Loading…
Resources
The image rules trip up almost every first-time Wikipedia uploader. This is the pre-flight check before you send a logo or photo to your agency.
The rule of thumb
Wikipedia's content licence is Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA). Every image needs to be compatible with that — which means it can be reused by anyone for any purpose, including commercial, as long as attribution is given. That's a much stricter bar than "we have a press kit." Most stock photography, most PR photos, and almost all third-party images do not qualify.
Quick check
Answer up to three questions for an instant read. Not legal advice — a final review is free.
1. Who created the image?
Your logo, uploaded by your team to Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence. This is the standard path for company logos.
Photos explicitly released under CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC0 (public domain), or similar free licences. Includes most government photos in the US (federal works) and many academic / institutional photos.
Photos taken by your team or a hired photographer, where the rights-holder explicitly licenses the photo under a free Creative Commons licence and uploads it themselves (via OTRS verification if not posted by the photographer directly).
Photos and documents old enough to have entered the public domain (varies by country — typically 70 years after the author's death in the EU/US).
Standard PR photo licences don't satisfy Wikipedia's free-content rule. Wikipedia is not a fair-use repository for promotional images.
Commercial stock licences are incompatible with Wikipedia's reusable-by-anyone requirement. Even if you paid for it, you can't put it on Wikipedia.
These are not licensed for reuse under Wikipedia's rules unless the rights-holder has explicitly granted a free licence.
Including a screenshot of a competitor's site, a tool, or news coverage — these are derivative works of copyrighted material.
Wikipedia's stance on AI-generated images is conservative. Most AI-image platforms have unclear licensing chains.
If you want to upload your own
Step 1
Whoever made the image must explicitly agree to release it under a Creative Commons free licence. 'I'm fine if you use it' isn't enough — Wikipedia needs the licence in writing on Wikimedia Commons.
Step 2
Most common: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0). For very open use: CC0 / Public Domain Dedication. Anything more restrictive (NC = non-commercial, ND = no derivatives) is NOT accepted.
Step 3
Wikimedia Commons is the media repository. Files uploaded there are usable across all Wikipedia language editions. Direct upload to Wikipedia is for fair-use cases only (very rare and tightly scoped).
Step 4
If someone other than the photographer uploads the file, the photographer needs to confirm the licence by emailing Wikimedia's permissions system (OTRS / VRT). This step trips up most first-time uploaders.
Common mistakes
Pre-flight checklist
Who took the photo / made the logo?
The rights-holder needs to be identifiable and reachable for the licence step.
Will the rights-holder release under CC BY-SA 4.0?
Get this in writing before uploading. It's irrevocable.
Does the image have any watermarks, copyright notices, or AI-generation markers?
Remove or disclose. Both can disqualify the upload.
Second tool
Licensing is half the battle. The other half is proving the file is genuinely yours and genuinely unpublished. Walk the six checks reviewers actually run.
Wikimedia Commons applies the precautionary principle: when there is significant doubt about a file's rights, it gets deleted — and the burden of proof sits with the uploader. A photo that already appears on your website, social profiles, or in earlier press coverage reads as "copied from the web" unless the rights-holder formally releases it. Most image deletions hit files that look professional but arrive with no paper trail.
Reviewers paste new uploads into Google Lens and TinEye. Those engines return every indexed copy of the image, with dates — so a file that ran on a news site in 2023 cannot pass as "never published" today. Run the same search yourself before uploading; if the image surfaces anywhere, sort the licensing first instead of hoping nobody checks.
Original camera files carry EXIF metadata: camera model, lens, timestamp, sometimes location. Screenshots and social-media downloads arrive with all of it stripped. To a reviewer, missing EXIF on an "own work" claim is a red flag; intact EXIF quietly corroborates your story.
If the only photo you have fails these checks, the fix is usually a fresh, properly licensed shot — we commission and license new photography as part of Wikipedia page creation.
Guided pre-check
The same checks Wikimedia Commons reviewers run on new files. Not legal advice — a final review is free.
0 of 6 confirmed
Work through the six checks
Tick each line you can honestly confirm. The verdict updates live — it mirrors what a Wikimedia Commons reviewer looks for in the first minute.
We'll tell you in 24 hours whether it'll survive Wikimedia Commons review — before you waste time on the upload.