Wikinews:Non-free content

This is a proposed policy. You can choose to follow it. If it is followed by all, and has wide community support, it may become an official policy. Please comment on the collaboration page of the policy on any changes you would like to make, or just edit the page directly. References or links to this page should not describe it as "policy".

This is a proposed policy, designed to supercede Wikinews:Fair use, and serve as the Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP) for Wikinews while complying with Wikimedia Foundation resolution Resolution:Licensing policy.

English Wikinews needs a project specific policy that differs from that of Wikipedia because, in general, allowances for non-free material are much broader for reporting the news than any other use. This is true under both the fair use and fair dealing doctrines, which cover most English-speaking countries.

Images

Images are the most common form of non-free content that is used on Wikinews.

Not acceptable

• Photos and graphics created by a competing news agency, such as a newspaper, magazine, or broadcast news, do not qualify as acceptable exemptions.
• Photos and graphics created by individuals, corporations, and educational institutions for purposes other than reporting news, promotion and/or publicity, and without specific acceptable licenses do not qualify.

Acceptable

• Photos and graphics published by a government, educational institution, corporation or other private entity with the explicit intention of providing a press release, publicity or otherwise promote themselves. This assumes that they do own the image, if not, it is not acceptable.