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This page is considered an official policy on Wikimedia Commons. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that everyone must follow. Except for minor edits (such as fixing typos, or bringing information up to date), please make use of the discussion page to propose changes to this policy. |
Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to all. It acts as a common repository for all Wikimedia projects, but the content can be used by anyone, anywhere, for any purpose.
This page is necessarily quite long. If you just need a brief overview, see Commons:Project scope/Summary.
The aim of Wikimedia Commons is to provide a media file repository:
The expression "educational" is to be understood according to its broad meaning of "providing knowledge; instructional or informative".
To be eligible for hosting on Wikimedia Commons, all files and other content must fall within the Commons scope. Anything uploaded here which falls outside this scope will be deleted as OOS (Out Of Scope).
Certain content is excluded from Commons, not because it is intrinsically non-educational, but because there are other Wikimedia Foundation projects that are more appropriate for hosting such content. This applies both to media files and to text.
Excluded educational content includes:
However, Commons can be used to host such material if included in a shareable media file that is of use to one of the other Wikimedia Foundation-hosted (WMF) projects, so scanned copies of existing texts that are useful to other WMF projects (e.g. to serve as the basis of a reliable, verifiable source) are in scope. Also allowed are files which embody something of value over and above raw text. For example, files consisting of scans of out-of-copyright books, newspapers and the like which preserve original font, layout, embedded images and the like are within scope.
Uploaded files are within scope only if they comply with all of the following conditions. Every file:
These are explained in more detail below.
Wikimedia Commons hosts only media files such as photographs, scanned images, diagrams, animations, audio (e.g. music and spoken dialogue) and video clips, along with any associated metadata. Explanatory and other text is permitted on the file page only to the extent to which it advances Commons' aim and is not excluded educational content.
The following are not considered media files, and may not be hosted here:
Only free file formats are allowed. Proprietary formats such as Microsoft Word and Excel documents, AAC, WMA, H.265, HEIC, Flash and the like are not permitted. More generally, any file that requires an unfree program or patent-encumbered codec in order to access its content is prohibited.
A list of currently allowed file formats can be found at Commons:Project scope/Allowable file types.
Wikimedia Commons accepts only free content, in other words files that are either freely licensed or which are in the public domain. A file is considered public domain if either all copyright has expired or if the copyright owner(s) has voluntarily placed the content of the file into the public domain by irrevocably renouncing all copyright. A file which is ineligible for copyright protection is also considered public domain.
Any file hosted here must normally be freely licensed or public domain according to both the law of the United States and according to the law of the source country, if different: see Commons:Licensing.
To be considered freely licensed, the copyright owner has to release the file under an irrevocable licence which:
The following licensing terms are not allowed:
Licences with these restrictions are allowed as long as the work is dual-licensed or multi-licensed with at least one licensing option that does not include such a restriction.
"Licences" which purport to allow fair use only are not allowed. Fair use is not a right that can be licensed by a copyright owner, and is in any event never accepted on Commons.
The following terms are allowed:
Licensing policy is defined in detail at Commons:Licensing.
In all cases the uploader must provide appropriate evidence to demonstrate either that the file is in the public domain or that the copyright owner has released it under a suitable licence. Typically that requires at least that the source of the file be specified,[1] along with the original source where the file is a derivative work. Also, the creator or copyright owner should be identified, if known or reasonably ascertainable. If there is any question, evidence may need to be supplied that the copyright owner has indeed released the file under the given licence.
Where the file is a photograph which shows an identifiable person, the subject's consent may be required as described at Commons:Photographs of identifiable people.
In all cases, the burden of proof lies on the uploader or other person arguing for the file to be retained to demonstrate that as far as can reasonably be determined:
In the case of an old file, date and country of publication can help determine if the file is in the public domain due to age.
Commons' users aim to build and maintain in good faith a repository of media files which to the best of our knowledge are free or freely-licensed. The precautionary principle is that where there is significant doubt about the freedom of a particular file, it should be deleted.
Also, arguments that amount to "we can get away with it", such as the following, are against Commons' aims:
The expression "educational" is to be understood according to its broad meaning of "providing knowledge; instructional or informative".
In the sections below, any use that is not made in good faith does not count. For example, images that are being used on a talk page just to make a point can be discounted.
A media file that is in use on one of the other projects of the Wikimedia Foundation is considered automatically to be useful for an educational purpose, as is a file in use for some operational reason such as within a template or the like. Such a file is not liable to deletion simply because it may be of poor quality: if it is in use, that is enough.
The uploading of small numbers of images (e.g. of yourself) for use on a personal user page of Commons or another project is allowed as long as that user is or was an active participant on that project.
It should be stressed that Commons does not overrule other projects about what is in scope. If an image is in use on another project (aside from use on talk pages or user pages), that is enough for it to be within scope.
An otherwise non-educational file does not acquire educational purpose solely because it is in use on a gallery page or in a category on Commons, nor solely because it is in use on a user page (the "User:" namespace), but by custom the uploading of small numbers of images (e.g. of yourself) for use on a personal Commons user page is allowed if you are an active, constructive participant on Commons. Files relating to projects or events of the Wikimedia community, such as user meetings, are also allowed.
