 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: In order to comply with copyright policy, Wikipedians need to consider the creativity of compilations and lists before incorporating content from them. If they are creative in content (subjective "value judgments"), material taken from them may need to be limited to comply with fair use. If they are creative in selection or presentation, information is usable but only if presentation and selection are significantly altered. |
The United States copyright law which governs Wikipedia (see Wikipedia:Copyrights) forbids Wikipedia contributors from copying information directly from other sources except in limited cases. We can copy content that is public domain or that is properly licensed for our use (with any necessary attribution). When we want to copy information from lists and compilations, we have to first figure out if they are protected by copyright.
Copyright in a list may exist in the content of the list or in the way that the content was selected and arranged. Copyright does not protect facts, but it does protect opinion. If a source is based on "value judgments", it may be protected by copyright, even if it looks very similar to fact. And even if the source is fact, copyright may still protect its selection and arrangement if these are creative.
When a source is listing value judgments or opinions, we will likely have to limit our use of it to comply with non-free content policy and guideline. If selection and arrangement are creative, we cannot use the same selection and arrangement of our source, but might have to add or remove elements and rearrange content into a new work.