Terms of use/Creative Commons 4.0/FAQ
| Creative Commons 4.0 upgrade |
Frequently asked questions
How will this affect Wikipedia?
Wikipedia will continue to be available freely with attribution and sharealike requirements. Wikipedia is currently available under the 3.0 version of the license, and this upgrade will mean that new additions are submitted under the 4.0 version. People who use content from Wikipedia will continue to be able to provide attribution as currently described in the Wikimedia Terms of Use.
What is different between Creative Commons 3.0 versus 4.0?
The license will continue to have the same basic requirements—providing appropriate credit and distribute remixes under the same license.
In the legal note, we highlight some of the most important differences for Wikimedia, including new official translations, increased readability, a revised description of the attribution requirement, an opportunity to correct license violations, and more. Creative Commons has also published a comparison of the changes in the license.
How can we "upgrade" the license?
If we choose to amend the Terms of Use, the 4.0 version of the license will apply to new edits submitted to Wikimedia projects. After a page has been edited, it can be reused under the latest version of the license according to the attribution requirements in the Terms of Use. Revisions of pages before the upgrade to the 4.0 version will continue to be available under the version 3.0 of the license.
Was the 3.0 version available in other languages?
CC BY-SA 3.0 did not have official translations of the unported license text, although it had translated license deeds and a number of international ports. The ported versions of CC BY-SA 3.0 were substantially similar to each other, but included some legal modifications to reflect the local jurisdiction. Creative Commons' new license translation policy will allow them to set official translations of the version 4.0 license. CC BY-SA 4.0 International is intended to be legally effective everywhere.
How will this affect English Wikinews and other projects that don't currently use CC BY-SA 3.0?
English Wikinews may upgrade to CC BY 4.0 International, without adopting the version 3.0 of the license. Projects may continue to opt-out of the default license where appropriate.
How will this affect Wikidata (which currently uses CC0)?
Wikidata will continue to use CC0 for contributions, which will make it easy to add and share factual data on the project.
Why do the proposed amendment to the terms of use mention sui generis database rights?
CC BY-SA 4.0 International includes new requirements for database rights, in jurisdictions where those rights exist. To avoid introducing new ambiguity around the requirements for factual contributions of data sets, which may be covered by database rights in certain jurisdictions, we've proposed waiving these rights under the license. This is outlined in more detail in the legal note.
Can I use version 4.0 for images and other non-text contributions?
Yes! You can upload media to Wikimedia Commons under the 4.0 version of the license.
Why does Wikipedia use a "sharealike" license like CC BY-SA?
The sharealike clause in the CC BY-SA license helps promote the values of free culture. It asks users to continue to share their improvements and modifications to works that are offered to them freely under the Creative Commons license.
If the license were just CC BY (without a sharealike clause), people would be able to use content from the Wikimedia projects for any purpose, but if they made changes, they could put those changes under additional copyright restrictions and forbid others to use them. The ideal is to make the world's knowledge available for everyone, and using a license that makes sure contributions to that knowledge remain available for everyone helps work toward that goal.
When deciding which license to use, the Wikimedia community for the most part chose CC BY-SA instead of BY because the CC BY-SA license helps promote the values of free culture, as described in Creative Commons's statement of intent for the attribution-sharealike licenses. For historical reasons, the CC BY-SA license was also chosen for its compatibility with Wikipedia's previous GNU Free Document License. Some other projects, such as English Wikinews, choose to use the use the CC BY license.