User:Selsharbaty (WMF)/Attributions 2

Attributions

Attributing Creative Commons Content

Who is this guide for? This guide is intended for anyone interested in reusing Wikimedia project content.

What is the purpose of this guide? To provide best practices for attributing Wikimedia’s Creative Commons licensed content when you want to reuse it on other platforms. This is not meant to be general advice for how to attribute all Creative Commons license content in any situation. Instead, it is it is how the Wikimedia Foundation believes CC-licensed content from Wikimedia projects should be attributed in common reuse situations.

What is T.A.S.L?

“TASL” is an acronym that describes the required elements needed to properly attribute Creative Commons works. It stands for:

Where do you need to include these TASL elements?

The location these elements are presented to the end-user must be “reasonable to the medium.” We recommend adding TASL elements close in both space and time to when the work is reused. Examples of “reasonable to the medium” attribution include:

What should I prioritize if I can't fit all elements close in space and time to the work?

his question sometimes arise when reusing content on small screens or in audio-only contexts.

We've provided the following "order of importance" as a suggestion when you're in doubt:

1. Source should typically be prioritized

• If you provide the name of the project where the original information resides (e.g., Wikipedia) WITH a link to the original project page, then the user may be able to find the rest of the required elements on the project page.
• For projects where content has multiple authors, like Wikipedia, "Wikipedia" may act as both the author and the source.
• Keep in mind that Wikimedia has the link shortener at w.wiki. Source URLs are sometimes difficult to fit into a short citation. The w.wiki link shortener might be able to help with unwieldy links.

2. If you cannot link the end-user back to the original page, "author" might be the highest priority.

• Since one of the most important reasons for attribution is to allow the user to find the original version and understand who created it, the source may sometimes not be as helpful as the author.
• Since there are hundreds of thousands of images on Wikimedia Commons, the source might not be nearly as helpful as including the name of the photographer, "Jane Smith" (the "author"), since Jane Smith may have only contributed a few images to Wikimedia Commons.

3. Title may be least important because

• Titles are often long and unwieldy. They might be the most difficult to integrate fully with limited space.
• Some titles aren't helpful in identifying the work. For example, an image might have a nondescript title or a title that is a string of letters/numbers rather than a human-readable name.
• Assuming that you provide the source with a URL to the original work, the work's title might be self-evident to any user who clicks into the original page.
• With Wikimedia projects moving to Creative Commons 4.0, the 4.0 licenses remove the requirement to include the title for attribution. With the adoption of 4.0 in a project, attributing the title would then be discretionary rather than mandatory for all content licensed under that license.

This should not be generalized for non-Wikimedia projects. Keep in mind that the order of importance represents the Foundation’s opinion for how to best lead users to back to attribution information for Wikimedia project content. This is not a general statement about the “order of importance” of elements more generally across the entire Creative Commons ecosystem.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Do I have to include the license version number (e.g. 3.0)?

A: Yes! Each version number represents different licensing terms and is important to include.

In cases where this is not possible, it may be more reasonable to exclude it.

Q: Should I include a link URL to the Creative Commons license document itself?

A: You should consider this as a best practice. It is preferred that you link to the human-readable summary of the license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).

In cases where linking is not possible, please include the license name without the URL.

Q: Should I include the full license name or just a shortening of it?

A: No preference.

For example, we have no preference between:

“10th Birthday Celebration" by tvol is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

and

“10th Birthday Celebration" by tvol / CC BY 3.0

Q: Should I use the license text (e.g., CC-By-SA 3.0) or the CC icons?

A: No preference, although it is always helpful to think about using attribution techniques that are machine readable (easy to index by search), accessible (to differently-abled users), and quick loading (for maximum usability across tech setups worldwide).

Resources You can find the visual CC icons at this link: https://creativecommons.org/about/downloads

Consider using icons when space is limited and accompanying them with alt-text for accessibility purposes.

Q: Do I have to attribute in audio formats like voice assistants?

A: Yes!

Voice assistants without screens (e.g., smart speakers) should attribute the source of information coming from our projects (“According to Wikipedia…” / “Wikipedia says…” )

Voice assistants with screens (e.g. in-car dashboard screens), should follow all CC attribution guidelines directly on screen or within a connected app that saves the user’s search history for later review.

A. if the screen has a browser, the product should have a link to the URL of the original page or one that contains full attribution and access to the original page

B. if it doesn’t have a browser, the product should have provide enough information for a reader or listener to navigate to the original page that contains the attribution. This may include the article title (if human readable) as well as source/author (generally “Wikipedia” for Wikipedia articles).

C. Assistants with screens that are small that can’t support much text can – for example – put that information into a shortlink (using our shortlink creation tool: https://w.wiki/ )

D. Assistants with small screens that don’t have a browser may even put that information into a QR code.

Q: What if TASL doesn't apply to my use-case?

A: Talk to us!

The most-up-to-date licenses (currently the 4.0 suite) as well as the most up to date guidance from the Creative Commons organization (https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/best_practices_for_attribution ) (last edited in 2018) may not account for new technology and new norms of media consumption. Generally, the further away one gets from reusing text works on a website displayed on a desktop computer, the more likely it is that TASL will become difficult to interpret.

In cases where there are gray areas, please reach out to us at partnerships@wikimedia.org.

Case studies: attribution on small screens

Case study 1: Small Screens

What this example does well…

• Directly attributed “Jan-Pieter Nap” as the author of the photo itself rather than Wiki Commons or Wikivoyage where the photo may have came from
• Original article gets linked back to even without a standard text URL
• Title is omitted to save space but is accessible via the link to the original work.

How this example could be improved…

• Could consider a “credits” page on click/tap/mouse-over as part of the“i” icon that shows full TASL (missing title)

Case study 2: Small Screens

What this example does well…

• Although a title and author was not included directly over or adjacent to the image, these elements are provided on a secondary page that viewers can access with only one tap.
• This follows our general rule that the URL pointing back to the original page that includes credits is important
• Although it does not use the text “Wikipedia” to show the source, it nevertheless uses a popular Wikipedia trademark – the stylized W – to denote the source.

How this example could be improved…

• The symbols specify the kind of license (Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike), but they don’t specify version number of the license. Users can determine the version number of the CC license by clicking into the original page to read the image credits.
• That said, since Commons images are licensed under a variety of licenses, there’s room to be more creative about including the version number closer in time and space to the image in future user-interface designs.

• See the full attributions guide on Commons

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