From Colwiki.org

COL Wiki Copyright and Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Copyright

Pages on this wiki site may carry different copyright licenses. If you are using materials from this site, please check the bottom of the page for a copyright notice and be sure to adhere to the requirements.

If you are uploading learning content to this wiki, please ensure that either:
1. you have created the materials from scratch, or
2. you have previously copied the source materials you are customising from an “open source”.
Please also see our Copyrights page, which you will also see every time you save your wiki pages.

Open Source Content License

Unless otherwise stated, works in this wiki are licenced under a Creative Commons - By Attribution - Share Alike - Non-Commercial License.

There are many copyright licenses that permit the use of materials free of charge. We suggest the use of the Creative Commons licenses on all pages of this wiki because more people know these licenses and we will help to keep you informed on how to work with them. Unless otherwise stated on the page, the default, or standard copyright license on this wiki site is “CC-BY-SA-NC” which means “Creative Commons – By Attribution - Share Alike - Non-Commercial”. You can choose to publish your materials under this license or another of the ones we list below. If your have copied “open materials” from another source (like another wiki, for example), you must look at the copyright license on that cite – you may need to use the same license you find on that site. If the source materials are, for example “CC-BY-SA”, this means that you will need to mark the new page on this site with the same license.

Your main choices of copyright license are:

1. CC-BY – this is a “default” license for this wiki website. If you are a user – that is, if you are planning to download and use pages or file with this license on it, it means you can freely use, customise and recover any costs in your own offering of courses using these materials. This material is so “free” that you can go further than recovering your costs, you can generate a profit as well without letting the originator of the materials know. They have given you the freedom to both recover costs and generate a profit. The one requirement is that you must recognise your source whenever you publish or give away the materials, even after you have customised them. If you are uploading new material that you have created, please understand the passage above and be pleased that others’ will be able to use your efforts to the fullest extent of their abilities.

This is a simple way to mark the page you are preparing (copy and paste this line from this page's edit window into your page's edit window):

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons - By Attribution License.

2. CC-BY-SA – the license is per permitted and encouraged on this wiki site. It is the same as 1. above, but in addition to that, should you adapt the materials, you need to upload a copy of your newly customised materials to this wiki site. It would be nice to see multiple versions of the same courses, customised for different countries on this site. If you are about to upload materials to this site and use this license, you would be requesting the same conditions as 1. above, with the additional request to have others share any now materials in the same way you share your materials (typically, that would be electronically via this wiki site).

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons - By Attribution Licence - Share Alike License.

3. CC-BY-NC – this license is the same as 1. above, with one additional “restriction”. In this case, the provider of the materials is offering you, the user of the materials is allowing you to “recover costs” but not to us it for “commercial gain” or to “generate a profit”. The general guideline is that users of the material can ask for the costs back, from their learners, of duplication, salaries and overheads relating to the use of the materials. If you plan to use materials licensed as CC-BY-NC, and you expect to not only recover your costs, but also generate more revenue that that, you should write to the original creator of the material and ask if they expect you to pay a royalty from the profits you expect to generate. If you are about to customise and upload materials you have found on another website that carries the CC-BY-NC license, you should check that website’s frequently asked questions section of how their have interpreted the terms of this license. If you use this license for new learning materials you have written and are uploading, you are asking people who use them to let you know if they are going to make lots of money from these materials (more than their costs, salaries and overheads).

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons - By Attribution - Non-Commercial License.

4. CC-BY-ND – If you are planning to use these materials, this license allows you to use the materials as you like provided you make no changes to the original. The “ND” means no derivatives, that is, you may not make any alteration. You can provide copies of the whole document or part of it, but you may not change it. You can quote from it and separately provide a new version, but that will be your version; it is not a customised version of the original. If you are about to upload new material, you might consider using this license if you need to ensure that there is no other version of your material is created by anyone else. You may have various reasons for this; it could be that the medical or legal course material where you feel it essential that no one changes one word while it carries your name.

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons - By Attribution - No Derivatives License.

5. CC-BY-NC-ND – this license combines the restrictions in 3. and 4. Above.

If you plan to use other open licenses, please carefully consult the legal text, maybe consult a lawyer too – it’s important that you understand your rights and liabilities – whether you are about to use the learning materials posted by someone else or if you are about to upload many hours of your hard work.

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons - By Attribution - Non-Commercial - No Derivatives License.

There are other open licenses which are also alright to use. It would be too much detail to add information on these here. Please consult a lawyer before uploading any material. You should fully understand the legal implications of uploading materials to any site on the Internet.

Restricted Sources

Please do not upload any material that carries a license like this "All rights Reserved". Materials found to carry this license will be removed as soon as we become aware of it. You may write to the owner of the materials and ask for permission to publish it on this site. If you receive permission, please make a clear note of this at the bottom of the page and send a scanned copy of the permission letter to COL.

Attribution

To enable others to attribute the page you have prepared to you, please add the appropriate information at the bottom of the page. If there is no attribution notice, the only attribution would be to COLWiki. The legal requirement usually states something like this: "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work)." COL would like you to provide attribution to this website. If the author (maybe that is you) asks for attribution by noting this at the bottom of the page, please add this to any derivative (or new, customised) works.

Example attribution for all reuse of materials from this site:

Acknowledgement: This material is based on content that was downloaded from COLWiki.org.

Where the author also wants to be recognized for the materials:

Acknowledge: This material is based on content that was downloaded from COLWiki.org. The author of the original material was {put the name of the author here}.

References

COL: http://www.col.org/copyright
Open University, UK: http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/about-us/faq-ip.php
MIT, USA: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/help/faq3/index.htm