Wikipedia talk:Copyrights

Protected edit request on 11 Jan 2026: Wikipedia-produced video on copyright

Wikipedia video on plagiarism and copyright violation

Please add this video near the top of the page; flush right in the big white space adjacent to the TOC would be a natural spot for it, imho.

The Wikipedia-produced YouTube video entitled, "Wikipedia editing basics- Plagiarism and copyright violation" has just been uploaded to Commons (see background). This 3 1/2 minute video is an ideal accompaniment to this project page. The still image that appears on it was apparently chosen by the upload software, and I am looking into how to pick a possibly better still, but I think it's worth making the video available as soon as possible as it does a really good job of explaining it.

[[File:Wikipedia editing basics- Plagiarism and copyright violation.webm|right|325px]]

Regarding image size: I think 300 or 325px would be ideal on this page because of the big white space by the ToC (and on mobile it will just be screen width so doesn't matter). You can see how it looks at 280px at WP:Plagiarism, where on that page, a slightly narrower image works better (and if consistency with banners above and below are desired, it will have to be reduced further anyway). However on this page, there is plenty of room, and at 300 or 325px the words become legible without too much strain, and the overall effect is more pleasing. The image shown here is 225px. Note that the video is currently in Commons category c:Category:License review needed as needing review, but since Wikipedia itself is the author and the video appears in the official YouTube Wikipedia channel, I am assuming this needn't hold things up. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 23:40, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Updated code to include a caption, and to set the still (thumbtime) image:

[[File:Wikipedia editing basics- Plagiarism and copyright violation.webm|thumb|right|325px|thumbtime=110|Wikipedia video on plagiarism and copyright violation]]

(gnerates second image above; size reduced here for Talk page display). Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 22:55, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

@Mathglot  Done – robertsky (talk) 12:55, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Much appreciated!  Resolved. Mathglot (talk) 02:41, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

How to add images as PROOF for BLP?

So I'm writing an Olympian's Wikipedia page, and a lot of new facts that are available are verifiable via old images (including ceremony booklets, old newspapers, and actual trophy photos). The athlete retired in 1990s so there's very little public record for most of her achievements. Despite that I've managed to find enough sources for significant additions (which I will include in references for editors to verify).

I am fully aware that everything I add has to be BLP safe and ChatGPT is helping me follow BLP to the T (in terms of writing tone and notability/reliability + verification of sources)!

My only obstacle that remains is verifying her awards and recognition credentials. I am not including many of these new awards as I can't find the proof to back them up. SOME OF THEM, however, do have credible IMAGES as proofs (including ceremony booklets, old newspapers, and actual trophy photos from the 1980s and 1990s). ChatGPT told me to add them as sources, there is separate process where the subject has to confirm the authenticity and copyright of these images to a ticket to Wikimedia (and release the copyright to public domain). FrustratedGamer0909 (talk) 16:13, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

You have asked this question at The Teahouse please don't ask at multiple venues and I strongly suggest you STOP using ChatGPT now, you will likely be blocked if you continue to edit using LLM. Theroadislong (talk) 17:28, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! I posted it here by accident.

I will be mindful of my use. I don't want to disrespect any rules of Wikipedia, but it seems you are ready to judge before seeing what I produce. Maybe you have some pre-conceived notions about what AI produces, which seems fair... but threatening me with a ban before seeing what I write is not fair...

So I'm gonna proceed on this by my own and won't ask for help. It's strange that a place for help became so threatening and toxic FrustratedGamer0909 (talk) 13:44, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Ineligible for copyright?

Please see the discussion at Talk:No_Lives_Matter#Logo_Root.

The basic problem is that we currently use a scaled down version of their logo under fair use but the logo itself turns out to be just a police sketch (which should be public domain afaik) and two lines of text.

Does someone know whether that makes the work itself also public domain since it's so trivial? Laura240406 (talk) 17:26, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 20 February 2026

Please remove "WP:COPYLINKS" shortcut per WP:2SHORTCUTS guideline.

Diff:

−

{{shortcuts|WP:COPYLINK|WP:COPYLINKS|WP:LINKVIO}}

+

{{shortcuts|WP:COPYLINK|WP:LINKVIO}}

Absolutiva 14:07, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

Done. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:35, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

LINKVIO and paywalls

The work on Wikipedia:Archive.today guidance has revealed that some people may have been using "archive" websites to get around a WP:PAYWALL.

I suggest the following change:

−

However, if you know or reasonably suspect that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of copyright, do not link to that copy of the work without the permission of the copyright holder. An example would be linking to a site hosting the lyrics of many popular songs without permission from their copyright holders. Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright has been considered a form of [[Contributory copyright infringement|contributory infringement]] in the United States (''[[Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry]]'' [http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/cjoyce/copyright/release10/IntRes.html]); cf. ''[[GS Media v Sanoma]]'' for a landmark case in the European Union. Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors.

+

However, if you know or reasonably suspect that an external website is carrying a work in violation of copyright, do not link to that copy of the work without the permission of the copyright holder. An example would be linking to a site hosting the lyrics of many popular songs without permission from their copyright holders. This includes linking to an archive or copy of a web page when a reasonable reviewer might conclude that the purpose of that link is to bypass a [[WP:PAYWALL|paywall]]. Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright has been considered a form of [[Contributory copyright infringement|contributory infringement]] in the United States (''[[Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry]]'' [http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/cjoyce/copyright/release10/IntRes.html]); cf. ''[[GS Media v Sanoma]]'' for a landmark case in the European Union. Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors.

