Wikipedia:Image use policy

For information on media in general (images, sound files, etc.), see . For information on uploading, see , or go directly to . For other legal and copyright policies, see .

Before you upload an image, make sure that the image falls in one of the four categories:

Such images can include photographs which you yourself took. The legal rights for images generally lie with the photographer, not the subject. Simply re-tracing a copyrighted image or diagram does not necessarily create a new copyright—copyright is generated only by instances of "creativity", and not by the amount of labor which went into the creation of the work. Photographs of three-dimensional objects almost always generate a new copyright, though others may continue to hold copyright in items depicted in such photographs. Photographs of two-dimensional objects such as paintings in a museum often do not (see the section on the "public domain" below). If you have questions in respect to this, please ask the regulars at .

Some images may contain trademarked logos incidentally (or purposely if the image is either freely licensed, covered under freedom of panorama, or being too simple to be copyrightable). If this is the case, please tag it with {{}}.

Try not to use color alone to convey information, as it is inaccessible in many situations.

If the place where you found the image does not declare a pre-existing free license, yet allows use of its content under terms commonly instituted by them, it must explicitly declare that commercial use and modification is permitted. If it does not so declare, you must assume that you may not use the image unless you obtain verification or permission from the copyright holder.

Images may be placed into the public domain by their creators, or they may be public domain because they are ineligible for copyright or because their copyright expired. In the U.S., copyright has expired on any work published anywhere before January 1, 1923. Although U.S. copyrights have also expired for many works published since then, the rules for determining expiration are complex; see When does copyright expire? for details.

In the U.S., reproductions of two-dimensional public domain artwork do not generate a new copyright; see Bridgeman v. Corel. Scans of images alone do not generate new copyrights—they merely inherit the copyright status of the image they are reproducing. For example, a straight-on photograph of the Mona Lisa is ineligible for copyright.

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