AntWiki:Copyright

Antwiki contains both original content and copyright protected material. It is the responsibility of every editor to be sure the information and files they place on Antwiki are available for use here and, in cases where copyright protections exist, that these are clearly assigned and displayed.

Under this policy it is assumed that any content posted on the website or placed on the Antwiki server can be reused anywhere else on Antwiki, either by being copied and/or placed on existing pages or through being incorporated into newly created Antwiki webpages.

Some information and files on the website are shared with other websites under special agreements. Any content on Antwiki with a copyright that allows reuse can be used following the copyright protections that are outlined with any individual piece of content (text or files). It is not acceptable to copy and reuse pages and files from Antwiki in bulk. Copyright for content within any page can be a mix of copyrights that ranges from public domain, to shared copyright, to copyright reserved by the creator.

Antwiki copyright policy as outlined here is provided to guide our editors and anyone seeking to reuse content from this website. This is not considered the final word on what or what is not acceptable.

Editors
Every editorial act (adding textual content, editing existing content, uploading an image, etc.) is logged as a record of changes to the website. The editors name, the date and the change that is made are all noted. This makes it a simple matter to see who added what content to the website. Any editor that is found to be ignoring or abusing copyright protections by adding content that infringes on copyright (as defined by copyright law) may have their account cancelled.

Original Text
Any original text that you create and place on an Antwiki page is, by default, assumed to be licensed under a Creative Commons xxxxxx copyright (but this does not mean all the text on Antwiki is shared under this license so you cannot assume it is legal to copy and share Antwiki text under this license). Text can also be changed and edited by any other editors. If you do not want to add original text to this website under these terms then do not add this kind of content to Antwiki.

Currently there is not a way to designate previously uncopyrighted text using an alternative copyright status, although this may change in the future.

Image and PDF Files
If you are the copyright holder of an image file or the content of a PDF you can upload it and assign copyright to that file under any copyright you choose. If you are not the copyright holder you need to determine the copyright of the file and, if it can be shared, are responsible for attaching the proper copyright assignment to each file that you upload.

Previously Published Text
It is trivial for any editor to add text to any Antwiki webpage. With all that has been published about ants it can seem enticing to "borrow" text by copying it from existing resources. To be clear, because it is technically easy to copy text from published and online works does not mean it is permissible. Each editor is responsible for any content they add to the website so you need to be sure about the reuse of copyrighted text before you post it to the website.

Determining Copyright
You may find the following useful in trying to sort out if you can share copyrighted material here and under what conditions (this guide is refers and links to MediaWiki content, and is a derivative work found on this page here):

Where is the work from? You may assign any Copyright you wish.
 * It is [ entirely my own work].

If you think you can share some text from another source you can begin to delve into trying to determine if this is possible by reading this.
 * It is text from previously published work.

Most text from Mediawiki sites are shared under a form of copyright that allows for reuse. Be sure to look into the specifics of each file that you would like to upload. Some of the discussion linked to in the next item are applicable and helpful in sorting out copyright from Wikimedia sites.
 * It is a derivative work from another WikiMedia website (Wikipedia, WikiMedia Commons, etc.) or some other similar web project.

This section from a page about sharing Flicker images on Mediawiki Commons provides some discussion of known issues and concerns with copyright of flicker content. This discussion also applies to other websites that allow files and content to be posted under something other than an "all rights reserved" copyright.
 * It is someone else's work from Flickr or some other image hosting website.

This section of the MediaWiki Commons Fair Use page, and some of the following sections found there, provide some background regarding "fair use."
 * I think sharing something falls under the guidelines of "fair use."

If you don't know who the author is, and when the work was created, and under what circumstances (these are the source data) then we can't know the copyright status. We can't know what licenses, if any, apply to the work. If there is not clear copyright then you can't share the work here.
 * I don't know who the author is, or I don't know what license applies

This page might be useful.
 * I need more help figuring out the license.