Wikipedia talk:Copying text from other sources

• {{PD-notice}}
• {{CC-notice}}
• WP:CFAQ
• WP:COMPLIC

The sources below include the proper attribution in citations to avoid a copyright violation or to indicate the content from the source is in the public domain:

^[1]

^[2]

When an editor copies content from a source they also need to include the proper attribution inside the citation. For example, the following slanted content was copied. See The understanding of trypophobia is still limited and the number of peer-reviewed articles is low, as of 2018^[update].^[1] The citation includes the part This article incorporates text by Juan Carlos Martínez-Aguay, Renzo C. Lanfranco, Marcelo Arancibia, Elisa Sepúlveda and Eva Madrid available under the CC BY 4.0 license.

The proper attribution was added to the citation. Without proper attribution it is a copyright violation if the content was added to an article or even the talk page of any medical article. There are sources that allow content to be copied but they require proper attribution in order to use the content. Proper attribution is required for copying licensed content that is not in the public domain. See WP:Compatible license. Editors should not remove the required attribution inside the citation or quote the source in the article or on the talk page without a link to a source for content that is not in the public domain. Unattributed copying in a medical-related article or the talk page is a copyright violation. We do use copy-pasted material from a source without quoting it, when it's permissible under copyright law. Many organisations have content on their website that are in the public domain such as content on the FDA website. The CDC website has a lot of medical-related content that is in the public domain. For content that is in the public domain I use the correct template for public domain content. See Template:PD-notice.

I propose we explain it in more detail what can and can't be copied for content in general and for medical-related content. It is important that editors properly cite content, including attribution for content in the public domain and compatibly-licensed. QuackGuru (talk) 06:02, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Since your talking about reference. ..best to bring this up at Wikipedia:Public domain. As this is not the page to give examples or discus convoluted concepts--Moxy (talk) 06:47, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Public domain is only for content in the public domain. There are other references with other compatible licenses. There can be a section for "Example cases" for compatible licenses that are not in the public domain. QuackGuru (talk) 06:51, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Then I am not sure where the best place is...but as you can see this info page is a quick overview about copy pasting.....not a how to page about formating anything. Odd medical stuff should likely be discussed at Medical projects or essays.--Moxy (talk) 07:01, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

This page says "It is acceptable to copy text from public domain sources or those that are explicitly licensed under a compatible licensing scheme." But there is no specific section in this page that explains how to do this. I do not know where the best place is for explaining how to format the citation for a source that is under a compatible license. QuackGuru (talk) 07:11, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

perhaps WP:MEDREF also found Wikipedia:Plagiarism#Copying material from free sources --Moxy (talk) 07:17, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

I'd like guidance on how tables of information can be copied without CV. For example, I had an article G12'ed because I copied the table at http://gammasigmaepsilon.org/chap_hist.htm . Given that chapter lists are viewed at WP:FRAT as valid information, I'd like to know what can be done.Naraht (talk) 12:01, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi, All Wikipedia content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (CC-BY-SA); so Is it permissible to copy some portions of content/text from Wikipedia to other websites, blogs or books?.JogiAsad  ^Talk 08:17, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@JogiAsad: See WP:Reusing Wikipedia content. Ravensfire (talk) 22:15, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks

Statista has found about 25 numbers from the UN-listed refugee database. It has put a © mark on its discovery. The page is here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/740233/major-syrian-refugee-hosting-countries-worldwide/. The source of the Statista is the UNHCR database under Supplementary notes. Is it a copyright offense now to borrow to the Finnish Wikipedia page https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syyrian_sis%C3%A4llissodan_pakolaiset, for example, 15 numbers that are otherwise difficult to find in newspapers, and of course mention both sources? Or must I copy for example only 10 numbers from The Guardian, which also has copyright, as you know (Wikipedia specialists say it is easy to edit Wikipedia: I made my first table for Wikipedia article when I noticed a small copyright mark)? Jari Rauma (talk) 21:10, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

@Mathglot: As of 2019, "copyrighted text" is used more often than "copyright text according to Google Ngram Viewer at this result. If this is agreeable, it should be changed to "copyrighted text". — CrafterNova ^{[ TALK ] [ CONT ]} 12:37, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

 Courtesy link: Wikipedia:Copying text from other sources

@CrafterNova: Yes, I was aware of the ngrams distinction, but two things: 1) interpretation of ngrams is tricky, and we don't know the context of those counts without examination; but more importantly, 2) this concerns a policy page with legal implications, and the text you wish to change is some of the core wording on the page, which affects even the "nutshell" box at the top. In the end, I suspect that in this case, whether it has the "-ed" or whether it doesn't is probably not a big deal; but nevertheless, given the importance of the page, and the centrality of the wording you wish to change on the page, it should probably be a matter of general agreement or at least acquiescence among users watching the page, to get some buy-in for it. If you revert back, I won't undo again, but I hope you don't go that route. Mathglot (talk) 17:53, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

@Mathglot: I agree, this needs consensus of many editors. There is no rush or big deal but I have a habit to discuss anyway after reverts. Good day. — CrafterNova ^{[ TALK ] [ CONT ]} 08:12, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm doing a GA review of Cross-site leaks for Sohom Datta. The two code snippets in the Defenses section are copy-pasted out of one of the cited references (with some minor changes). How does this play with fair use, and what's required in terms of attribution? RoySmith (talk) 17:22, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

The work in question is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 license (CC-BY 4.0) (which should be compatible with Wikipedia's license) :) I have included the {{Creative Commons text attribution notice}} at the end of the Reference section wrt to provide attribution to the authors. That being said, let me know if I should add anything else wrt to attributing the text to these sources. Sohom (talk) 17:34, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

I had an edit in mind to add to the section Can I copy from open license or public domain sources?. The section indeed mentions that attribution must be given, but it doesn't mention how to give this attribution. It just provides a hyperlink, which I was a bit lazy to open. This resulted in me misinterpreting what attribution means, thinking that mentioning the reference and using inline citations is enough and I copied from open access articles without using an attribution template.

How about we add a warning sentence to prevent misunderstanding like, "It is acceptable to copy text from public domain sources or those that are explicitly licensed under a compatible licensing scheme. However, a dedicated attribution template must be used, and it's simply not enough to only mention the references and inline citations".

What do you think? User579987 (talk) 13:38, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Copyrights § Paste Check feature - coming next week. That post has details about this upcoming feature, which should help to remind editors (especially newcomers) to think carefully about pasting larger quantities of text, thus hopefully helping to reduce the quantity of copyvio problems. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:06, 27 February 2026 (UTC)