Commons:Email templates

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This page in a nutshell: To give permission to use your work, use the release generator. You will need an email address that can be recognised as associated with the content being released, like a company mail address.

Below is an email template for a declaration of consent to use copyright-protected media (images, video clips, sound files, etc.) on any project related to Wikimedia Commons. Copyright holders should send completed templates to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org, which serves as the Wikimedia Foundation's central archive for permissions, and then tag the subject file(s) with {{subst:PP}}. For a full description of this process, see Commons:Volunteer Response Team.

Declaration of consent for all inquiries

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COM:CONSENT redirects here. For information about consent to deal with photographs of people, see Commons:Photographs of identifiable people.

Use the Interactive Release Generator!

If you have been directed to this page because you wish to release the rights to a file to which you own the copyright, please consider clicking on the link above rather than completing the following email template. The Interactive Release Generator is designed to make the process of releasing the rights to a file efficient and simple. The use of the following template, though still perfectly valid and certainly useful as a work of reference, is now discouraged and should only be used in exceptional circumstances. Thank you!

Email message template for release of rights to a file

We receive a large number of email messages from copyright holders wishing to allow Wikipedia to reuse their content (messages such as, "I allow Wikipedia to reuse my photos", etc.). Unfortunately, such statements are insufficient from a legal standpoint: we require a more specific declaration of consent to accept your permission. The following template will allow you to produce such a declaration.

Before you send us any email message, ensure that you've removed all the red instructions from the template.
Replace the template text (such as name) with your own details, and remove all of the brackets and footnotes.

To: permissions-commons@wikimedia.org

I hereby affirm that I choose one: [am name] or [represent copyright holder's name], the choose one: [creator] or [sole owner] of the exclusive copyright of choose one: [the media work]^[1] or [the work depicted in the media]^[2] or [both the work depicted and the media]^[3] as shown here: [exact URL of the file uploaded on Wikimedia Commons],^[4] and have legal authority in my capacity to release the copyright of that work.

I agree to publish the above-mentioned content under the following free license: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.^[5]

I acknowledge that by doing so I grant anyone the right to use the work, even in a commercial product or otherwise, and to modify it according to their needs, provided that they abide by the terms of the license and any other applicable laws.

I am aware that this agreement is not limited to Wikipedia or related sites.

I am aware that the copyright holder always retains ownership of the copyright as well as the right to be attributed in accordance with the license chosen. Modifications others make to the work will not be claimed to have been made by the copyright holder.

I acknowledge that I cannot withdraw this agreement, and that the content may or may not be kept permanently on a Wikimedia project.

[Sender's name]
[Sender's authority (if applicable. E.g. "Copyright holder", "Director", "Appointed representative of", etc.)]
[Date]

↑ The words "media work" should be chosen for cases where the "medium" is also the "work", e.g., a photograph of a sunset or a person, an original digital drawing, diagram, or map, a sound recording of a bird, the text of a web page, etc., but not a photograph of another person's copyrighted painting or a sound recording of a person playing a flute or pronouncing a series of words, for which see below.
↑ The words "work depicted in the media" mean, for example, the case of a digital photograph (the medium) of an artistic sculpture (the work) where the sculptor did not take the photograph but is the individual here making the licensing statement.
↑ The words, "both the work depicted and the media" mean those instances when the person making the statement is the copyright owner of the thing depicted (e.g., the sculpture, the oil painting, the particular musical performance, the reading of a monologue from Hamlet) as well as the owner of the medium in which it is being provided (e.g., the photograph of it, the movie clip in which it appears, the Photoshop drawing of it, the sound clip containing it).
↑ You must clearly identify the content that you're permitting us to use. A statement such as "I am creator of the images used on XYZ page" is NOT sufficient. You must provide exact URL link(s) to the content or attach the content to the email message. For images, we prefer that you upload them to Wikimedia Commons, place {{subst:OP}} somewhere on the file description page, and provide the URL(s) of the uploaded content in your email message.
↑ You may choose another license from our list of free licenses if you wish, but you MUST state a license; otherwise, this declaration is invalid. Please also indicate the license's most recent version number, if applicable: CC BY-SA 4.0 or Creative Commons 0 Public Domain Dedication 1.0 are acceptably specific; simply stating Creative Commons license, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike, or CC BY (without the version number) is not.

Send the statement to our email response team ("VRT") at permissions-commons@wikimedia.org, and then tag the subject file(s) with {{subst:PP}}. The email message you send should come from an email address that we can recognize as somehow associated with the content being released. For instance, if you are releasing images shown on a website, your email address should be associated with the website or listed on the contact page of the website; if you are releasing images on behalf of an organization, your email address should be at an official address of the organization; if you are releasing a work that is not available online, you may be asked to privately provide evidence of your identity to the VRT agent who processes your statement; if you are releasing a work for which you are acting on the copyright holder's behalf, you may be asked to provide proof of this authorization such as a forwarded email message with full Internet headers from the copyright holder designating you as their representative in this matter.

More examples

More examples can be found on en:Wikipedia:Example requests for permission.

Commons:Email templates

Contents

Declaration of consent for all inquiries

Email message template for release of rights to a file

More examples

See also