Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems

This is the talk page for discussing Copyright problems and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

Add new text under old text.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Start a new topic

WT:CPWT:CP

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24: 30 days

New passage comparison tool

https://wikipediatools.appspot.com/compare.jsp

This compares two passages of arbitrary plain text (no wikitext). I consider this to be a minimum viable product - some time I'll probably get around to using the CCI wikitext "parsing" functions (for the purposes of culling) instead of an internal API module to generate the plain text. It probably won't incorporate searching for a long time.

Please let me know what you think, here, my talk page or on Codeberg. MER-C 14:59, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It seems interesting. One thing, could the radio buttons stick with the same option they were before after pressing the compare button? Tenshi! (Talk page) 20:09, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Tenshi Hinanawi: - I've pushed a fix, try now? MER-C 19:52, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That seems to have fixed that issue, although I noticed another, that comparing seems to add more whitespace to the end of the compared text. Tenshi! (Talk page) 18:38, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies for the late reply, but I think I've fixed this one too. MER-C 19:10, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be still adding whitespace when I tested it now. Tenshi! (Talk page) 20:28, 17 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I may have forgotten to deploy the code. Would you mind trying again? MER-C 17:08, 4 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It works now. Tenshi! (Talk page) 17:21, 4 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Paste Check feature - coming next week

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Copyrights § Paste Check feature - coming next week. That post has details about this upcoming feature, which should help to remind editors (especially newcomers) to think carefully about pasting larger quantities of text, thus hopefully helping to reduce the quantity of copyvio problems. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:05, 27 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright Issue

I found the page, Policy alienation's Introduction section to be a copy and paste job from the work (which is not among the references either): "Introduction to Public Administration" by Goldfrey Edwards (ISBN: 9781978926196), page 62. I'm unsure exactly how to proceed, and I'm reluctant to delete large chunks of articles. - JBrenn (talk) 07:13, 21 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright on images from Philippines House of Representatives

A user has been making new articles using official portraits from the Philippines House of Representatives (here). Am I right in thinking this is a copyvio? Boynamedsue (talk) 12:02, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

See c:COM:GVT Philippines. If these are the work of a government employee then they are PD. Nthep (talk) 12:30, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That's a relief, thanks.Boynamedsue (talk) 13:01, 2 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Review request: Francis Greenaway

User @thejiujiangdragon has deleted large parts of Francis Greenway and requested revdel citing a copyvio from this page. However there doesn't seem to be a large dump of text from that page anywhere in the history; it has been built up over time, suggesting that the Wikipedia text came first. Please could someone review this? -- rbrwr ^± 10:05, 28 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

~~Never mind, the user accepted my arguments and restored the status quo ante.~~The status quo ante has been restored pending this review (sorry, I didn't take in thejiujiangdragon's edit comments) -- rbrwr ^± 05:51, 29 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Rbrwr; it does copy from [1], which I have removed a bit of content from. Sennecaster (Chat) 18:22, 2 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Halimah Yacob

@Whyiseverythingalreadyused removed a large chunk of text from Halimah Yacob and tagged it as a copyvio. [2] The purported source [3] has a date of 2021, while the first diff linked is from 1 November 2023. However, the source website makes me suspect that this is still somehow a backwards copy. The clearly Wikipedia-style formatting and the section heading "Reactions[edit]" are suspicious, as well as the fact the page was first archived in August 2024 [4], even though the website's main page has archives going back years earlier. Not sure what to do, so I'm leaving this here. Toadspike [Talk] 13:35, 6 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I offered at the GAR to stop the process and mark the purported source as a copyright violation against Wikipedia; perhaps we can implement that idea? (I already suspected a reverse copyvio while considering whether to remove the ton of text lol) Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 13:37, 6 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Toadspike: Yep, that's a backwards copy — the source is dated 14 July 2021, and its text is identical to what was in the Wikipedia article in the revision as of 13 July 2021 [5]. I checked a couple of other posts on the site and they're backwards copy of the associated Wikipedia articles as well (e.g. [6] [7]). MCE89 (talk) 13:50, 6 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

How about we sue them for copyright violations against Wikipedia? Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 13:56, 6 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) If the article contributors want to do that, they can use Wikipedia:Standard license violation letter. We can't do it on behalf of them without their permission, nor can the WMF, as they're the licencees. Tenshi! (Talk page) 14:04, 6 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you; for specificity, since Wikipedia is not attributed there, the appropriate boilerplate would be § Letter for website that does not acknowledge Wikipedia as a source. Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 14:08, 6 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks MCE!! I'm glad there was a simple answer after all. Toadspike [Talk] 14:02, 6 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

:) Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 14:02, 6 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]