the permission and vice versa
- Will we link to the copyright owner's website?
Of course we will, unless the site is in some manner unlawful itself. But why would we be publishing material from an unlawful site anyway?
- Thank the copyright owner
Show them the pages that you have created and thank them warmly for their permission. Suggest politely that they may wish to link to one or more of the pages from their own websites.
