 | This is anexplanatory essay about theWikipedia:Copyright violations policy and theWikipedia:Plagiarism guideline. This page provides additional information about concepts in the page(s) it supplements. This page is not one ofWikipedia's policies or guidelines as it has not beenthoroughly vetted by the community. |
 | This page in a nutshell: With the exceptions of shortquotations from copyrighted text, and text copied from a free source without a copyright, text from other sources may not be copied into Wikipedia. Doing so is acopyright violation and constitutesplagiarism. |
| For more information on closely paraphrasing text, seeWikipedia:Close paraphrasing. |
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| Policy |
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In most cases,you may not copy text from other sources into Wikipedia. Doing so is acopyright violation. Always write the articles in your own words andcite the sources of the article. Copyright violations are oftenspeedily deleted. Facts cannot be copyrighted. Titles of people or publications cannot be copyrighted. Text and illustrations prepared by the U.S. government are not copyrighted; they are in the public domain and can be used without permission, but to avoid plagiarism a citation is required indicating their source. Material from US states and local governments is copyrighted, as is material from other governments. Copyrights expire after many years and then the text becomes free.
As a general rule,do not copy text from other sources. Doing so usually constitutes both acopyright violation andplagiarism (exceptions are discussed below). This general rule includes copying material from websites of charity or non-profit organizations, educational, scholarly and news publications, and all sources without a copyright notice. If a work does not have a copyright notice, assume it to be under copyright-protection.[1]
Generallyno, unless the source is already under a license compatible with Wikipedia (such asCC BY-SA), or youdonate the source under a free license. A free license makes the source available for anyone – not just Wikipedia, but anyone using Wikipedia – to use, edit, and copy it for any purpose, even commercial ones. It's unfortunately common for new or inexperienced editors to become frustrated when content they have copied from websites they own (or work for) is removed or articles tagged forspeedy deletion. Unless the content is verifiablycompatibly licensed orpublic domain, however, Wikipedia can't retain it. Even if it is compatible, the content must comply with other content policies for us to be able to use it. Often, the tone and structure of the source itself might not be appropriate for an encyclopedia article, and most content on Wikipedia should be based on secondary, rather than primary, sources.
If you have published content on another user-generated website, they may have required you to grant them exclusive license, in which case you cannot contribute it here. Sometimes even when sites do not require exclusive license, such as IMDb, it may not be possible for you to use the content here as it may not be possible to verify that you are the individual who placed it there.
No. Superficial change of copyright-protected text is not enough.Wikipedia articles must be written in the author's own words. If the way in which a source has said something is important, please employquotation.
No. While your user page and talk page may include brief quotations from copyrighted text, Wikipedia cannot host extensive copying of non-compatible copyrighted material anywhere, not even in talk or user pages, not even temporarily.
Briefquotations of copyrighted text may be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea. Use of copyrighted text must be in compliance withWikipedia:Non-free content criteria policy. This means that the quotation must not be replaceable with free text (including text that the editor writes), must be minimal, must have contextual significance and must have previously been published.
Yes, you can copy parts of one Wikipedia article into another, butyou must link to the source article in your edit summary. Original content contributed by users can be freely used if the original author is properly attributed; use this edit summary:
Content in this edit is copied from [[source article]]; see that article's history for attribution.It is also recommended to make a note on the talk page of the source article that copying has occurred, because the source article cannot be deleted as long as content from it is used. The template{{copied}} can be used for this as well as on the destination article's talk page.
If you copied text but forgot to attribute the source in the edit summary at that time, thiscan easily be corrected after the fact: just make adummy edit by making an inconsequential change to the article—such as adding a blank space—and link to the source article in the edit summary, as follows:
Content in the previous edit of 07:25, 17 September 2025 was copied from [[source article]]; see that article's history for attribution.It is acceptable to copy text frompublic domain sources or those that are explicitly licensed under acompatible licensing scheme. However, if you decide to do so, a dedicatedattribution template must be used, andit's simply not enough to only mention the references and use inline citations. Attribution gives credit to the original author and is always required whether or not the text is free: seeWikipedia:Plagiarism. There is a guide for embedding freely licensed content (either public domain or Wikipedia Compatible licenses), atWikipedia:Adding open license text to Wikipedia andthe Copyright FAQ.
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| Licenses compatible with Wikipedia | Licensesnot compatible with Wikipedia |
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In case of uncertainty, please ask atWikipedia talk:Copyright problems orWikipedia:Help desk for input from other editors.
If possible,screenshot the interface instead of copying the text. Screenshots fall other "non-text media" inSection 7d, which allows the use of some freecopyleft licenses incompatible with CC-BY-SA. For instance, onWikimedia Commons, the use ofGNU GPL-licensed media is allowed. For help with adding screenshots to Wikipedia, seeHelp:Images.
While copying text from the interfaces of attribution-only licensed programs, like those licensedMIT orBSD, seem compatible with CC-BY-SA, the Creative Commonshas not declared compatibility. This, and the fact that some ostensibly attribution-only programs come with additional terms like theCommons Clause, mean you shouldscreenshot the interface.
Yes, you can copy interface text from public domain programs, orCC0 programs, directly onto Wikipedia, as public domain programs are compatible with the CC-BY-SA license used by Wikipedia.