What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:05, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

I honestly thought this was widely known. I've always assumed the widespread paywall bypassing was the whole reason Archive Today became popular in the first place among editors...

The issue with your proposed change lies in the wide variability of what a "reasonable reviewer" might see as the purpose of a web archive. If an article is paywalled, it cannot be properly archived in a public, rules-abiding archive like Wayback Machine without permission from the publisher. But it can be archived by sites like Archive Today, which uses crowdsourced log-ins and technical tricks to get past paywalls. I imagine there are many people who would argue that archiving a paywalled source via Archive Today is inherently justified because it archives content that cannot be reasonably archived via standard methods. I would also imagine that there are many people who would see that exact situation and read it as an attempt to just bypass paywalls and avoid paying publishers to read their content. Those are essentially irreconcilable viewpoints. (To be clear, I don't have a strong opinion either way, but I can see exactly where the "pain point" is going to be here, so to speak). 19h00s (talk) 21:47, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

Oppose - paywalled content is unarchivable if you don't circumvent the paywall. sapphaline (talk) 10:39, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

I don't think that's universally true. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:06, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

What would be the status of a link to an archived copy of a page that is now behind a paywall, but apparently was not paywalled when it was archived? Would it make any difference if a citation to the page was added before the paywall went up? I have seen this happen, although I cannot recall any specifics offhand. Donald Albury 16:11, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

If you explained to a Reasonable person that the archive link was added during a non-PAYWALL time, I would expect them to conclude that you didn't post an archive link for the purpose of getting around a non-existent paywall. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:08, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

I came to this discussion late and apologize if I have misunderstood anything. Good public libraries provide a means to get access to quality sources that have a paywall. For example, because I can visit the Brooklyn Public Library, I obtain access to major newspapers and other high-quality news sources that have a paywall, including articles published years ago. Thus individuals who visit a good public library can get access to archival material. The library (to which I personally donate money) pays for the access it provides me and other library-users. I don't think the use of sources that have a paywall is disqualifying. Source quality is what counts. Reliance on low-quality sources (e.g., National Enquirer, New York Post) whether or not they have a paywall is disqualifying.

I add that if a WP editor lives near a college or university, the institution often permits local residents to use its libraries. University libraries also provide access to a wealth of archival material.

The "Wayback Machine" was mentioned on this page. It abides by the rules of the road. Of course, I endorse the crediting of authors a WP editor paraphrases and the proper use of quotation marks with attribution to the source. I also recognize that because WP editors are human, they occasionally but unintentionally slip up. Iss246 (talk) 04:39, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I assume you're familiar with sites like Anna's Archive and Sci-Hub. We don't link to those because the primary purpose of those sites is to bypass paywalls. We can sympathize with impoverished students in under-resourced schools and still say that it's wrong for editors to link to such sites.

I'm proposing something very similar here: Adding an archive link in general is a good thing and consistent with our legitimate educational purposes. However, systematically adding archive links that (appear to) have been selected for the purpose of bypassing the paywall is not a good thing. Editors should not do that.

We can accept this:

• Alice adds a dozen links to archive.org
• Bob says "Hey, did you notice that one of those links shows the whole article, whereas if you go to the website, it's paywalled?"
• Alice says "No, I never noticed that. I read this via my university's subscription, so I didn't even notice that it was paywalled."

What we don't want is this:

• Eve adds a dozen links to archive.org, plus one to PirateArchive.com
• Bob says "Hey, did you notice that the PirateArchive.com shows the whole article, whereas if you go to the website, it's paywalled?"
• Eve says "Yes, that's exactly why I chose PirateArchive.com for that link. Think of the readers! They might not be able to afford to pay for it. Wikipedia needs to make all sources free-as-in-beer to all readers, even if that means violating copyrights and hacking through paywalls!"

WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Paste Check feature - coming next week

Paste Check is a type of Edit Check that will appear when editors who are using VisualEditor paste longer strings of text into an article, if the feature detects that they are likely not to have written the content themselves.

Why Paste Check?

Paste Check benefits two audiences:

• Newcomers: Many new editors are unaware of Wikipedia's policies regarding copyright violations. Some mistakenly believe that pasting from what they consider reliable sources is the way to edit.
• Experienced editors: Paste Check aims to make it easier to identify and patrol edits that may contain pasted content (which can be either legit or copyright violations), helping us save time, whilst also resulting in fewer copyright violations being made in the first place.

How it works

By default, Paste Check will be shown to editors who have published 100 or fewer edits locally. This can be changed via Special:EditChecks.

When an editor matching this requirement pastes at least 50 characters of text from somewhere else, Paste Check will ask them to confirm if they wrote the content. Two options are then available:

• Keep the text – the user is then asked to explain why.
• Remove the text – the text is removed.

In both cases, edits will be tagged so that experienced editors can identify edits in which Paste Check was shown. The tag will be visible even if the final edit didn’t include any pasted text.

Paste check user experience in visual editor

Paste Check will trigger when text is pasted from a source it doesn't recognize as another editing environment. It won't show up if the editor has pasted text which we can technically recognize is coming from another MediaWiki visual editor instance, MS Office, Libre Office, or Google Docs, or is plain text.

This feature was tested at 22 other Wikipedias last year, and our research found that it resulted in an 18% decrease in revert rate relative to edits in the control group where Paste Check would have been shown.

Sidenote: In the future, it may become possible to expand Paste Check to become more specific about identifying where pastes are coming from (e.g. popular LLMs). For now, we learned the HTML they output is not stable enough to configure the feature off of. We will revisit this investigation in T382608.

