TheVault:Copyrights

The Vault @ The EERIE Files welcomes contributions from anyone with a case, a location, a story or a piece of research worth filing — but everything added to the Vault needs to respect other people's rights as carefully as it respects the stories being told. This page sets out what that means in practice.

The short version

Write case files, profiles and assessments in your own words. Paraphrase and summarise sources — don't copy text from Wikipedia, news articles, books or other websites.
Only upload images you have the right to use (see Images below).
Always cite where information came from, using {{cite web}} / {{cite news}} and a proper {{Reflist}} at the bottom of the page.
Short, attributed quotations are fine. Reproducing whole paragraphs, articles, song lyrics or entire chapters is not, no matter how well-sourced.
If you didn't write it and don't hold the rights to it, don't paste it in — link to it instead.

A note on jurisdiction

The Vault is edited and run by people based in the UK, so UK copyright law — the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 — is what governs our own decisions about what we publish, even though the site itself (and Hostinger, who host it) can be accessed from anywhere. UK law doesn't have a broad "fair use" defence the way US law does; it has the narrower fair dealing exception, which only covers specific purposes — criticism and review, quotation, reporting current events, and parody or pastiche — and even then only where the amount used and its effect on the rights holder are judged "fair."

The Vault does make limited, deliberate use of fair dealing, under the strict conditions set out below. It is not a general licence to use whatever image or text looks useful — it's a narrow exception for specific, justified cases, and every use of it needs to show its working via {{Fair-dealing}}, not just assert that it applies.

Text

Every article in the Vault should be written specifically for the Vault, not lifted wholesale from another source. This applies even when a source is freely available online, in the public domain in some jurisdictions, or itself unsourced — copying it wholesale doesn't become acceptable just because it was easy to find.

What's fine:

Summarising what a source says, in your own sentence structure and wording.
A short, exact quotation (a sentence or a phrase) where the precise wording matters — a courtroom statement, a named claim, a memorable line from an interview — attributed with a citation. This is itself a form of fair dealing (quotation), and doesn't need the {{Fair-dealing}} process below; ordinary citation is enough.
Linking to an original article, book or paper for anyone who wants the full text.

What isn't:

Copy-pasting a paragraph (or more) from a news article, Wikipedia, or any other site, even with a citation attached. A citation tells the reader where a fact came from — it doesn't grant permission to reproduce the source's actual writing.
Reconstructing an article by paraphrasing it sentence-by-sentence in the same order, covering the same points, in a way that just tracks the original's structure. That's still effectively a copy.
Reproducing song lyrics, poems, or other complete short works in any amount, in a case file or anywhere else on the site. Lyrics and poems are excluded from the Vault's fair dealing allowance entirely — see below.

If you're ever unsure whether something counts as "your own words," a good test is: could you show your draft next to the source and have it obviously look like a different piece of writing, covering the same facts? If not, go back and rewrite it, or shorten it to a citation and a link.

Images

Only add an image to the Vault if one of the following is true:

You took the photo yourself and are happy to share it under the Vault's terms.
The image is clearly in the public domain (e.g. very old photographs, works released under the Open Government Licence) or under a licence that permits reuse (e.g. Creative Commons), and you note the licence and source when uploading.
You have explicit permission from the rights holder to use it, and can say so.
It qualifies under the Vault's fair dealing policy below, and you complete the {{Fair-dealing}} rationale in full.

If none of these apply — including images with no clear source or licence at all — don't upload it. Describe the image in the caption instead, and link out to where readers can see it on the original site.

Fair dealing: when and how

Fair dealing is a narrow legal exception, not a general permission, so the Vault only relies on it under specific circumstances, and every single use requires an explicit, filled-in rationale — never a bare claim that "fair dealing applies."

What it can be used for on the Vault:

Book covers, where the cover is being identified and discussed as part of a genuine bibliography or review-style commentary (e.g. a Vault article that discusses a specific book's content, reception or significance) — not merely as decoration.
DVD, Blu-ray or other home media packaging, on exactly the same basis as book covers — the article must genuinely discuss that specific release (its home media release date, content, or reception), not just use the cover to illustrate the show or film generally.
A film or television series' theatrical/promotional poster, used as the primary identifying image in an infobox for an article specifically about that work — treated the same as a book cover, since it serves the equivalent identifying role for a film that a cover does for a book.
A single still frame from a film or documentary being specifically discussed or reviewed in the article, for the same reason.
Small excerpts of text where a short quotation genuinely isn't enough to make the point (this should be rare — most cases are already covered by ordinary quotation under "Text," above).
An organisation's logo, or the logo of a television series or other named production, used solely to identify that organisation or production — for example, in an infobox for a research body, society, or TV series covered by the Vault — subject to the tighter conditions below, since a logo isn't being "discussed" the way a book cover or film still is.

