User:Nilfanion/OTRS/draft

There are basically three classes of messages in the "permissions" queues:

1. messages from editors whose contributions has been flagged as "copyvio"

   Must verify that the contributor is (or represents) the copyright holder and intends to license the content under an open source license (or under public domain)

2. messages from contributors who are preemptively informing us that they are licensing contributions under an open license

   Usually nonproblematic, but it is also necessary to verify ownership

3. messages forwarded to us from a third party where someone else has attempted to negotiate a license

   The main problem here is that third parties are rarely very careful to verify ownership and intent to license.

Procedure

1. If the conversation does not identify the content in question, request clarification.
2. If the conversation is not crystal clear that the content is released under the GFDL (or, for images, under a license which is not inconsistent with the GFDL, such as CC-BY-SA or “use for any purpose”) or to the public domain, request a more specific licensing statement. (sample statement at Commons)
3. If you are not convinced that the release is from the owner of the copyrighted material, reject the request, or seek confirmation from the owner.
4. If the article or image has been deleted for reasons other than copyright, inform the requester that the material has been deleted for reasons other than copyright.
5. If the article or image has been deleted for copyright reasons, restore the article or image. Do not restore revisions of the article claiming that the article is a copyright infringement (IOW, do not restore the “copyvio” template).
6. Add the {{ConfirmationOTRS|source=source|otrs=ticket number}} or {{ConfirmationImageOTRS|source=source|license=license|otrs=ticket number}} template to the top of the article or image talk page, as appropriate. The source should be a plain description of the source. The license (for images) defaults to GFDL; if not GFDL you must enter a full description here (sorry, we don’t have shortcuts yet). ticket number is the number of the OTRS ticket (the long one that starts with the ticket year and goes on for a bunch of digits).
7. Respond to the requester informing them of what you’ve done. For straightforward grants of permission, it is not necessary to reply and the ticket can be closed with a note. However, it is often a good idea to thank people for making content available under a free license.

Notes

Please especially note that "I give permission for this content to be used on Wikipedia" is not sufficient. We require a clear, affirmative statement that the copyright owner is licensing the content under the GFDL (or other GFDL-compatible license). You may have to go through multiple iterations with the requester before you get a clear statement. If you are not able to do so, do not clear the content as acceptably licensed.

See also

• en:Wikipedia:Media copyright questions for help and volunteers to check a user's other uploads.