Paste Check will become available at all Wikipedias next week. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 21:59, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical), Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup, Wikipedia talk:Copyright violations, Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems, Wikipedia talk:Copying text from other sources, Wikipedia talk:Contributor copyright investigations and Wikipedia talk:Plagiarism. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:39, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

Copying - fair use

Hello - is copying one relatively big paragraph from a source into quotes of a citation - fair use? 🐈Cinaroot   16:58, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

James Joyce Photograph: Can it be used in Copyright?

An editor recently swapped out the image used in the James Joyce article, a featured article, with a photograph used circa 1917. The problem we have is that it is not clear when the photographer died. The here's the link on the Joyce talk page to the short discussion with the details. Thanks for your help! Wtfiv (talk) 22:12, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

Copying text from BAILII

BAILII is a database of English & Irish case law and legislation. There is currently a topic on ANI where there has been discussion on whether or not it is permitted to re-use verbatim extracts from this source in articles. While the BAILII website itself states:

"The copyright in the text of legislation and judgments displayed on BAILII's website may belong to courts, other government bodies, judges, and/or to commercial publishers. BAILII cannot authorize any copying of such material, and users of BAILII's website are referred to the copyright policy of the relevant copyright owners. BAILII endeavours to indicate the existence of third party copyright on the pages of databases and individual judgments, but users remain responsible for checking whether their use of the materials is authorized."

editors have pointed out that the original material is under Crown Copyright made available under the Open Government Licence and therefore can be freely used. However, others have questioned if the terms of this licence are being followed when it comes to attribution, see also this CCI.

I've just come across another example of a British law article (created in 2012) that scores a 94.6% match with BAILII. Before the discussion at ANI I would of course have immediately reported this as a copyvio, but it seems there may be nuances here and as I can see BAILII is cited as a source on over 3,000 pages I think consensus needs to be found on how to deal with this.

Pinging @Lawbookwriter, @Rambling Rambler, @Rsjaffe, @Hammersoft, @Jheald who have been involved in the previous discussion. Orange sticker (talk) 08:01, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

The answer to this is completely clear. There are no "nuances". The law is a public resource that can be freely replicated. Bailii copies out a judgment text (it is not the original source). If you search on Google, this is the AI overview: "Yes, UK court judgments can generally be freely replicated and used, including for commercial purposes, under the Open Justice Licence. Judgments found on Find Case Law or BAILII can be copied, published, and distributed. However, this does not allow for unauthorized commercial, bulk, or programmatic analysis, for which a separate license is required."

So can you please just retract all your comments and admit that you are mistaken on this issue, and badly so? You have caused an incredible amount of frustration for me personally as it is. I was simply trying to edit this encyclopedia productively. Lawbookwriter (talk) 08:06, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

“ If you search on Google, this is the AI overview”

You claim to write law books and now you’re relying on Google’s infamously crappy AI. Well done for tanking whatever little credibility you had left following ANI… Rambling Rambler (talk) 08:40, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Mate, in all seriousness I don't "claim", but I am being tongue in cheek referring to the AI. It's so obvious that even "Google's infamously crappy AI" gets it. My apologies if the humour isn't obvious too. I rely on the practice of this encyclopedia for over 25 years, and what the actual law is. Everyone can reproduce, quote, extract judgments, because the law is a public resource. See my further explanation below. Hope it makes sense. Lawbookwriter (talk) 10:38, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

BAILII is hosting content belonging to third parties, so I don't think the fact that the judgements are on BAILII really matters. What's relevant is the copyright status of the underlying judgements. The majority of UK court judgements are available under the OGL (specifically the Open Justice Licence), which as you say is a compatible license but one that requires attribution. Whether or not the attribution requirement is being followed depends on whether the content is already clearly being presented as an attributed quote/excerpt. In the case of Various Claimants v Wm Morrison Supermarkets plc when it was reported to WP:CP ([1]), the content is presented as a quote from the judgement, so I don't see a copyright issue there. The other example you’ve given of R v Hasan uses content from the court's judgement in place of article text without making it clear that the content is taken from the court judgement or providing the required attribution, so that one does need fixing in my view. I'd repair the attribution by adding an {{OGL-attribution}} template to the bottom of the article. MCE89 (talk) 08:40, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Yeah it's not BAILII itself that's the problem, but that we've had numerous editors now basically basing large amounts of law case articles on word for word reprint of judgements claiming they're copyright-free when they're explicitly not. They seem to think because BAILII hosts it anyone can, but BAILII makes sure they're following attribution requirements while editors look to be far more lax on it.

I think we best need to establish the level of attribution, as I would question if a single template is good if you're using multiple OGL documents. Rambling Rambler (talk) 08:51, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

They should be attributed if there was text copied from any of them. There's not really a clean catch-all template for multiple documents though, so they'd need the template individually for each source copied from. Tenshi! (Talk page) 09:02, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, that’s my thought. As OGL is written I think we’d have to do a template for every individual source. Rambling Rambler (talk) 09:41, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

@Rambling Rambler: Looking at the text of the OGL, [2] the prescribed default acknowledgement is "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0" [which, perhaps interestingly, {{OGL-attribution}} doesn't actually generate (though the OGL does allow linking to a page with the acknowledgement, if listing multiple attributions is "not practical"]. The OGL doesn't appear to technically mandate identification of which information is being used under it, just that there is some. Compare eg OGL releases from the Ordnance Survey (licence) where they prescribe the specific acknowledgement "Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right [year]" -- without any requirement to specify which parts of the data derive from the O.S.

