Commons:Non-copyright restrictions
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Commons:Trademarks redirects here. For an inactive proposal that would have made trademarked material be considered non-free, see Commons:Trademarks proposal
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[edit] Non-copyright restrictions
While all material on Commons is free to use under its respective license, some materials may be subject to additional legal restrictions when they are used in particular circumstances or in particular ways. These limitations may arise from laws related to trademarks, patents, personality rights, political censorship, or any of many other legal causes which are entirely independent from the copyright status of the work.
Wikimedia Commons policies forbid content which is not sufficiently unrestricted for reuse. However, non-copyright related restrictions are not considered relevant to the freeness requirements of Commons or by Wikimedia,[1] and the licensing policies are accordingly limited to regulating copyright related obligations.
An extreme example: it would generally be illegal to use any Commons illustration to commit fraud, but this fact does not mean that the material from commons isn't free content. Likewise, the legal prohibitions on using a registered mark or an image of a well known personality to mislead consumers are not considered to impact the freeness of the work. In Germany, usage of the Swastika and other Nazi symbology is restricted outside of scholarly contexts yet this too is not considered a material limitation for our purposes. While Commons' licensing is intended to respect the public's freedom, our ability to do so is generally limited to ensuring works on the Commons are free of copyright-related restrictions. It is neither possible, nor desirable, for Commons to release people from all laws which they may find inconvenient.
As a free media repository used by many educational and journalistic projects, Wikimedia's projects and many reusers of their content enjoy a strong position under law with respect to most of these non-copyright restrictions.
Reusers who are in other jurisdictions, or who are using material in a considerably different manner than Wikimedia's projects, may find themselves in a less favorable position, but in almost all cases replacing an image with another substantially similar image would not change the situation, which is entirely unlike concerns arising from copyright considerations.
Although we do not consider these restrictions relevant to our policies we do occasionally add disclaimers such as {{trademark}} and {{personality rights}} as a general public service. The omission of these disclaimers should not be taken to indicate an absence of possible legal obligations. As always, we cannot provide legal advice specific to your circumstances.
[edit] Non-copyright restrictions that directly affect Commons
Some non-copyright restrictions, for example defamation or child pornography laws might make it illegal to host certain images on Commons. Such images are of course not allowed, whether they have a free license or not. The most important such restrictions are personality/privacy laws which do not allow Commons:photographs of identifiable people which were made in a private place, unless the depicted person gives permission.
[edit] Examples
[edit] "House rules"
Even if house rules contractually require you not to take photographs, these normally do not change the copyright status of a work photographed inside. For instance, many museums restrict photography, and Australian law forbids use of images of Commonwealth reserves for commercial gain, although this is within the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Regulations 2000, REG 12.38 and not the intellectual property laws of the country.
[edit] Trademark law
Trademark laws control the commercial use of logos, terms, and names related to products and services. Commons hosts many images of trademarks, and as long as they do not violate any copyright (eg because they are too simple to acquire copyright protection, or are old enough that copyright protection has expired), they are OK here. That applies even though certain commercial use of this material may be trademark infringement.
- See also Commons:Image casebook#Trademarks.
[edit] Personality rights
Laws pertaining to personality rights may affect specific uses of particular images by third-parties and by Commons.
[edit] See also
- Category:Restriction tags. These tags are not copyright licenses in themselves, and are intended merely to warn re-users of Commons' content that certain usage restrictions may apply in some countries.
- {{trademark}}
- {{personality rights}}
- {{copydesign}}
- {{costume}}
[edit] References
- ↑ "Some media may be subject to restrictions other than copyright in some jurisdictions, but are still considered free work."[1]
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