Logo and Photos on a Company Wikipedia Page: Licensing Rules

What image licences does Wikimedia Commons accept?

Commons accepts only free content: files in the public domain or under a licence that lets anyone reuse and modify them for any purpose, including commercial use. In practice that means CC BY-SA, CC BY, CC0 or a recognised public-domain tag. The rules are set out on Commons:Licensing.

Three points matter for companies:

• Attribution is the only condition. CC BY requires credit; CC BY-SA also requires derivatives to carry the same licence; CC0 requires nothing.
• The release is irrevocable. You cannot withdraw the file later, and a competitor may legally reuse it the next day.
• NC and ND licences are not accepted. "Non-commercial" or "no derivatives" terms fail the free-content test.

A free licence releases copyright, not trademark. Commons hosts many trademarked logos with a trademark notice, so a release does not remove protection against confusing commercial use.

Can you upload a company logo to Wikipedia?

Yes, by one of two routes, and the logo's complexity decides which. A logo is a copyrighted work only if it shows enough creative authorship.

Simple text logos are a wordmark in ordinary or lightly styled type, perhaps with basic geometric shapes. They generally fall below the US threshold of originality, so they can go to Commons under the PD-textlogo tag with a trademark notice. The threshold varies by country, Commons expects the file to be free in the US and the country of origin, and borderline marks sometimes get debated and deleted. A Commons logo can then be linked from your company's Wikidata item, one source for Google's Knowledge Panel.

Complex logos (mascots, illustrations, gradients) are copyrighted. Commons will not host them unless you licence the artwork freely, which few brands should do. The usual route is non-free use on English Wikipedia under the non-free content criteria: one low-resolution copy, used only in the infobox of the article about the company, with a written rationale. If the article is deleted, an orphaned non-free logo is removed automatically. Rules differ by language edition, and a non-free logo never reaches Commons or Wikidata.

Who owns the copyright to a company photo?

The photographer, unless a written agreement transferred it. The person pictured does not own it, and neither does the company that commissioned the shoot. Your CEO does not own their own headshot; most agency contracts grant usage rights, not copyright.

That is why the most common corporate deletion is a marketing employee uploading a press-kit portrait as "own work". A polished studio image, a new account and an own-work claim form a pattern reviewers recognise at once. The file is tagged as lacking permission and, unless proof arrives, deleted after about a week.

What does work:

• Genuine own work: the person who took the photo uploads it. A staffer's phone photo of the office is theirs to release.
• A written copyright transfer, after which the company can release the file.
• A release from the photographer, proved through VRT.

What is VRT and how do you prove permission?

VRT (the Volunteer Response Team, formerly OTRS) is the process by which a copyright holder proves a release. The rules are on Commons:VRT.

1. Identify the real copyright holder: the photographer, studio, or the company if a written transfer exists.
2. The holder emails a declaration of consent to the Commons permissions address, from a verifiable address such as the studio's own domain. It names the exact file and the specific licence (CC BY-SA 4.0 is typical), and acknowledges that the release is irrevocable and allows commercial reuse and modification.
3. A volunteer verifies it and attaches a ticket number to the file. Expect days to weeks; the file may carry a pending-permission tag meanwhile.
4. The file is then defensible. A VRT ticket is treated as settled evidence in later disputes.

Collect releases before the article goes live and bundle files into one ticket. If a photographer hesitates at "irrevocable commercial reuse", which many reasonably do, commission a small shoot with copyright transfer in the contract.

Why are previously published images deleted?

Because Commons works on a precautionary principle: where there is significant doubt that a file is free, it is deleted, and the uploader carries the burden of proof. An image already on your website, social channels or press kit without a free-licence notice is presumed copyrighted. Reviewers and bots reverse-search uploads, and a match on an all-rights-reserved page leads to a no-permission tag or a copyright deletion.

Two clean ways through: publish the free licence at the source, for example a CC BY-SA notice beside the image on your own site, or run the VRT release. You can also do the reviewer's check first with our Wikipedia image checker, which reverse-searches a file the way a reviewer would.

Which upload route fits each asset?

What are the most common reasons company images get deleted?

1. "Own work" that is not. A press photo uploaded by marketing, tagged for missing permission and gone within about a week.
2. Previously published, no licence at source. Found by reverse search, deleted as a copyright violation.
3. Non-free logos used outside the one permitted article, or orphaned when the article is deleted.
4. Watermarks and promotional framing. Watermarked corporate imagery reads as advertising.
5. Derivative works. A lobby photo is also a photo of the sculpture in it; packaging artwork has its own copyright.
6. Threshold miscalls. A complex logo tagged PD-textlogo invites deletion and a closer look at the account.

The real cost is attention. A cluster of polished uploads from a new account draws scrutiny to the account and then to the article, a pattern we list among the common company mistakes on Wikipedia. Commons is also not a place for brand shoots: images that mainly advertise a product, such as outdoor-brand shots slipped into destination articles, were reverted and criticised publicly in the 2019 North Face case.

How WikiBusines helps

We treat images as part of the draft, not an afterthought: a text logo to Commons first, a portrait only with a VRT-backed release, office photos only where they earn their place, and product shots usually left out. Paid editing is always disclosed on Wikipedia in WikiBusines' name.

• Wikipedia page creation, from €2,400 for English, 4 to 5 weeks, including the infobox and image routing. We do not guarantee that an article will be published.
• Wikipedia editing, €700 to €1,900: completing an infobox or replacing an image on an existing page.
• Notability audit, from €490, credited toward the page if you order it within one month, if you are not sure the page will pass at all.

For a first pass on your own files, use the Wikipedia image checker. To discuss a page, contact us.