So technically, a single application of the OGL template to cover the whole page should be enough. Though {{OGL-attribution}} does include a field to let us give more information, so adding something like: "Crown Copyright text of judgements quoted from or closely summarised" might be best practice.

This would appear to fully satisfy the requirements of the OGL. The OGL does not require a link back to the full text; but the BAILII links would provide this. (And the case names and citation codes in the running text would be a full citation). Multiple uses of the template are not needed, I think. Jheald (talk) 15:30, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Compare eg OGL releases from the Ordnance Survey (licence) where they prescribe the specific acknowledgement "Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right [year]" -- without any requirement to specify which parts of the data derive from the O.S.

Funnily enough I think this highlights my point. So in that case the attribution is specifying the specific dataset (i.e. the database year) and not simply "Contains Ordnance Survey data".

So implementing the unhelpful vaguness of the OGL here it would seem you would need to write an acknowledgement naming each of the documents present. So in an article where it only cites one case that's easy, but in an article that cites let's say 3 OGL controlled documents, do you only need to say "this article incorporates text published under the British Open Government Licence: Article Title 1, Article Title 2, Article Title 3" or do you have to write:

"This article incorporates text published under the British Open Government Licence: Article Title 1"

"This article incorporates text published under the British Open Government Licence: Article Title 2"

"This article incorporates text published under the British Open Government Licence: Article Title 3" Rambling Rambler (talk) 16:26, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

@Rambling Rambler: No. Reusers of OS Open Data typically give the current year -- and only one acknowledgement. The OGL contains no requirement to identify sources, just to acknowledge that crown copyright material has been used. A single template instance will suffice for its requirements. Jheald (talk) 18:09, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Reusers of OS Open Data typically give the current year -- and only one acknowledgement.

Right... they're only citing a single item (the database) and the current years publication of it.

And the OGL explicitly contains a requirement to identify sources where applicable, which is the case with the MoJ in relation to the OGL:

"When using material under the Open Government Licence you are required to acknowledge the material as Crown copyright and you must give the title of the source document or publication."[3] Rambling Rambler (talk) 18:19, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'd missed that on the MoJ page. That's the MoJ's preferred attribution, which supersedes the OGL default. Jheald (talk) 18:56, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Yeah. This is going to be a problem with the OGL I reckon because it applies so widely that it initially seems simple to use but in reality it's a pain in the arse because essentially every organisation under it can have a different set of copyright requirements... Rambling Rambler (talk) 19:15, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. This article[4] available via Wikipedia Library points out that BAILII do not allow Google to cache its contents to abide by right to be forgotten and spent conviction laws. R v Hasan does not name the defendant but does name two people who were arrested during the case, which seems a WP:BLP violation. Sorry to get off the topic of copyright, but this seems a good illustration of why BAILII prefers users to link to their content rather than reproduce it. Orange sticker (talk) 08:51, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

This LLM-generated text has been collapsed and should be excluded from assessments of consensus.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Here is an answer that anyone can find - generated by ChatGPT. Wikipedia - like all academic publishers - has for decades reproduced judgment texts. They are freely available to use without permission.

“ do uk publishers have to ask for permission in law textbooks when they reproduce sections of court judgments? If not, why not?

Generally, UK publishers do not need to individually ask permission every time they reproduce passages from court judgments in a law textbook, but the reason is a bit technical.

Why not?

Most UK court judgments are treated as public legal materials and are available for reuse under government licensing arrangements because of the principle of open justice—the idea that the public must be able to see and discuss what courts decide. The UK’s official Find Case Law service says judgments can generally be quoted, cited, copied, and used in publications (including commercial and educational uses) under the Open Justice Licence, without separate permission, provided the licence conditions are followed.

The legal/copyright background

Court judgments can still attract copyright (often Crown copyright), but the government/license holder broadly permits reuse rather than requiring case-by-case consent. Historically and practically:

• judgments are part of the administration of justice;
• they are authoritative statements of law/reasoning the public must be able to access;
• legal education and practice would be impossible if every quotation required negotiation.

Also: even apart from licensing

A publisher may sometimes rely on normal copyright exceptions like quotation/fair dealing for limited extracts, but for judgments the broader open licensing framework usually makes that unnecessary as the main justification. UK copyright law recognises limited exceptions in some contexts.

Caveats

Permission issues can arise if:

the material includes third-party copyrighted content embedded in the judgment; the publisher is reproducing something beyond the judgment itself (e.g., headnotes written by a commercial reporter/editor); licence conditions (such as attribution/accuracy) are not followed.

A very important distinction: while the judgment text may be reusable, editorial enhancements in law reports (headnotes, summaries, commentary, formatting by publishers like Sweet & Maxwell or LexisNexis) are separately copyrighted.

If you want, I can explain why judgments can be copyrighted at all even though judges are creating “law”—that’s a concept a lot of law students find counterintuitive.

