Editing Encyclopedia:Database download (section)

==Where are the uploaded files (image, audio, video, etc.)?==
Images and other uploaded media are available from mirrors in addition to being served directly from Wikimedia servers. Bulk download is (as of September 2013) available from mirrors but not offered directly from Wikimedia servers. See the [[m:Mirroring Wikimedia project XML dumps#Media|list of current mirrors]]. You should [[Rsync|rsync]] from the mirror, then fill in the missing images from [//upload.wikimedia.org upload.wikimedia.org]; when downloading from <code>upload.wikimedia.org</code> you should throttle yourself to 1 cache miss per second (you can check headers on a response to see if was a hit or miss and then back off when you get a miss) and you shouldn't use more than one or two simultaneous HTTP connections. In any case, make sure you have an accurate [[user agent]] string with contact info (email address) so ops can contact you if there's an issue. You should be getting checksums from the mediawiki API and verifying them. The [[mw:API:Etiquette|API Etiquette]] page contains some guidelines, although not all of them apply (for example, because upload.wikimedia.org isn't MediaWiki, there is no <code>maxlag</code> parameter).

Unlike most article text, images are not necessarily licensed under the GFDL & CC-BY-SA-4.0. They may be under one of many [[Wikipedia:File copyright tags/Free licenses|free licenses]], in the [[Wikipedia:File copyright tags/Public domain|public domain]], believed to be [[Wikipedia:File copyright tags/Non-free|fair use]], or even copyright infringements (which should be [[WP:IFD|deleted]]). In particular, use of fair use images outside the context of Wikipedia or similar works may be illegal. Images under most licenses require a credit, and possibly other attached copyright information. This information is included in image description pages, which are part of the text dumps available from [//dumps.wikimedia.org/ dumps.wikimedia.org]. In conclusion, download these images at your own risk ([//dumps.wikimedia.org/legal.html Legal]).