Licences

If you own copyright over it, releasing content for use by the Wikimedia Foundation can be as easy as choosing a suitable "licence" for it. These list the controls you wish to place on your content. Wikimedia's commitment to free content means that only a certain range of licences are accepted; the most common are listed below. Note that collectors / archives may not own the copyright of images they hold in their collections, in which case the original copyright holder should be contacted. If the work is particularly old, copyright may have expired, in which case the work is automatically placed in the public domain.

CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported

Available from http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ (from which the below is adapted), CC-BY-SA 3.0 allows the re-use of content as long as the source is properly attributed, and the material is "shared-alike" - re-users cannot put more restrictions on the content that you did. It is currently used on most of the WMF's wikis, including Wikipedia.

As the copyright holder, you agree that any re-user can:

• Share the content — copy, distribute and transmit the work
• Remix the content — adapt the work

In return, you enforce the following conditions:

• Attribution — Re-users must attribute the work in the manner specified by you (as long as this does not suggest that you endorse them or their use of the work).
• Share Alike — If they alter, transform, or build upon this work, they may distribute the resulting work only under the same, similar or a compatible licence.

This is done with the understanding that:

• Waiver — Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
• Other Rights — In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license:
  • The re-user's fair dealing rights;
  • Your moral rights;
  • Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.

Public domain

A public domain release is a full revocation of your right as a copyright holder. You agree that your work can be re-used by anyone for any purpose whatsoever, with no need to attribute you or even tell anyone they are using your content. It is the most free available licence (in the sense that it is no licence at all).