User:PJammaz/image guidelines

The following are guidelines for using and uploading images onto the wiki. If you have any confusion, please use the talk page to ask questions.

Image Use

Users are encouraged to use images to improve their articles. Images should be appropriate for all audiences and should be an attempt to improve the cohesion of the article, rather than just being decorative and taking up space.

The use of an image does not replace text and a user should be able to get a good understanding of the article without any supplemental images.

Uploading Images

Do not upload any images to the wiki unless you have permission to do so. The following is a short list of allowable uploads to the wiki.

• The image is one that you have created yourself, and are therefore releasing to be used on the wiki.
• The image is in the public domain.
• The image has been marked with a license, such as Creative Commons 3.0

If you are uncertain whether you are allowed to upload an image, you should ask on the talk page for clarification.

Images that are uploaded to the wiki should be marked with credit to the artist, as well as information on the license that allows it to be uploaded. Images without these details may be deleted.

Licenses

Images that are uploaded to the wiki must be tagged with the proper license. Here is a brief explanation of many of the most common image licenses. This is not meant to be comprehensive and you may need to do some personal research on more obscure licenses or details of these licenses.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that provides premade legally-binding licenses for artists and creators. Each license covers different things but here are the most common parts.

• Share - Nearly all Creative Commons licenses allow the work to be reproduced and distributed in any medium
• Adapt - The original work may be edited or changed in any way
• Attribution - You must give the name of the creator, the license, and a link to the original creator
• ShareAlike - If the original work was edited, it must be distributed with the same license as the original work
• NoDerivatives - The original work may not be edited in any way
• NonCommercial - The work may not be used for any commercial purposes at all

Public Domain

Public domain works are allowed to be used without exception. The most common reason is that the original work is old enough and the original copyright has expired.

Reasons a work may be in the public domain:

• The work was published in the United States more than 96 years ago
• The work was published before 1964 and the owner failed to renew the copyright
• The author relinquished their right to copyright
• The work cannot be protected by copyright law i.e. works created by government employees as part of their official capacity

Fair Use

Fair use is a very complicated legal doctrine. Users should avoid uploading anything they might consider fair use for several reasons. Primarily, fair use is the admission that the use of the work violates copyright, but it is allowed under very specific circumstances. Most of fair use law comes from legal precedence.

Fair use can be pretty subjective, but this is a short list of things that are almost always considered to be fair use:

• If the material is being reviewed
• A screenshot or a short clip from a movie, TV show, or video game
• A significantly small portion of the original work

If the image does not fall under one of these points, it is unlikely that it would be considered fair use for the wiki.

Sourcing Images

Bad places to get images include Pinterest and Google Images. Often the images on there are stolen and uploaded without the artist's permission.

Good places are the Creative Commons website and Wikimedia Commons. Typically all of the images on both of those sites have licenses that would allow them to be uploaded and used on the wiki.

A site like DeviantArt can be useful for finding images, although often the artists do not give permission to use an image. If the user is active, you can always message them and ask permission to use an image if it is absolutely crucial.