”

Please don't take me to ANI for reproducing a passage from ChatGPT! I agree that it's important to settle this - but it appears to have been settled for well over two decades. Lawbookwriter (talk) 09:03, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Please don't use AI to write comments per WP:LLMCHAT. But you have not even asked ChatGPT the correct question here. You are not reproducing court judgements in textbooks, you are publishing it on Wikipedia which has its own set of policies. Orange sticker (talk) 09:10, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

+1 🚂ThatTrainGuy1945 ^{Peep peep!} 11:46, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Problem. If we allowed materials available under the Open Justice License, one of the requirements of that license is to "remove from publication any documents you are using under this licence, that are subsequently no longer published by the Keeper of Public Records on The National Archives website, or have been replaced by a revised version from the Courts or Tribunals". Do we really want to be in the business of keeping track of everything we copy and attribute, routinely checking to see if it remains published, so that we don't fall afoul of this license? --Hammersoft (talk) 12:26, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

If those are the terms of the specific sub-licence being used (OJL), I'd say any material held under those terms are incompatible with the project because it's impossible to administer. Rambling Rambler (talk) 13:13, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Given that the Open Justice Licence allows derivative works, I don't think that's what the clause you're citing would require us to do. But I do think it's a fair question as to which of the licenses under the UK Government Licensing Framework are compatible - for instance, I can't find any specific discussion of the OJL-specific restrictions on data mining and how that would affect its compatibility with our licensing terms. It's also worth noting that there are multiple licenses for UK court judgements - the example above of R v Hasan is actually under the Open Parliament Licence, UK Supreme Court rulings are under the Open Government Licence, and there are certain categories of judgements that are under Crown Copyright. MCE89 (talk) 13:18, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Probably worth noting OJL [5] appears to be a licence created by the National Archives for their "Find Case Law" portal, marked as a beta service, first found by the Wayback Machine in 2022. BAILII dates from 2000, and is supplied content directly from the Ministry of Justice. The archive of judgments on the https://www.judiciary.uk/ website administered directly by the MoJ are made available under the OGL [6]. Jheald (talk) 15:49, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

How did you ascertain R v Hasan is under the OPL? I see it was heard at the House of Lords so that makes sense, but is there a list somewhere that tells us which judgements come under which licence? It's not clear on the BAILII website though they do say (as I've quoted above) it's up to us to figure it out, I'm not sure where to look though. Orange sticker (talk) 13:27, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm basing that on the fact that the judgement is published by the House of Lords at publications.parliament.uk here, which links to a copyright statement here saying that material made available by the House of Commons or the House of Lords is under the OPL. Unfortunately I don't think there's any way to figure out the licensing other than to go to the website of the relevant court/entity and see what they say about their copyright policy - agree that BAILII doesn't make it particularly easy to figure out. MCE89 (talk) 13:39, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

I think it's safe to say it's therefore OPL. Until 2009 such judicial roles were carried out by the "Law Lords" as it were who sat in the Lords. Rambling Rambler (talk) 16:28, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Discussion noted at WT:LAW -- Jheald (talk) 19:59, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

The major question is, can we freely reproduce court judgments (i.e. by taking an excerpt, or quoting with attribution)? The answer is clearly yes. Does anyone actually disagree with that?

Here is an example of a UK Supreme Court case - Various Claimants v Wm Morrison Supermarkets plc on the National Archives - there is no copyright asserted, and it is obviously freely available to use. The entire legal system, education, and this encyclopedia for 25 years would not function without it being free to use: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/uksc/2020/12/data.pdf

Bailii, which copies the original text of court judgments, has a copyright policy as an independent body. All the reporting companies also have copyrights which apply to their headnotes (summaries, etc).

But the text of a judgment itself is completely free to use. And of course it is - we are talking about the law which is a public resource, not a privatised one.

We need to really wrap this up - and all editors here need to be absolutely clear on this fundamental principle. This has been acknowledged on Wikipedia for over 25 years. Lawbookwriter (talk) 10:33, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Here is an example of a UK Supreme Court case - Various Claimants v Wm Morrison Supermarkets plc on the National Archives - there is no copyright asserted, and it is obviously freely available to use. The entire legal system, education, and this encyclopedia for 25 years would not function without it being free to use.

It's a Supreme Court judgement, which means it is under copyright. The Supreme Court website makes this clear. This claim here "but the text of a judgment itself is completely free to use. And of course it is - we are talking about the law which is a public resource, not a privatised one" just further highlights how you really don't know anything about copyright if you think that being released by a public body means it must be 'copyright-free'. You are clearly already relying on LLMs when it comes to copyright law, which is an immediate sign of a lack of understanding.

I really suggest you stop digging in your heels with this with an attitude that seems to be you're expecting everyone else to acknowledge you're right, and instead maybe notice that literally everyone else is agreeing these documents are subject to copyright controls, we simply differ on how best to address the copyright issues. An editor showing a complete lack of care for copyright is one of the quickest ways to earn a block from all editing here, and the only reason this hasn't happened yet is because some more experienced users are willing to give you a second chance on account of your newness. Rambling Rambler (talk) 11:07, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

IANAL but if there's one thing I know about copyright, the answer is rarely if ever clear, straightfoward or simple, even if you're the copyright owner - in which case you shouldn't be adding it here anyway. Here's a number of legal experts variously arguing the copyright of judgements rests with the Crown, the Judge or the reporter/transcriber. There's also a difference between reproducing a work and quoting from it. I think Wikipedia's plagiarism guidelines help us stay on the right side of the law by reminding us that even if a text is free of copyright, other people's words should be attributed, cited directly and placed in quotation marks. A good Wikipedia article shouldn't consist of more than a small percentage of direct quotations, regardless of copyright. Orange sticker (talk) 12:14, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Just to add to this mess of copyright responsibilities. It seems the National Archives itself, on an unhelpfully undated post on their website, views that all judgements are subject to OJL.[7]

"The Open Justice Licence allows members of the public to continue to use, quote, and publish judgments or extracts from judgments."

