The content of our service is mostly user contributions and we automatically want to put that content under the OPL.

Any experience? Pros Cons? Other Licences?

I have read this article at Wired Magazin.

O'Reilly is saying that:

» An optional clause in the OPL gives authors the right to prevent others from producing commercial print versions of their work -- a fact that assuaged only some of O'Reilly's concerns. Companies like itknowledge.com, which offers free and paid access to collected online resources, might still exploit the terms of the OPL, he said.

"Simply restricting printing rights is not sufficient because there are people making competitive, commercial use of works on the Web," he said. "I guess I would look for some kind of commercial activity clause. I believe it's important for the copyright holder to have the option of choice." Thanks

Hello Tom,

but this commercial activity clause is not explicitely articulated in the OPL.

So my concerns are:

1.) How can I automatically set all contributions under OPL. (I will probably put it in the "User Aggreement" everyone will have to "sign")

2.) How can I avoid further commercial use of this content. Is it possible to articulate your own copyright option that is not officially part of OPL?

Thanks

or perhaps you shouldn't put your content on the web? what kinds of content are trying to protect?

talli

Actually it sound like you want to copyright it. Sorry to continue this way, but copyright only applies to commercial use. Think of an Associated Press story. It shows up on the web, in your local paper, etc. Everyone can read it. But I can't take that and sell it to a magazine and pocket the money. This is not a legal definition, only a practical one. If you are really struggling over this, talk to your attorney, someone familiar with copyright and patent law. If you want examples, you might look at what writers are required to sign in order to get published.

There are two contracts here: one for the writer and another for anyone reading the material. If the writer doesn't sign over his rights, you can't own a copyright.

You need to cover two issues - the copyright on the information you receive, and the copyright on the information you provide.

In short, you want two statements, one that people submitting information assign copyright to you, and another that all information is copyrighted but permission is granted for free use.

A web search for "copyright notice "permission is granted"" should come up with enough for the second.  "assign copyright" will do well for the first.

Given the description of your site so far, though, you will probably find that your users are actually not able to assign copyright to you, because it is probably owned by their schools.  So, avoid going to court if at all possible, and consult a lawyer if it's really an issue.


If you *really* want to make things complicated and dig into licenses, you are looking for a "non-free" license.  "Free as in freedom" implies that the people you license the content to are given the freedom to do largely what they want, often with the provision that they may not change the terms of the licensing.  One of the freedoms you grant is generally the right to re-sell.  Most anything Gnu provides will not satisfy you, because that's how they view "free" - people have the freedom to sell the things you give them, but the people they sell them to then have to be given the right to give them away.  It's a tricky line that is easy for the person selling to mistake or forget to mention, and hard to enforce because they can hide the information behind a dollar sign and you'd have to pay to find out they're breaking the license.

http://opencontent.org/opl.shtml is probably a reasonable compromise, if they bother to print a book and are willing to release it as open content they can charge for it, but they can't charge for network-based access to the content or the content itself.

But, if the information you have is so valuable that people might want to buy it, why not let the people you give it to sell it to other interested parties?  It might increase the dissimination of knowledge.  You're asking people to give it to you for free in the first place, they can't really object to not being paid for it.  In short, I highly recommend that you do enough to CYA but beyond that not worry about it, if people want to use the information you provide, great.