Help:Administrator's Handbook/How to Handle Copyright Violations

Copyright Violations -- often referred to as "Copyvios" for short -- occur when copyrighted text or files are added to a wikimedia project. How this is dealt with depends on the type of material that was copied.

Image copyrights
All images should have their copyright status announced on the image pages.

Text copyrights
Text that is copied and pasted from other websites is the most common problem. In many cases the user who contributed the material will add a link to the source website. Most users are not familiar with how the copyright laws apply, so they should be dealt with kindly (but firmly).

Text from printed materials is less common, but much harder to catch.