Because nothing can ever be simple can it... Rambling Rambler (talk) 11:44, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

The first capture of it on the Internet Archive was April 2022. Orange sticker (talk) 12:29, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Until I retired and stopped paying my practice fee, I was legally qualified (as FCIPA) professionally to advise and act in matters relating to UK copyright law. I did little copyright work, so unless there was a case squarely on point in Copinger and Skone James on Copyright, I would err on the side of caution. And that is what I recommend doing here.

I am totally unqualified in US law. I therefore have no opinion on whether the US exemption for reported cases extends only to the US or is worldwide. Narky Blert (talk) 04:14, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Thoughts from Sasquatch

Disclaimer: I am a lawyer in Canada. I do not practice copyright law. That being said, I have dabbled enough in copyright law to know a little and also understand that I do not know a lot about it.

That out of the way, I have a few thoughts based on the discussion above. There are three main things that we seem to need to consider when using UK case law verbatim:

1. Sourcing: Depending on which website the case law is copied from, there may be different licenses the case law is subject to even if it is the same text (weird, but welcome to copyright).

2. Licensing: Once we have identified the source of the case law, we then need to identify the whether the license of that source is compatible with Wikipedia's CC BY-SA 4.0 license. (see WP:Compatible license for examples).

3. Attribution: Once the proper license is identified, we need to ensure that proper attribution is made under the terms of that license.

This is all because the UK, unlike Canada (Federal government and some provinces - just learned that not all provinces do this) and the US which have stated that case law is not subject to copyright (which puts it in the public domain), asserts Crown Copyright over everything produced by the government. But just because there is Crown copyright does not mean we cannot use it on Wikipedia - we just need to ensure that a compatible license is available.

I am also not saying we should copy things over verbatim just because we can, as others have discussed.

Now let's go over some of the different sources for case law.

BaiLII

This surprises me a bit because BaiLII is an oft-used resource, but it appears to be actually the worst source to use. The case law presented does not identify which license it is presented under. BaiLII's terms say:

The copyright in the text of legislation and judgments displayed on BAILII's website may belong to courts, other government bodies, judges, and/or to commercial publishers. BAILII cannot authorize any copying of such material, and users of BAILII's website are referred to the copyright policy of the relevant copyright owners. BAILII endeavours to indicate the existence of third party copyright on the pages of databases and individual judgments, but users remain responsible for checking whether their use of the materials is authorized.

BaiLII's FAQ state:

The copyright terms applicable to material on BAILII's website are shown here: https://www.bailii.org/bailii/copyright.html.

Reproduction of statutes and of the RTF versions of judgments may in some cases be permitted by third-party copyright owners (see below). While BAILII itself cannot authorise this, BAILII does not object to the copying of small numbers of individual statutes and RTF versions of judgments for publication on the user's own web site.

BAILII does not otherwise permit users to copy materials and to display them on the user's own website. There are a number of reasons...

Copyright in the original text of judgments belongs to third parties (for example Crown Copyright), and BAILII does not have the right to authorise further copying of text. For details of relevant copyright policies see:

• United Kingdom Crown Copyright materials: ClickUse licences and copyright notice...

This is not a license.

Presumably BaiLII has its own licensing agreement in order to reproduce the case law - but it does not identify on each page which license that is and whether another person can reproduce it by just crediting the BaiLII page. As such, I don't think we should actually be copying from BaiLII verbatim (this shocks me, but that's how they've decided to set it up). Until BaiLII clearly provides that the content there is available for reproduction under a compatible license, I think we are technically afoul of the law if we only attribute verbatim texts to BaiLII.

Find Case Law

Find Case Law operates under the Open Justice License. This license, prima facie, is not compatible with CC BY-SA 4.0 because it requires licensees to "remove from publication any documents you are using under this licence, that are subsequently no longer published by the Keeper of Public Records on The National Archives website, or have been replaced by a revised version from the Courts or Tribunals". This is inherently incompatible as it is not a perpetual release. The text of the OJL also does not say "perpetual". This would, in theory, require us to rev-del any versions of a page where a document has been revised and the unrevised text was copied to Wikipedia or rev-del entire page histories if a document is deleted.

Additional note: There is an Open Supreme Court Licence, but per this page, it does not seem to actually apply to case law:

Open Supreme Court licence The Open Supreme Court licence was developed in collaboration with the Supreme Court to enable the use and re-use of Supreme Court information, while reflecting the court’s status and dignity as the final court of appeal.

Contrast this to the Find Case Law section which reads:

In consultation with the Ministry of Justice and the Judicial Executive Board, The National Archives has developed two free-to-use licences for the re-use of content from the Find Case Law service.

• The Open Justice Licence enables the re-use of court judgments and tribunal decisions. It can also apply to other information created for the administration of justice if an organisation has obtained authorisation from the Keeper of Public Records at The National Archives to use this licence. No application is required to use the material under the terms of this licence, but Open Justice Licence terms specifically exclude computational analysis of the licensed material and compiling a search engine index.

Based on this reading, I believe the Open Supreme Court licence only applies to materials from the Supreme Court outside of the Find Case Law service.

UK Supreme Court Website

All documents published there are provided under the Open Government License (see terms and conditions). This license is explicitly compatible with CC BY 4.0 and all case law presented there can be copied over verbatim. However, there are attribution requirements:

You must (where you do any of the above):

acknowledge the source of the Information in your product or application by including or linking to any attribution statement specified by the Information Provider(s) and, where possible, provide a link to this licence; If the Information Provider does not provide a specific attribution statement, you must use the following:

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

If you are using Information from several Information Providers and listing multiple attributions is not practical in your product or application, you may include a URI or hyperlink to a resource that contains the required attribution statements.

