 | 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: It is not possible to withdraw the licensing of any contributions to Wikipedia. |
Contributions to Wikipedia are licensed under free content licenses, such as the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) and the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license. It is not legally possible for individuals or organizations who contribute to Wikipedia to revoke these licenses, as this would affect the ability of the entire project to exist as a freely-editable, freely-available, encyclopedia, and the licenses themselves are specifically worded to not allow such a situation unless in certain circumstances.
Claims of this nature present a serious risk to the site because they are proclaiming an intention not to abide by the licensing agreement that makes the entire site possible. Wikipedia is not possible without free content licenses, which allows our content to be freely distributed and freely edited. Editors must be aware that they do not have a right to challenge the entire basis of the project and continue participating in it at the same time.
The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the English Wikipedia and various other projects, has not expressed an opinion on this matter.