Editing Encyclopedia:Image use policy (section)

====Free licenses====
There are several licenses that meet the [http://freedomdefined.org/Definition definition of "free"]. Several [[Creative Commons]] (CC) license alternatives are available. Licenses which restrict the use of the media to non-profit or educational purposes only (i.e. non-commercial use only), or which are given permission to appear ''only'' on Wikipedia, are ''not'' free enough for Wikipedia's usages or goals and will be deleted.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-May/023760.html|title=[WikiEN-l] Non-commercial only and By Permission Only Images to be deleted|work=wikipedia.org}}</ref> In short, Wikipedia media (with the exception of "fair use" media—see [[#Fair use images|below]]) should be as "free" as Wikipedia's content—both to keep Wikipedia's own legal status secure and to allow as much re-use of Wikipedia content as possible. For example, Wikipedia can accept images under CC-BY-SA (Attribution-Share Alike) as a free license, but not CC-BY-SA-NC (Attribution-Share Alike-Non-Commercial). A list of possible licenses which are considered "free enough" for Wikipedia are listed at [[Wikipedia:Image copyright tags]].  

A list of websites that offer free images can be found at [[Commons:Free media resources]]. 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 <strong>explicitly</strong> 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 [[WP:COPYREQ|verification or permission from the copyright holder]].

'''Important note:''' If an article has a compatible free license, this doesn't necessarily mean that all images in this article have the same free license. Despite the general freedom granted by the free license, there might be specific components that are copyrighted and these copyrighted components should be clearly identified as being excluded from the free license. Even in free articles, always check image captions for statements like "Reprinted with permission from" or "©-Copyright holder", which signal that these images are not covered by the overall free license.<ref>{{cite web |title=Marking third party content |url=https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Marking/Creators/Marking_third_party_content |website=wiki.creativecommons.org |access-date=18 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240111062717/https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Marking/Creators/Marking_third_party_content/ |archive-date=11 January 2024}}</ref>

===== GNU Free Documentation License =====

The [[GNU Free Documentation License]] (GFDL) is not permitted as the only acceptable license where all of the following are true:<ref>[[Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 182#Restricting GFDL-licensed uploads]], May 2021</ref>
*The content was licensed on or after 1 August 2021. The licensing date is considered, not the creation or upload date.
*The content is primarily a photograph, painting, drawing, audio or video.
*The content is not a software logo, diagram or screenshot that is extracted from a GFDL software manual.

GFDL content may still be usable under the non-free content policy. If a work that is not a [[derivative work]] with a GFDL license is used under a non-free rationale it does not have to be scaled down, but other non-free limitations will still apply.