These are important conditions of this licence and if you fail to comply with them the rights granted to you under this licence, or any similar licence granted by the Licensor, will end automatically.

This means that any time content from this website is used, we should link to the page it was taken from and, at the bottom of the page, provide a link to the license or clearly display the attribution statement (or both). This is not that different from using images provided under a compatible CC license and I think we should be able to accomplish this.

UK Parliament

Before the UK Supreme Court, there was the House of Lords. They have an archive of their judgements going back to 1621. These are provided under the Open Parliament License. This license is compatible with CC BY-SA 4.0. It's basically the same as the Open Government License but with a different attribution statement. The same restrictions of linking to the actual source and having an link to the license and/or attribution statement apply.

UK Courts and Tribunal Judiciary

Everything pulled from judiciary.uk is subject to the Open Government License (see copyright notice). This can be used the same way as the Supreme Court website.

I think, based on all that, that I would surprisingly recommend staying away from BaiLII and Find Case Law and go directly to the proper court websites whenever we can to ensure we are using properly licensed content. Otherwise, we cannot be sure we are licensing the case law text correctly.

That's just my thoughts on the matter. I realize BaiLII has been used in a lot of Wikipedia pages but it doesn't appear that just referencing the BaiLII page fulfills any licensing requirements. Maybe we can ask a WikiMedia lawyer for further clarification. Sasquatch t|c 13:21, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for this in depth response. There's a few of us at the associated ANI this emerged from all in agreement that the WMF really should be assisting projects with legal advice on local copyright laws. Rambling Rambler (talk) 13:25, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, this is super helpful. I think it would be really useful as an essay to refer to. Orange sticker (talk) 13:28, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

For comparison, I checked CanLII's copyright terms and it says:

4.2 Subject to the following paragraph and the below conditions pertaining to prohibited use, legal materials published on the CanLII Websites, such as legislation, decisions and commentary, including editorial enhancements inserted into the documents by CanLII such as hyperlinks and information in headers and footers, can be copied, printed and used by Users free of charge and without any other authorization from CanLII, provided that CanLII is identified as the source of the document.

4.3 Use of legal materials published on the CanLII Websites can be subject to additional conditions set by their sources:

• courts and government bodies may claim intellectual property rights relating to their documents. CanLII makes an effort to indicate the existence of additional conditions on the pages of the relevant databases (see for instance the conditions that apply to Quebec legislation), but Users remain responsible for checking whether the intended use of the documents is authorized;
• books, journals and other commentary works present in the CanLII Websites are reproduced with permission from their author or publisher. Unless otherwise stated at the top of each published work, Users are allowed to make copies of the work only for legal research purposes, in the practice of law or in the exercise of their legal rights.

That would be what a good license would generally look like, although you would have to look for exceptions (Very classic Quebec to not release their legislation into the public domain unlike the federal government and every other province...). I couldn't find anything of a similar nature for BaiLII. Sasquatch t|c 14:33, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

This is an excellent summary, and matches up closely with my understanding (having spent time dealing with OGL issues over on Commons where there are a lot of OGL images and we've had fun deletion requests from people who haven't really grasped the OGL). The difference between the OPL and OGL is purely a semantic and constitutional one. The OGL was drafted first to deal with Crown Copyright materials created by the executive—documents, images and data created by, say, civil servants working for a central government department. When Parliament wanted something similar, they didn't want the implication that Parliament was part of the government so they pretty much just took OGL and scratched off "Government" and wrote "Parliament".

On the OJL, you've caught the main difference from the standard OGL/OPL: the requirement to use the most up-to-date version of a decision. The reason for this is sometimes a court will publish a judgment that accidentally identifies a party who the court has deemed must remain anonymous (e.g. a child in a family law case) so the court issues a revised version that gets circulated on the Judiciary website, on Find Case Law, on BAILII, and on the various commercial databases (Westlaw, Lexis etc.)

I'd say in practice this is not likely to be a huge problem, even if it means there isn't pure compatibility with CC BY-SA (as there is with OGL). The courts aren't fixing old typos in decisions published years ago. They're noticing they made a mistake within a couple of days or weeks (often on application by a party) and quietly fixing it—this is often called the "slip rule" (see, for instance, CPR r40.12 or FPR PD 29D). Some decision from decades ago is unlikely to present an issue—it will have been published in physical law reports, quoted in textbooks and journal articles and so on. Identification of a party will either have already happened, or not.

How long before we think there's not likely to be any changes? I personally reckon "a few months" is a reasonably safe one but that's just my opinion, man. Decisions specifically concerning youth justice, sex crimes (rape etc.), defamation/media/privacy issues, asylum, and family law are probably going to be the most likely to get revised than other areas (because they're more likely to have anonymity orders), and decisions at first instance (Crown Court, County Court, High Court) are probably more likely to get revised than appellate decisions and decions outside of those two areas. —Tom Morris (talk) 13:46, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