Conditions specific to logos: Because a logo used for identification is never really being "discussed" in the article text the way a book cover or film still would be, it needs its own narrower rules rather than relying on the general "discussed, not decorative" test below:

Identification only — the logo may only be used in an infobox (or similar identifying position) to show what the organisation's or production's actual logo looks like. It may not be used decoratively elsewhere in the article, in headers, or repeated more than once per page.
One logo, one use, one article — a single small, low-resolution copy, in the infobox of the article about that specific organisation or production only. Not in unrelated articles that merely mention it in passing.
No free alternative exists — this is almost always true for logos (you can't take your own photo of one the way you could photograph a building), but still confirm it before uploading.
Low resolution only — small enough to identify the logo, not large enough to reproduce it as usable artwork in its own right (a good rule of thumb: no larger than needed to display clearly in an infobox, similar to how Wikipedia handles the same situation).

What it can never be used for on the Vault, regardless of rationale:

Press photographs, paparazzi shots, or promotional stills of people, locations or events. These almost always fail the "effect on the market" test outright — they exist specifically to be licensed, and using one instead of licensing it is exactly the harm fair dealing doesn't protect against.
Song lyrics, poems, or other short creative works, in any amount.
Anything being used to illustrate an article generally, rather than being the specific subject of discussion in that article (or, for logos specifically, rather than serving pure identification — see above). If a Corner Pin pub photo would just be "nice to have" for the Spirit Searchers page, that's not fair dealing — it's decoration, and decoration doesn't qualify.
Full-resolution or large images where a small, low-resolution version would serve the same illustrative purpose.
A logo used anywhere other than identifying its own organisation's or production's infobox — e.g. decoratively, in a banner, or to illustrate a general article about logos or branding.

Every fair dealing use must satisfy all of the following before it's uploaded:

Purpose — it falls under one of the categories above, and that purpose is stated in the {{Fair-dealing}} rationale.
Necessity — the point being made genuinely can't be made in words alone, or by linking out instead.
Minimal use — only the smallest portion / lowest resolution that still serves the purpose. A book cover thumbnail, not a full-page scan. A single still, not a sequence of frames. A small logo, not a large one.
Discussed, or purely identifying — for book covers, film stills and text excerpts, the specific subject is actually discussed in the surrounding article text, not just captioned. For logos specifically, pure identification in an infobox satisfies this instead, per the logo-specific conditions above.
No free alternative exists — check first whether a public domain, Creative Commons, or "used with permission" version could serve the same purpose instead. Fair dealing is the last resort, not the first option.
Attribution — credit the actual rights holder (publisher, studio, photographer, or organisation) in the {{Fair-dealing}} rationale, even though you don't have their permission.

If you're not confident an image clears all six of these, it doesn't belong on the Vault — use a caption and a link instead, the same as for anything else that fails the Copyright policy.

AI-generated images

Images created by generative AI tools (Manus.im, Midjourney, DALL-E, and similar) don't fit neatly into any of the categories above, because their copyright status is genuinely unsettled rather than merely undocumented.

The legal position, briefly: UK copyright law currently has a distinctive provision — Section 9(3) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 — under which a "computer-generated work" with no human author can still attract copyright, assigned to whoever made the arrangements necessary for its creation. That's different from, for example, US law, where the Copyright Office treats purely AI-generated output as unprotectable. However, the UK government's own Copyright and AI Report (March 2026) has recommended abolishing Section 9(3) entirely, and legal commentators already describe "pure AI output isn't protectable" as the working practical assumption, even though no legislation has actually changed yet. In short: nobody, including the Vault, should treat an AI-generated image as confidently "our own work" the way an actual photograph you took would be.

Given that, AI-generated images may be used on the Vault, but only when:

The generating tool, the exact prompt used, and the generation date are all recorded via {{AI-generated}} on the file's description page — never uploaded without this.
The image is clearly labelled as an AI-generated illustration in its caption wherever it appears in an article — never presented in a way that could be mistaken for a genuine photograph, archival image, or documentary evidence of a real event.
The image does not depict a real, identifiable, named individual (living or dead) in a way that could be mistaken for them, or that misrepresents something they actually did or said.
The prompt and resulting image don't reproduce the distinctive style, character, or protected elements of another identifiable artist's or studio's copyrighted work.

This is a matter of the Vault's own editorial integrity as much as copyright: an AI-generated illustration of, say, a Ganzfeld experiment is a reasonable way to depict a general concept, but readers need to be able to tell at a glance that it's an illustration, not evidence.

User-submitted stories

Some of the Vault's most valuable material comes from people sharing their own encounters. If you're filing a story someone told you (a family member, a friend, a forum post, a Facebook Group comment), it's on you to:

Have the teller's okay to share it, especially if it identifies them or their location.
Say clearly in the entry that it's a personal account being relayed by you, and by whom, rather than presenting it as your own first-hand experience if it isn't.
Avoid pasting someone else's exact written account word-for-word from elsewhere online without their permission — summarise it, and link to the original if it's public, the same as with any other source.

If something on the Vault shouldn't be here

If you believe a page, image or passage on the Vault infringes your copyright, or was uploaded without proper permission, contact us via the Facebook Group or Instagram with:

A link to the specific page.
A description of the material and why it shouldn't be here.
Where possible, a link to the original source it was taken from.

We'll review it and remove or amend the material where the concern is valid. This isn't a legal process — it's a normal editorial one, and most issues get sorted out quickly and without drama.