Help:License information

From AcornWiki

Jump to: navigation, search

This page explains the standard license terms for original materials published on the various Acorn IT Group Web sites (including AcornWiki), unless a more specific license is indicated.

Some non-original material may be submitted and included in our Web sites, and this page explains the additional limitations and requirements when such material is present. Since most of our sites are "commercial" in nature (i.e., they exist, at least in part, to generate or increase profits for the corporation), some types of content are not compatible with our business model. Before submitting any non-original material (i.e., stuff you did not create yourself), you must verify the license terms and compatibility; you must also provide proper attribution to the original author as required by applicable licenses.

Contents

Standard license

Unless otherwise noted, the content of AcornWiki is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 U.S. license. In a nutshell, you may make copies of the information for your own personal use. You also may give away copies of the original content (printouts, PDF page captures, etc.) to third parties, so long as they are not altered and contain all of our identifying information. You may not use the information for commercial purposes (i.e., to earn a profit from the information, directly or indirectly; or publish the information to any commercial Web site), alter the information (e.g., change the format, style, colors, layout, size, shape, or other features), or attempt to pass this information off as your own work.

Nothing in this license affects your rights to use any information which may be separately licensed to you by us for other uses and possibly subject to other conditions.

Multi-licensed and alternatively-licensed work

Generally speaking, the information on this site is not free (libre), though we do not charge for it (gratis). This means that taking information from here and reposting it on other wikis or Web sites is not acceptable. However, the site does include information that came from free sources or has been multi-licensed to allow such redistribution.

You can submit materials covered under a variety of licenses, as long as at least one of them meets the criteria for free licenses below. For example, information under a "non-commercial" license is permitted only if it is at the same time also released under a free license that allows commercial use. This allows us to create derivative work and release that work under our standard license only, or under multiple licenses.

Our site's policy is to clearly identify all information that is not covered exclusively by our standard license terms. Further, any such non-standard licensed information is to remain separate from standard licensed work. Any work that is not covered covered exclusively by our standard license terms must be identified clearly.

License provisions

All material not covered covered exclusively by our standard license terms must be licensed under a free license that allows anyone to use the material for any purpose.

In particular, the license must meet the following conditions
  • Republication and distribution must be allowed
  • Publication of derivative work must be allowed
  • Commercial use of the work must be allowed
We accept material
  • Where the Acorn IT Group and its various divisions and business units are granted exclusive or non-exclusive right to use the material
In some cases we may accept licenses with the following conditions
  • Acknowledgment of all authors/contributors of a work (generally easy to do with multimedia and other documents, but nearly impossible for text unless a standard bibliographical citation suffices)
  • Publication of derivative work under the same license (it depends on the other conditions of the license)
  • Use under fair use restrictions as defined under U.S. copyright law (it depends on several factors)
The following restrictions must not apply to the material
  • Prohibition of use by the Acorn IT Group (including its divisions, business units, and the AcornWiki)
  • Noncommercial/educational use only
  • Notification of the creator required, rather than requested, for all or for some uses
Examples of commonly disallowed items

Generally the following are not allowed without specific authorization from the copyright holder, except as permitted under "fair use" principles:

  • Copyrighted symbols, logos, etc.
  • Scans or reproductive photographs of copyrighted artwork, especially book covers, album/CD covers, etc
  • Screenshots, boxes, and other images of software that is itself not under a free license. Images of software under the GPL or a similar free software license are generally considered to be okay.
  • TV screenshots (programs and commercials).
  • Models, masks, toys, and other objects which represent a copyrighted work, such as a cartoon or movie character (rather than just a particular actor, regardless of a specific role)
Public domain

We also allow all works that are not applicable to copyright (i.e. in the public domain). However, it is unclear how material is to be handled that is in the public domain in the United States, but not in others. Since we are U.S.-based and our Web site is in the U.S., it is not a problem for us. If you choose to reuse something in the "public domain", but you are outside of the U.S., your usage rights may be different.

Compatible licenses

The following well-known licenses are preferred for materials on the AcornWiki:

  • All material explicitly permitting use by the Acorn IT Group (including its divisions, business units, and the AcornWiki)
  • All material in the public domain (see note above)
  • Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication
  • Creative Commons Attribution (by)
  • Creative Commons Sampling

Possibly compatible licenses

No derivatives

These licenses may by compatible under certain circumstances. If the license is generally compatible but includes a "no derivatives" clause, you will find the license here. No derivatives means that the work must be redistributed intact and unaltered. A PDF document or graphic placed on this site in its original form is perfectly fine. Copying text from a PDF document and using it in an article, and also converting a JPEG image into an SVG image, are not permissible. Be sure to carefully consider the license limitations before using the material to avoid problems.

Share alike

Another potential difficulty is with licenses containing "share alike" clauses. Share alike means that the material, and any derivative works, must be licensed in the same manner as the original material. This creates an administrative burden for keeping track of how the information is licensed. It also prevents combining dissimilarly licensed material together (i.e., combining information from two differently licensed sources is practically impossible). For this reason, share-alike licensed material must always be clearly identified.

Limited commercial use

Some licenses permit one type of commercial use but restrict others. So, depending on how the material is used, the following licenses may be compatible:

Date restrictions

Some licenses restrict usage until a certain amount of time has passed. Until then, the material is incompatible, but after that date, it may become compatible (unless the protection is extended). Such licenses include:

  • Any material copyrighted in the United States; Depending on when it was created and the copyright date, different periods may apply
  • Creative Commons Founder's Copyright — A 14-year initial term that may be renewed once for an additional fourteen years.

Incompatible licenses

Unless the material is multi-licensed with a compatible license (see above), the following licenses are incompatible with our site's licensing and usage model:

Non-applicable licenses

The following licenses do not apply to us. Unless the work is multi-licensed with a compatible license (see above), to avoid problems assume that these licenses are incompatible with our site.

Retrieved from "http://acornitgroup.com/wiki/Help:License_information"
Personal tools