Commons:Copyright tags/Various free licenses

Copyright tags

• Commonly used licenses
• General public domain
• Country-specific tags
• GNU licenses
• Free Creative Commons licenses
• Various free licenses
• Not free or uncertain
• Descriptive tags
• Index by source

A variety of license tags other than the GNU licenses or Creative Commons licenses indicate that a file may be freely used.

Copyleft Attitude License

The Free Art License published by Copyleft Attitude is an example of a "copyleft" license, which lets users freely distribute copies and modified versions of a work with the stipulation that the same rights be preserved in derivative works created later. The GNU and Creative Commons licenses are other examples, and many other licenses apply the concept to some degree.

• {{FAL}} – Free Art License can be applied to digital as well as to non-digital art. With this Free Art License, you are authorized to copy, distribute and freely transform the work of art while respecting the rights of the originator. The FAL is recommended by the Free Software Foundation: "We don't take the position that artistic or entertainment works must be free, but if you want to make one free, we recommend the Free Art License."

Custom public domain licenses

Many custom public domain licenses are listed at Category:Custom PD license tags. The works may be released into the public domain by an organization or individual, or may be extracts from a major work that is in the public domain, such as the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (1890-1907). A small sample follows.

• {{PD-Acid}} – for screenshots of the Acid test suites
• {{PD-Demis}} – for images derived from the maps in the Demis examples gallery; see also Template talk:PD-Demis for explanation.
• {{PD-Gutenberg}} – for images from Project Gutenberg that is directly from public domain works hosted on that site. Not all works or images from this site are public domain, so be careful. See Commons:Problematic sources section on Project Gutenberg.
• {{PD-LACMA}} – for images released to the public domain from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Image Library.
• {{PD-OpenClipart}} – for CC Zero images from openclipart.org.
• {{PD-PDFnet}} – for material from PDFnet.dk. All material from this website is released to public domain.
• {{PD-PDphoto.org}} – for images from PD Photo.org: free for commercial use and derivative works as long as it stays that way.
• {{PD-pdsounds.org}} – for audio files from pdsounds.org: public domain.
• {{PD-Raita}} – for media files from the Raita database.
• {{PD-SabuCat}} – Screenshot of a movie trailer physically owned by SabuCat Productions, Inc. and first published in the United States.

Alternative free use licenses

Several organizations have developed specialized free use licenses that define terms compatible with Wikimedia Commons requirements. Many of the corresponding license tags may be found in Category:License tags. A sample is listed below.

• {{Apache}} – Apache v2.0 license
• {{Beerware}} – Beerware-License (Revision 42)
• {{BSD}} – 3-clause BSD license
• {{BSD|<username>}} – BSD license with user variable
• {{BSD|version=<version>}} – BSD license with version variable, to indicate number of clauses — e.g. 2, 3 or 4
• {{BSD-2c-KDE|Author=<name>|Year=<years>}} – 2-clause BSD-derived license used by KDE
• {{CeCILL}} – The CeCILL license, a French Free Software license crafted to be compatible with the GNU General Public License.
• {{CPL}} – IBM's Common Public License 1.0
• {{Expat|<copyright holder>}} – Expat license.
• {{MIT|<Author>|Expat}} – File is licensed under the Expat License, sometimes known as the MIT License.
• {{MPL}}, {{MPL2}} Mozilla Public License
• {{ODbL OpenStreetMap}} – Open Database License for maps from or based on data from openstreetmap.org
• {{OGL}} – Open Government License
• {{OGL-C}} – Open Government License-Canada
• {{OFL}} – for fonts or characters licensed under the SIL Open Font License
• {{WTFPL}} – WTF Public License Version 2
• {{WTFPL-1}} – WTF Public License Version 1
• {{X11|<authors or copyright holders>}} – the X11 license, used by some software like Xfontsel.

Copyrighted but may be used

There are many tags for cases where a work is protected by copyright but may be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons using a generic or source-specific license. A small sample follows. See Category:Custom license tags for more licenses like this.

• {{Attribution}} – Copyrighted, but freely usable given the copyright holder is credited. If you are the author of the work, consider using {{Cc-by-4.0}}, instead.
• {{Copyrighted free use}} – Copyrighted, but the copyright holder allows anyone to use it for any purpose. Consider using {{Cc-zero}} for your own work instead.
• {{Free screenshot|license=<free license>}} – for screenshots containing pictures of not copyrighted programs, or programs released under a free license, or by some other way following the requirements of Commons. The actual free license should be indicated as a parameter to the tag. (See {{Screenshot}} for screenshots of copyrighted software or operating systems). If the screenshot shows original work by someone else, make sure it's under a free license and indicate that license using a separate license tag from above. If it shows your own work, say so explicitly and select a license tag of your liking from above.

---

• {{AerialPhotograph-mlitJP}} – images from http://w3land.mlit.go.jp/WebGIS/
• {{Bmz}} – images from http://www.bmz.amsterdam.nl/adam/index_e.html are copyrighted but may be used if the source is acknowledged as the Amsterdam Municipal Department for the Preservation and Restoration of Historic Buildings and Sites (bMA). This applies only to images for which bMA does not mention some other source.
• {{IPPAR}} – for images from http://www.ippar.pt/
• {{NZTA-Sign-Spec}} – copyrighted but can be used for commercial or noncommercial use (just not on a New Zealand road)