Commons:No known restrictions

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No known restrictions or no known copyright restrictions is a phrase which some institutions use to describe copyright or other use restrictions on works in their collections. Institutions especially use this phrase when they make works available for public reuse.

Typical use might be if an archive has a collection of old photos which it wishes to publish and distribute. The archive might do work to determine what copyright or other restrictions there are on the photos, and make the determination that the photos seem likely to be in the public domain. Instead of making the claim "this is in the public domain", the institution may instead may make the weaker more ambiguous claim "no known restrictions" and leave the burden of tracking any relevant rights on the work to anyone who would reuse the works.

In Wikimedia Commons a claim of "no known restrictions" alone is not sufficient to establish that a work is in the freely licensed or in the public domain, and thus eligible for hosting on Commons. However, if there is a plausible rationale for believing that a work is freely licensed or public domain, and a noteworthy institution has further made the claim that there are "no known restrictions" on that work, then uploaders may apply both the appropriate free license tag and a note about "no known restrictions" in the licensing section of a Wikimedia Commons file page. When done, the "no known restrictions" note will clarify to users that an organization of relevance to the work made the statement.

"No known restriction" templates on Commons[edit]

"No known restriction" discussions on Commons[edit]

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