Enkig:Copyrights

Important note: Enkig staff does not own nor claim any copyright on the text of Enkig's articles or illustrations. It is not necessary to email our contact addresses asking for permission to reproduce content. It is possible to reproduce content under the license and technical conditions applicable to Enkig (see below). Permission to reproduce Enkig's content in accordance with these conditions is granted without request.

The license Enkig uses grants free access to our content. This principle is known as copyleft. That is to say, Enkig content can be copied, modified, and redistributed so long as the new version grants the same freedoms to others and acknowledges the authors of the Enkig article that was used (a direct link back to the article satisfies this). Enkig articles will therefore remain free forever and can be used by anybody (subject to certain restrictions, most of which serve to ensure that freedom).

To fulfill the above goals, the text contained in Enkig is (automatically under the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works) and licensed by Enkig contributors to the public under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL).

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.

Content on Enkig is covered by disclaimers.

The English text of the GFDL is the only legally binding document. What follows is our interpretation of the GFDL; the rights and obligations of users and contributors.

Using copyrighted work from others

All works are copyrighted unless either they fall into the public domain or their copyright is explicitly disclaimed. If you use part of a copyrighted work under "fair use", or if you obtain special permission to use a copyrighted work from the copyright holder under the terms of our license, you must make a note of that fact (along with names and dates). It is our goal to be able to freely redistribute as much of Enkig's material as possible.

Never use materials that infringe the copyrights of others, such as links to downloads of copyrighted bodies of music and videos. This could create legal liabilities and seriously hurt the project. See paragraph II of the Linking to copyrighted works section.

Note that copyright law governs the creative expression of ideas, not the ideas or information themselves. Therefore, it is legal to read an encyclopedia article or other work, reformulate the concepts in your own words, and submit it to Enkig. However, it would still be unethical (but not illegal) to do so without citing the original as a reference.

Linking to copyrighted works

Since most recently-created works are copyrighted, almost any Enkig article which cites its sources will link to copyrighted material. It is not necessary to obtain the permission of a copyright holder before linking to copyrighted material -- just as an author of a book does not need permission to cite someone else's work in their bibliography. Likewise, Enkig is not restricted to linking only to GFDL-free or open-source content.

If you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work. Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright has been considered a form of contributory infringement in the United States (Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry). Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Enkig and its editors. The copyright status of Internet archives in the United States is unclear. However, links to the Internet Archive (Wayback Machine), which is an officially recognized library, are acceptable external links on Enkig.

If you find a copyright infringement

If you suspect a copyright infringement, you should at the very least bring up the issue on that page's talk page. Others can then examine the situation and take action if needed. The most helpful piece of information you can provide is a URL or other reference to what you believe may be the source of the text.

Some cases will be false alarms. For example, if the contributor was in fact the author of the text that is published elsewhere under different terms, that does not affect their right to post it here under the GFDL. Also, sometimes you will find text elsewhere on the Web that was copied from Enkig . In both of these cases, it is a good idea to make a note in the talk page to discourage such false alarms in the future.

If some of the content of a page really is an infringement, then the infringing content should be removed, and a note to that effect should be made on the talk page, along with the original source. If the author's permission is obtained later, the text can be restored.

If all of the content of a page is a suspected copyright infringement, then the page should be replaced by the standard notice which you can find there. If, after a week, the page still appears to be a copyright infringement, then it may be deleted following the procedures on the votes page.

In extreme cases of contributors continuing to post copyrighted material after appropriate warnings, such users may be blocked from editing to protect the project.

Image guidelines

Images and photographs, like written works, are subject to copyright. Someone holds the copyright unless they have been explicitly placed in the public domain. Images on the Internet need to be licensed directly from the copyright holder or someone able to license on their behalf. In some cases, fair use guidelines may allow a photograph to be used.

Reusers' rights and obligations

If you want to use Enkig materials in your own books/articles/web sites or other publications, you can do so, but you have to follow the GFDL. If you are simply duplicating the Enkig article, you must follow section two of the GFDL on verbatim copying.

If you create a derivative version by changing or adding content, this entails the following:

• your materials in turn have to be licensed under GFDL,
• you must acknowledge the authorship of the article (section 4B), and
• you must provide access to the "transparent copy" of the material (section 4J). (The "transparent copy" of a Enkig article is any of a number of formats available from us, including the wiki text, the html web pages, xml feed, etc.)

You may be able to partially fulfill the latter two obligations by providing a conspicuous direct link back to the Enkig article hosted on this website. You also need to provide access to a transparent copy of the new text. However, please note that Enkig makes no guarantee to retain authorship information and a transparent copy of its articles. Therefore, you are encouraged to provide this authorship information and a transparent copy with your derived works.

Fair use materials and special requirements

All original Enkig text is distributed under the GFDL. Enkig articles may also include quotations, images, or other media under the U.S. Copyright law "fair use" doctrine in accordance with our guidelines for non-free content. It is preferred that these be obtained under the most free content license practical (such as the GFDL or public domain). In cases where no such images/sounds are currently available, then fair use may be used in certain circumstances as described in the criteria for using non-free media.

In Enkig, such "fair use" material should be identified as from an external source (on the image description page, or history page, as appropriate). This also leads to possible restrictions on the use, outside of Enkig, of such "fair use" content retrieved from Enkig: this "fair use" content does not fall under the GFDL license as such, but under the "fair use" (or similar/different) regulations in the country where the media are retrieved.

Enkig does use some text under licenses that are compatible with the GFDL but may require additional terms that we do not require for original Enkig text (such as including Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts, or Back-Cover Texts).

If you are the owner of Enkig-hosted content being used without your permission

If you are the owner of content that is being used on Enkig without your permission, then you may request of our staff the page be immediately removed from Enkig. We will of course need some evidence to support your claim of ownership, however.