For the record, apparently New Zealand has adopted the American model of copyright exemptions for court judgments: Copyright Act, 1994 Sec. 27(1)(g). You know, in the improbable event anyone ever decides to write an article about Kiwi law. ;) SnowRise ^{let's rap} 13:48, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Honestly there are so many interesting areas in New Zealand law. I might just look into improving some articles as a next project. It is good to see countries adopting the "let's just put it in the public domain" model so us poor Wikipedia editors don't have to deal with quagmires like BaiLII. Sasquatch t|c 13:55, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Well, the good news is that I think that the relevant SNGs state that if three out of five sheep are aware of your proposed articles subject, that's the definition of notable in the context of New Zealand, so you should have options. Heheh, ok, I promise last joke at the expense of our brethren down under down under. All joking aside, yeah--at the parallel discussion at ANI we were lamenting how the idiosyncrasies of the British constitutional order had lead to such a peculiar, ill-defined, and unwieldy legal construct as crown copyright. It's really hard to see how any modern system would elect for any solution substantially different from a government edicts exception doctrine. It's made me want to do a census of civil law standards to see how much this is just a peculiarity of commonwealth nations, to greater or lesser extents. I mean, obviously you could expect something similar in illiberal/authoritarian systems, but kind of an embarrassingly antiquated and tedious feature of law for a commonwealth nation. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 08:53, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

"But kind of an embarrassingly antiquated and tedious"

Hold on, you think there's part of the British system that isn't this? Rambling Rambler (talk) 10:24, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, fair enough, and indeed, this particular wrinkle is fairly categorized as a part of a well-represented species of idiosyncrasies in the British institutional order that results from that lingering impulse against further depriving the Crown of vestigial authority in an area where it once exercised ultimate control. So yeah, fair criticism that it is a little silly to claim bewilderment over this particular anachronism. Still, what a needless and pointless headache. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 02:37, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

I am half considering just writing up an essay on best practices for copyright in case law and legislation in the US, Canada, UK, Aus and NZ. Canada isn't as clear cut as I thought and might require a province by province review. Though at least the US and NZ got it sorted out. Glad I did a copyright moot so I can pretend I understand what a creative work is. Part of the problem in Canada and the UK is that I don't think anyone will ever truly litigate the specific issue of how far Crown Copyright extends into court decisions and legislation, so absent specific acts, regulations, or licences releasing this material into public domain, there will always be a bit of a cloud hanging over it. Sasquatch t|c 11:13, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Such an essay would be highly useful. We really lack a go to resource for copyright law outside the US (which people just seem to default to as a standard). Rambling Rambler (talk) 11:59, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree with RR that his could be an immensely useful resource, and I'm happy to lend a hand if it would be helpful, though my knowledge of Canadian law is extremely limited. Unfortunately, I think you are all too correct about that cloud; the fact of the matter is that we could lay out both the express and soft law on this issue in exacting detail, and the average Wikipedian lay editor who contributes on copyvio issues is still likely be extremely hesitant to not just go with the licensing representations of the third party hosts/republishers of the case law and be very reflexively opposed to any fair use arguments, no matter how well reasoned or how compelling the risk-limitation analysis. It's just a feature of our work culture and how we have drilled our editors in this area--particularly those who do not have deep legal training but who have spent some time familiarizing themselves with copyright in particular. I think some of the side discussions in the ANI thread reflect just how entrenched views can get in this area, whether from Dunning-Kruger influences or just a reasonable abundance of caution.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that for these reasons, and indeed several others, we shouldn't get too lost in the weeds on the issue of the legitimacy of Crown Copyright as regards judgments and focus on practical efforts towards figuring out what the attribution to the claimed licenses should look like. And obviously you two and Jheald have already laid the groundwork for that in some detail here and at ANI, in a model I don't see any issues with thus far. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 02:37, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

UK Parliament Before the UK Supreme Court, there was the House of Lords. A clarification. During C19, the practice grew up that only legally-qualifled lords would speak and vote on legal appeals; amateurs who ventured an opinion were roundly ignored. That was formalised in 1876 with the establishment of the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords whose members were the splendidly-named Lords of Appeal in Ordinary (aka Law Lords). In the quaint British manner, they were members of the legislature as well as the judiciary. When the Supreme Court was set up in 2009, they transferred over. We cover the history in Judicial functions of the House of Lords,

There is also the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council with more-or-less the same membership which acts as the final appeal tribunal for some Commonwealth countries. Narky Blert (talk) 03:40, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Episode summaries for television show(s?) with copyright problems

Okay, so a quick recap: I originally created WP:ANI#WP:COPYVIO on The Floor (American game show) in regards to possible copyright issues on The Floor (American game show). Via that thread, was advised to go to WP:CPN instead; as a result, I created a notice/request at WP:CPN#22 May 2026.

However, I've just now possible uncovered another similar copyright issue at another similar article, being The Floor (Australian game show). I've checked only two of the episodes so far, but at least one episode is almost 100% copy/pasted- see the summary here for season 2, episode 2, and compare to the episode summary listed on the show's/episode's Apple TV page here. Only change is '73' vs. 'Seventy-three', but the rest of the summary is purely identical.

I don't want to have to create another copyright notice/request/listing at CPN, would it at all be possible/fine to just remove all the possibly-copyrighted episode summaries from each episode and retain the other information for each episode (such as 'Duels played', 'Episode winner(s)', etc.)? I'm not sure how and revision deletion(s) would work on these two articles, given that I think the possibly-copyrighted summaries are in most of the revisions, but would just removing those possible violations work? As seen here and at Talk:The Floor (American game show)#Episodes, other editors are already wanting the blocked off episode tables (due to the notice) brought back and even attempting to remove the copyright problem notice that literally says not to remove the notice unless the issue is fixed.

Would much rather just remove the possibly-copyrighted material and not need any copyright notice(s) rather than wait for however long for someone to look into it a CPN, so is this an advisable approach at all?... Magitroopa (talk) 02:15, 26 May 2026 (UTC)