OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

We occasionally receive Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown requests to remove allegedly copyrighted images. We thoroughly examine these requests, and only grant the few that are valid. In May, we received a claim that an emoji uploaded onto our projects was infringing copyright of the company who allegedly owned it. The company requested that the license for the emoji be changed so as to not grant commercial re-use. Wikimedia Commons does not accept images under licenses that are non-free culture licenses (such as non-commercial or no derivatives licenses). Further, insufficient information was included in the request to meet the requirements of the DMCA. So we did all we could in this scenario – which was to refer the company to the community to review for a copyright concern for a speedy response, or, if they so desired, to send us another request meeting the legal requirements of a DMCA takedown request.

Photo credits