Wikipedia: Fair use

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This page provides general guidance on what is or isn't likely to be fair use and how you can best assist reusers when using fair use works. It is not official policy. You, as the uploader, are legally responsible for determining whether your contributions are legal.

The United States copyright doctrine of fair use gives considerable allowance for use of copyrighted material in a wide variety of commercial and non-commercial uses. Our primary goal on Wikipedia is to create a free content (as in "speech") encyclopedia which can be used by downstream users. See meta:Do fair use images violate the GFDL? and meta:Permission grant extent for extensive discussion of the compatibility of fair use and the GFDL. Fair use/fair dealing laws are different in different jurisdictions and fair use works are seldom going to be usable outside the US - even the most restrictive license possible is often more free than fair use outside the US.

You should provide a legal justification for the fair use claim, as described on wikipedia:image description page. Remember there is no "general rule" about fair use, each "fair use" must be explained and a rationale must be established for that specific use (i.e. every page that uses the image will have a distinct rationale for using the image on that page even though fair use is claimed on the image page).

Cases where fair use may apply include:

• Unique historical images which we cannot reproduce by other means
• Samples of music, sufficient only to illustrate the point
• Book and CD album covers
• Corporate logos
• Quotations
• Screen shots

Always use a more free alternative if one is available. Such images can often be used more readily outside the US. If you see a fair use image and know of an alternative more free equivalent, please replace it, so the Wikipedia can become as free as possible. Eventually we may have a way to identify images as more restricted than GFDL on the article pages, to make the desire for a more free image more obvious.

For reusers, particularly commercial reusers, the most important part of a fair use description is good information on the original source of the image. That is essential to allow them to make their own determination of whether their own use is fair use. They can't rely on our judgement because they have legal liability regardless of what we say.

Often an image will be both fair use and licensed use. The license protects the uploader and the Wikipedia, while others can use the image as fair use. This is particularly likely when the uploader is not in the US and may not be able to legally use fair use without infringing under their own local copyright law. It's always good to have the legal protection of even a very restrictive license for a work being used under fair use. To assist reusers, do give both the license details and the fair use rationale. In these cases, the license will govern use outside the US, while those in the US can use fair use.

If you want help in assessing whether a use is fair use, please ask at Wikipedia talk:Copyrights or Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems, the places where those who understand copyright law are likely to be watching.

Tagging files

For a while there was a proposed discussion system for fair use images. While it was little used, the tags described here may be encountered on one of the images which used the system.

If it has been determined that there is no alternative to fair use for a specific file, you may include the file in the relevant article(s) if it is tagged with the message at Template:verifieduse, which can be included by adding the tag {{verifieduse}}, which expands to:

This file or image is copyrighted. After deliberation on Wikipedia:Fair use, it has been decided that it is eligible for fair use under United States law, and that there are no alternatives to using it under that doctrine. It is therefore contended that this file or image is fair use; if you use it for any non-educational purpose, you may be in violation of copyright law.

Wikipedia prefers to use images which are in the public domain or licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License or a similar copyleft license. If you know of any way to obtain this image, or an equivalent one, under such conditions, please post a comment on Wikipedia talk:Fair use, with a link to the article the image is included in.

If you have found a file that you believe to be fair use, but have not verified that it is fair use, you can use the {{Fairuse}} tag which expands to:

Please also add the source from which the image has been reproduced. Remember there is no "general rule" about fair use, each "fair use" must be explained and a rationale must be established for that specific use (i.e. every page that uses the image will have a distinct rationale for using the image on that page even though fair use is claimed on the image page).

See also: Wikipedia:Fair use checklist

zh:Wikipedia:合理使用