A media file which is neither:
falls outside the scope of Wikimedia Commons.
The emphasis here is on realistic utility, either for one of the Wikimedia projects or for some other educational use. Not all images for example are realistically useful for an educational purpose. An image does not magically become useful by virtue of the argument that it could be used to illustrate a Wikipedia article on X, merely because X happens to be the subject of the photograph.
For example, the fact that an unused blurred photograph could theoretically be used to illustrate an article on "Common mistakes in photography" does not mean that we should keep all blurred photographs. The fact that an unused snapshot of your friend could theoretically be used to illustrate an article on "Photographic portraiture" does not mean that we should keep all photographs of unknown people. The fact that an unused pornographic image could theoretically be used to illustrate an article on pornography does not mean that we should keep low quality pornographic images (see also Censorship).
Excluded from this policy are files in different formats and files which are similar but not exact duplicates in cases where they are needed to keep the file history for legal reasons.
Examples of files that are not realistically useful for an educational purpose:
We hold many high-quality images of species-identified birds, and there is no realistic educational use for a small, blurry, poorly composed snapshot of an unidentified and unidentifiable bird. Of course, there is always room for another educationally distinct image, for example illustrating some aspect of bird behaviour that we do not currently cover, even if the image is perhaps not of the highest quality.
There may sometimes be an argument for retaining multiple images that are quite similar from an educational point of view, for the sake of variety and availability of choice, but there is no purpose in our hosting many essentially identical poor-quality images that have no realistic educational value.
New educational files of exceptional quality are always welcome, and the later uploading of such files may in principle render earlier unused poor quality files educationally redundant. However, as indicated above, a file that is used in good faith on a Wikimedia project is always considered educational, so a poor-quality file that remains in use is not eligible for deletion even if a better-quality file covering the same subject later becomes available.
New and existing files of poor or mediocre quality may or may not be realistically useful for an educational purpose depending on what they illustrate and what other files we have of the same subject. Where a subject is rare and/or difficult to capture, even a poor-quality file may be of significant educational value, especially if Commons has very few or no similar files already. On the other hand, poor or mediocre files of common and easy-to-capture subjects may have no realistic educational value, especially if Commons already hosts many similar or better quality examples.
Image quality is just one of the factors that may limit the educational usefulness of a file. Other limiting factors may include low resolution and hard-to-remove watermarks.
Although PDF and DjVu file formats are permitted, they are expected to be used only in appropriate cases. There should be some reason for the choice of format that is in line with Commons' aims. All of the above rules apply as well, of course.
An admin considering whether to delete a PDF or DjVu file may have to exercise judgement as to whether the chosen format is in line with Commons' aims, and the context and intent (if known) may be relevant. For example, while a published university thesis in PDF format may be OK, a user-created original-research article that is making use of Commons as a free web-host may not be.
Files that might realistically be useful to one or more other Wikimedia projects, e.g. Wikisource or Wikibooks, should be kept; deletions should not be based on the sole ground that the file would be better hosted on one of those other projects. Any media file that is realistically useful to or is within the scope of even one other Wikimedia Foundation project can be hosted here.
Remember that Wikisource often needs PDF or DjVu files in order to proofread or create source texts: Therefore, scans of suitable editions of notable public domain works are almost always within scope for this reason. That said, remember that editorial decisions involved in preparing a text from several sources may result in a new copyright, so the editions used must be out of copyright themselves.
See Commons:Project scope/Pages, galleries and categories.
Files and other materials which are not lawful for Commons to host on its servers in Virginia will be deleted immediately upon being identified as unlawful (including copyright violations), even if the material otherwise falls within Commons scope, as set out above. However, Commons is not censored, and legitimately includes content which some users may consider objectionable or offensive. The policy of "Commons is not censored" means that a lawfully-hosted file, which falls within Commons' definitions of scope, will not be deleted solely on the grounds that it may not be "child-friendly" or that it may cause offence to you or others, for moral, personal, religious, social, or other reasons.
The counterpoint to this, is that the statement "Commons is not censored" is not a valid argument for keeping a file that falls outside Commons' defined scope, as set out above. Photographs of nudity including male and female genitalia are sometimes uploaded for non-educational motives, and such images are not exempt from the requirement to comply with the rules of Commons' scope. If the images are of demonstrably inferior quality, or add nothing educationally distinct to the stock of such images we hold already, they may fail the test of being realistically useful for an educational purpose.
A balance has to be struck between accepting useful media files with legitimate educational content that some may find offensive, and not allowing Commons to be used as a general-purpose media-hosting service (like Flickr, Photobucket, YouTube, etc.), without regard for the project's stated goals. The purpose of Commons is to serve as a media repository, a reliable resource of useful, freely licensed media content; organized and comprehensive in coverage (with accurate file descriptions/information), educational, and intended both for use by Wikimedia projects, and as a public service freely accessible to everyone.
See Commons:Project scope/Neutral point of view for more information about how Commons differs from Wikipedia projects with respect to neutral point of view and original research.
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Wikimedia Commons policies and guidelines
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