Wikipedia:Media copyright questions

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

1. On the description page of the image (the one whose name starts File:), click "Edit this page".
2. From the page Wikipedia:File copyright tags, choose the appropriate tag:
   • For work you created yourself, use one of the ones listed under the heading "For image creators".
   • For a work downloaded from the internet, please understand that the vast majority of images from the internet are not appropriate for use on Wikipedia. Exceptions include images from flickr that have an acceptable license, images that are in the public domain because of their age or because they were created by the United States federal government, or images used under a claim of fair use. If you do not know what you are doing, please post a link to the image here and ask BEFORE uploading it.
   • For an image created by someone else who has licensed their image under an acceptable Creative Commons or other free license, or has released their image into the public domain, this permission must be documented. Please see Requesting copyright permission for more information.
3. Type the name of the tag inclusing the curly brackets (e.g.; {{Cc-by-4.0}}) in the edit box on the image's description page.
4. Remove any existing tag complaining that the image has no tag (for example, {{untagged}})
5. Click Publish changes.
6. If you still have questions, ask a question below.

Click here to start a new discussion

Korean reuse copyright for Encyclopedia of Korean Culture

Moved to c:COM:VPC#Korean reuse copyright for Encyclopedia of Korean Culture

Question about free status for a behind the scenes photo

Hi. This image here is a behind the scenes photo from the 1962 Japanese film King Kong vs. Godzilla https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KKvsG_Battle_break.jpg. It's tagged as free because it was taken over 50 years ago. I just wanted to know if that was accurate, because when I uploaded an image a few years ago (this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kkvsgfilming.jpg), I was told it wasn't free so I had to tag it as non free media.Giantdevilfish (talk) 11:21, 14 October 2026 (UTC)

Hi Giantdevilfish. It's generally better to ask about Commons images over at c:COM:VPC because any issues with them would need to be resolved there. The relevant copyright rules would be c:COM:Japan (the country of first publication) and c:COM:US (where the Commons servers are). Even if the photo is considered within the public domain in Japan due to its age, its copyright under US copyright law could have been restored on January 1, 1996, due to the URAA. It's also possible that a bilateral treaty between the US and Japan would establish different terms for such works. If either of those is the case, then Commons wouldn't be able to host the file and English Wikipedia would need to treat the file as non-free. If the work is no longer under copyright protection in Japan but still protected in the US, it could perhaps be uploaded for local use only on Japanese Wikipedia under one of its copyright licenses. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:05, 15 October 2026 (UTC)

Ok thanks.Giantdevilfish (talk) 11:20, 15 October 2026 (UTC)

Would I be allowed to use this image?

It was originally drawn in the 1800s, definitely public domain now, but I can only find it on websites trying to sell it or sell it in books. The best quality version I've found is this one: https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6533810

It's the fifth image in the slideshow, of the pigeon.

Do I need to crop out the other parts of the book or can I just not use it? Toucan1803 (talk) 16:32, 14 October 2026 (UTC)

Hi Toucan1803. You probably should ask about this at Wikipedia Commons (c:COM:VPC) because any work originally created in the 1800s almost certainly no longer be under copyright protection per both c:COM:United States (where the Commons servers are located) and c:COM:France (which seems like the country of first publication) and should really be uploaded there. "Creation" and "publication" sometimes take on different meanings when used in a copyright context depending on a country's copyright laws, and the latter can matter more; anything that old, however, probably would be at least {{PD-old-70}} (c:Template:PD-France) for France given that France seems to allow copyright protection only up to 70 years p.m.a. even if it was never "published" until quite recently. A true version of the image without any other elements which might potentially eligible for copyright protection in their own right would probably be best, but someone can't really (to the best of my knowledge) claim copyright over a slavish reproduction of a public domain image just because they've used it in a book they're trying to sell; companies/people/whatever try to do this all of the time, but most courts and Commons don't really consider such claims valid. If, by chance, someone incorporates a public domain work into a new original WP:Derivative work, then they perhaps can claim copyright authorship over the derivative work, but their claim wouldn't extend to the PD work. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:49, 15 October 2026 (UTC)

Question regarding an image of Ajinkya Shinde that was uploaded under CC BY-SA 4.0 without any source

Two days ago, User:MrGemStar uploaded an image of Ajinkya Shinde, Indian political organiser, under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License with an explanation as follows:

the file is used everywhere and therefore does not have a source about this concern.

I wonder... if simply because an image is being used everywhere on the internet can justify its use on Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0

No source (e.g. URL) has been provided either and reading on CC BY-SA 4.0 on the Creative Commons website, attribution i.e. giving appropriate credit is a must. Honeybrowneyes (talk) 10:18, 16 October 2026 (UTC)

It's used at for example , without any sign it has a "free" license. The default assumption is that it's copyrighted like almost any random pic you see online, so we can't use it. "used everywhere" is not a valid argument on this website. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:42, 16 October 2026 (UTC)

Thank you so much for clearing my doubt! Honeybrowneyes (talk) 12:01, 16 October 2026 (UTC)

Is the Bob the Builder logo copyrighted?

See File:Bob the Builder logo.svg. Supposedly it is above the threshold of originality, but it looks pretty detailed to me. The reason I am asking is because the article is scheduled to be featured on the Main Page in about a month, see Template:Article for improvement/data/2026/47, with or without the image. If it isn't, the copyright status of the image will need to be changed. NewAccount7295 (talk) 21:13, 20 October 2026 (UTC)

as the file page gets right it would fall under that TOO for thevUS, but as a British work, they have a much lower bar for what makes something original so it would be copyrightable there, hence why it cant move to Commons. I would say because of that, it cannot go on the main page which should be limited to images from Commons. Masem (t) 21:35, 20 October 2026 (UTC)

• For safety's sake, I'd lean towards over the TOO - there's just so much going on. That being said, we have featured non-Commons media on the main page (for example, any POTD of a modern building from a non-freedom of panorama country, like the Great Mosque of Central Java), so I beg to differ on the second part — Chris Woodrich (talk) 22:07, 20 October 2026 (UTC)

Copyright tags for Kaiserreich flags

Hello, I'm uploading flags from the HoI4 mod Kaiserreich, but I don't know what can be the suitable tag for copyright. They aren't my original work, and were made by the official mod developers. The reason that I'm asking is that the flags might be deleted within a week, and the reason that I re-uploaded the flags was I just saw that the flags' original files were deleted a month ago, so I tried to reverse them. I hope it's not against the policy of Wikipedia. Below are the three flags I'd uploaded on October 21. Because I don't know what the specific tag should be, since the Wiki of the mod itself didn't specify, I already requested speedy deletion early on just to protect my own account.

File:Commune_of_France_flag_kaiserreich.webp
File:UOBflag_kaiserreich.webp
File:Flanders-Wallonia_kaiserreich.webp

Edit: As of now, I did not know that they were deleted because of F10. However, I did contribute to pages outside of my sandbox. ThatThaiPerson (talk) 05:56, 23 October 2026 (UTC)