Copyright and image claims

Which images appear on this site, what we recorded about each one before publishing it, and how to get one taken down.

The images we use

Every photograph on MONOGRAPH is a file published on Wikimedia Commons under a licence that permits reuse. We accept four licence families and nothing else:

• CC0 and public domain — no conditions attached.
• CC BY — reusable provided the author is credited.
• CC BY-SA — reusable provided the author is credited and any adaptation carries the same licence.

We do not use press photographs, manufacturer marketing or product-render images, promotional stills, scans of catalogues, or anything relied on as "fair use". A file whose licence we cannot establish is not published, however useful it would be.

Because most of these licences require credit, every image is shown with the author's name, the licence, and a link back to the source file page. That is an obligation of the licence, not a courtesy, and it is generated from stored metadata rather than typed by hand.

What we record for every image

Before an image is published, the import records:

• the URL of the source file page, and the account that uploaded the file there;
• the licence the file page declares, and the URL of that licence;
• the file's own hash, so we can prove which version we took;
• the date we retrieved it, and the author string to display.

This is a chain we can produce on request, and it is why we can tell you exactly what we relied on when we published a particular photograph.

What that record is, and is not

It is a record of what the source declared. It is not proof that the person who uploaded the file held the copyright. We are relying on the licence asserted on the source file page, which is the same basis every downstream reuser of Commons relies on — but a declaration can be wrong, and files uploaded without the rights holder's permission do exist. If that has happened here, we want to hear about it and we will fix it.

Separately: a free licence releases copyright only. It does not hand over portrait rights or trademark rights. Many photographs here show a recognisable musician, and some show branded instruments or equipment. If you are the person in a photograph, or you own a mark that appears in one, the route below is open to you on the same terms — you do not need a copyright claim to ask us to remove something.

Making a claim

Write to rights@myguitarnotes.com.

We do not require a formal legal notice, a statutory form, or a signed declaration. A clear email is enough. To let us act quickly, tell us:

• Which image — the URL of the page it appears on, or the image URL itself.
• What you own — that you hold the copyright, or that you are the person depicted, or that you own the mark.
• Why the current licence is wrong, if you know — for example that the uploader was not the photographer.
• Anything that supports it — a link to the original, or to an earlier publication of the same photograph. Helpful, not required.
• How you would like us to respond.

If it is easier, send less than that. An email saying "this is my photograph and I never licensed it" is enough for us to act.

What we do next

• We take the image down first and ask questions afterwards. Removal is enforced at build time, so once an image is suppressed it cannot be re-published by a later rebuild — it is not dependent on anyone remembering.
• We aim to respond within 7 days. Where a claim is clear we act sooner.
• We keep the record. The claim, the licence we had relied on, the source file page, the uploader account and what we did are all retained, so the decision can be reviewed later.
• We will tell you what we did. If we remove the image we will say so; if we believe the licence is sound we will explain why, with the evidence, rather than simply refusing.
• Removal is reversible. If a claim is withdrawn or turns out to be mistaken, the image can be restored, and the register records both the removal and the restoration.

Corrections to text

Factual corrections to the written pages follow the same route: write to corrections@myguitarnotes.com. The correction policy is set out on the disclaimer page.