Commons:Guidance for paid editors

Welcome to Wikimedia Commons! This site is a repository of free, educational media files used by Wikipedia, other Wikimedia projects, and others. We welcome contributions from everyone – private individuals and organisations alike. If you are participating in Wikimedia Commons as a paid editor, agent or volunteer on behalf of a company, non-profit organisation, government entity, political campaign or other organisation or client, here is some advice that will help you contribute more successfully:

• Don't use the organisation's name as your user name. Accounts should not be shared between more than one individual, so the name of a company name or other organisation is not a suitable user name. Your user name may include the organisation's name, but it should identify you as an individual using your name or nickname. If you have already created an account, you can request a rename.

• Know our policies – and your organisation's policies. Commons only hosts content that can be used, modified and shared by anyone for any purpose, including commercial purposes. If you want to share content on behalf of your organisation or client through Commons, all of those things must be allowed. Before uploading content here, make sure that it has already been released elsewhere under a free license or that you are allowed by your organisation's rules or your client to publish it under a free license that meets our licensing requirements.

• You may be required to disclose your affiliation with the organisation or client on other Wikimedia projects. Unlike many other Wikimedia projects, Commons does not require disclosure of paid contributions. However, if you want to include content that you have uploaded on Commons in an article on English Wikipedia, for example, you need to follow the rules on that project.

• You may need to provide evidence of your affiliation with the organisation. While we don't require disclosure of paid contributions as a matter of policy, you may still need to identify your connection to the organisation for copyright reasons. If you upload content for which the copyright is held by your organisation, you will need to send an e-mail from an address belonging to the organisation to our permission archive and certify that you are allowed to speak on behalf of the organisation on copyright matters. Similarly, if the copyright is held by your client or a third party hired by your client, you will need to provide evidence that you have their permission to publish the content under a free license.

• "Own work" means a work that you personally created. If you are uploading a work on behalf of your organisation or client that someone else created or holds the copyright to, choose the option "This file is not my own work."

• Sharing logotypes correctly: If your organisation's logotype meets the threshold of originality required for copyright protection, it needs to be published under a free license in order to be hosted on Commons. This means that your organisation will no longer be able to stop others from using logotype for commercial purposes on copyright grounds, but restrictions on use imposed by trademark rights still apply. As stated above, you may need to provide evidence that you are allowed to publish the logotype under a free license. If the logotype does not meet the threshold of originality, select the option "Another reason not mentioned above" during the upload process and enter {{PD-textlogo}} in the wikitext input field that appears. In both cases, it is a good idea to add {{Trademarked}} to the file description. When uploading logotypes, use SVG format or high-resolution PNG. JPEG is not a suitable format for most logotypes.

• Content without educational use may be deleted. Content uploaded to Commons should have a reasonable potential educational use in Wikipedia, other Wikimedia projects, or other projects that provide knowledge, instruction or information. Purely promotional content is outside of Commons' project scope. Commons is not a place to advertise.

Good luck, and thank you for contributing! If you have any questions, please visit our help desk.