Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia
![]() | This page documents an English Wikipedia editing guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page. |
![]() | This page in a nutshell: When copying content from one article to another, at a minimum provide a link back to the source page in the edit summary at the destination page and state that content was copied from that source. If substantial, consider posting a note on both talk pages. |
Wikipedia's licensing requires that attribution be given to all users involved in creating and altering the content of a page. Wikipedia's page history functionality lists all edits made to a page and all users who made these changes, but it cannot, however, in itself determine where the text originally came from. Because of this, copying content from another page within Wikipedia requires supplementary attribution to indicate it. At a minimum, this means providing an edit summary at the destination page—that is, the page into which the material is copied—stating that content was copied, together with a link to the source (copied-from) page, e.g. Copied content from [[<page name>]]; see that page's history for attribution
. It is good practice, especially if copying is extensive, to make a note in an edit summary on the source page as well. Content reusers should also consider leaving notes on the talk pages of both the source and destination.
Copying and translating information from a Wikimedia project other than the English Wikipedia is usually possible, since all Wikimedia projects use the same or compatible licensing for most of their content. The edit summary must provide either a link to the original source or a list of all contributors. There are templates that may be used on the article's talk page to add supplementary information. See § Copying from other Wikimedia projects for more info.
Attribution is required for copyright
Contributors to Wikipedia are not asked to surrender their copyright to the material they contribute. Instead, they are required to co-license their contributions under the copyleft licenses Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA) and GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). Both of these licenses allow reuse and modification, but reserve the right to attribution.
The CC BY-SA, section 4(c), states that:
You must ... provide ... the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) ... and ... in the case of an Adaptation, a credit identifying the use of the Work in the Adaptation (e.g., "French translation of the Work by Original Author," or "Screenplay based on original Work by Original Author"). The credit required by this Section 4(c) may be implemented in any reasonable manner; provided, however, that in the case of a Adaptation or Collection, at a minimum such credit will appear, if a credit for all contributing authors of the Adaptation or Collection appears, then as part of these credits and in a manner at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors.
The GFDL, section 4-I, states that:
... you must ... Preserve the section Entitled "History", Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page.
The Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use are clear that attribution will be supplied:
in any of the following fashions: a) through a hyperlink (where possible) or URL to the article or articles you contributed to, b) through a hyperlink (where possible) or URL to an alternative, stable online copy which is freely accessible, which conforms with the license, and which provides credit to the authors in a manner equivalent to the credit given on this website, or c) through a list of all authors. (Any list of authors may be filtered to exclude very small or irrelevant contributions.)
If material is used without attribution, it violates the licensing terms under which it has been provided, which in turn violates the Reusers' rights and obligations clause of Wikipedia's copyrights policy.
Other reasons for attributing text
The correct attribution of text copied from one article to another allows editors to find easily the previous edit history of the copied text with all the advantages that access to the edit history of text contained in an article provides. Listed below are some of the advantages appropriate attribution brings that are specific to text copied from one article to another.
If a Wikipedia article (the "parent article") contains text that is a breach of third-party copyright and is copied to another article (the "child article"), then the child article will also contain a copyright violation. Attributing the copy in the child article as specified below helps editors identify when an inadvertent breach of copyright occurred and determine that the editor who made the copy did so without knowing that it was a breach of copyright. (See here for an example.) The appropriate attribution in the child article may also help editors trace the copyright violation back to the parent article.
If text with one or more short citations is copied from one or more parent articles into a child article, but the corresponding full reference in the parent's references section is not copied across, without appropriate attribution as specified below, it can be difficult to identify the full reference needed to support the short citations. (See here for an example.)
Where attribution is not needed
Not everything copied from one Wikipedia page to another requires attribution. If the re-user is the sole contributor of the text at the other page, attribution is not necessary. Content rewritten in one's own words does not need attribution. However, duplicating material by other contributors that is sufficiently creative to be copyrightable under US law (as the governing law for Wikipedia) requires attribution.
As guidance, none of the following require attribution when copied within Wikipedia:
- Common expressions and idioms;
- Basic mathematical and scientific formulae;
- Citations and references.
However, attributing the first two is encouraged.
Quotes from external sources do not need to be attributed to the original Wikipedia contributor, although any text surrounding them would be, and the original source must still be cited. However, even though attribution is not required in these cases, including a link is often useful.
Proper attribution to the author and the page
Attribution can be provided in any of the fashions detailed in the Terms of Use (listed above), although methods (a) and (c)—i.e., through a hyperlink (where possible) or URL to the article or articles you contributed to; or through a list of all authors—are the most practical for transferring text from one Wikipedia page to another. Both methods have strengths and weaknesses, but either satisfies the licensing requirements if properly done.
Hyperlink
If the material has been contributed by more than one author, providing a link in the edit summary is the simplest method of providing attribution. A statement in the edit summary such as copied content from [[page name]]; see that page's history for attribution
will direct interested parties to the edit history of the source page, where they can trace exactly who added what content when. A disadvantage with this method is that the page history of the original article must subsequently be retained in order to maintain attribution. To avoid the source page being inadvertently moved or deleted, it is helpful to make a note of the copying on the talk page of the source article. The template {{copied}} can be used for this purpose. This template can also be added to the destination talk page.
List of authors
When dealing with a page edited by many, a hyperlink is the simplest solution, but if the content being copied has only one contributor, it may be preferable simply to list that editor individually. Using this method, the edit history of the source page will be unnecessary after four years under the GFDL, though sooner deletion is possible under a CC-BY-SA 4.0 only license. A statement in the edit summary such as text from [[page name]] originally contributed by [[User:Example]] on 30 August 2024
serves as full attribution. If the material being copied has more than one author, attribution requirements can technically be satisfied with a note in the edit summary directing attention to a list of contributors on the talk page, but as the Terms of Use indicate, a hyperlink is preferred where possible. If the page where the material has been copied has to be deleted within four years, use {{CC-notice}} on the destination page with license bysa4
, to notify readers that the page can no longer be distributed under the GFDL.
A dummy edit may be used to provide the edit summary attribution in either of the methods described above.