Template:Text release
 | Content of at least one revision of the associated article was derived in whole or part from non-free copyrighted material on the website {{{URL}}}. This material was (prior to placement or subsequently) freely licensed in a manner compatible for Wikipedia's use by the posting of one or more compatible copyright licenses on the external website. Though the release notice for the material, which is irrevocable, may have been later removed from view, or the URL may have changed or gone dead, an archive of that webpage, including the copyright release notice, is available at {{{Archive URL}}}. |
Purpose
Wikipedia's copyright policies require that any copyrighted text we use, beyond fair use, be released under a free copyright license compatible with Wikipedia's free licenses (the GFDL and CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported License), under which all of our (non-quoted) text is licensed. Some methods of release are described at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials. For websites, one of the ways we allow proof of release is to instruct the copyright holder to post a notice at the website itself, listing the release (a copyleft notice).
The problem is that in cases where the Wikipedia:Volunteer Response Team is not involved and no OTRS ticket is used, after one person is satisfied with the initial release, there is no notice left behind for others that a release has been obtained or how it was received. This is compounded if the external website's URL changes or goes dead, and can result in much confusion if the notice posted at the external site is subsequently removed.
This template thus provides a notice for an article's talk page not only providing information on the release, but creates a permanent record of the release by both prompting the creation of, and then providing a link to, an archive of the webpage. The archive is essentially a static snapshot, so it will continue to show the copyleft release and will not change, even if the external website's live content does.
This template adds pages to the category Category:Articles with imported freely licensed text.
Usage
{{Text release
|URL = URL of the external site where the copyrighted material comes from
|Archive URL = URL of webcitation.org archive page you have created (see below)
}}
Note: This template should only be used where a compatible license has been published on the site from which the content was taken. If no compatible license has been published on the site, this template should not be used; the text will be removed. See Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials for an example of a usable license.
Creating an archive URL
This template requires that you create an archive of the webpage that released the text:
- → Navigate to the archive form at webcitation.org;
- → Add the full URL of the external site (including http://...) to the first field marked "
URL to Archive [url]:" and an email address in the second field below that (be sure that the URL you are adding is the page that displays the licensing release); - → Fill in such other fields as you wish to but all others are optional;
- → Click the Submit button.
You will be taken to a page which will list the archive URL which will also be emailed to you. Copy that URL and use it as the second parameter (as instructed above).