Commons:Project scope/Precautionary principle
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Commons' users aim to build and maintain in good faith a repository of media files which to the best of our knowledge are free or freely-licensed. The precautionary principle is that where there is significant doubt about the freedom of a particular file, it should be deleted.
Also, arguments that amount to "we can get away with it", such as the following, are against Commons' aims:
- "The copyright owner will not bother to sue or cannot afford to."
- "The copyright owner will never find out."
- "The copyright owner will not mind/should be pleased that we have disseminated their work."
- "Nobody knows who the copyright owner is, so it really doesn’t matter."
- "The file is obviously common property. It can be found all over the internet and nobody has complained."