Copyright

All of the content on this site is available for reuse or repurposing on other projects. I've started out by making the content available using the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication. I want to think about the licensing issues a little more carefully, but we'll probably end up either sticking with that license, or switching to the Creative Commons Attribution License.

In either case, we'll need to ensure that all of the content that gets posted to the site is legally available to be given away. I want to allow anybody and everybody to add content to the site, but we'll have to make people jump through at least one or two little hoops first, so that they've agreed to follow some safety guidelines about intellectual property, and so that we know they understand about what can and can not be posted.

You can help! — What license should we use?

We need to write up a list of the pros and cons of using the Attribution License versus the Public Domain Dedication.

The Attribution License seems too cumbersome — if our site has a nicely worded definition of some term, anybody should be free to copy it and use it in a report they're writing, without having to deal with the hassle of doing the attribution. Is there some way we could use something like the Attribution License, but less restrictive?

On the other hand, the Public Domain Dedication seems a little scary at first. Although, if we use the Public Domain Dedication, I don't think we've actually given up our copyright rights forever. For some discussion of this, see this post.

I think if we wanted to, we could easily switch from the Public Domain Dedication to the Attribution License a couple years down the line. (For example, see this post.) In contrast, we couldn't switch from the Attribution License to the Public Domain Dedication unless we were able to track down all the people who contributed content over the years and get them to agree.

But, here's a problem: Let's say we want to spruce up some page about malaria immunization by adding a copy of a photo that we found on another site. If the other site has made the photo available using an Attribution License, how can we use it if our site is based on the Public Domain Dedication?

You can help with this by doing a little research on the different options. Maybe do some Google searching and see what advice other people have. Or send mail to Creative Commons and see what they suggest. Or, if you have a background in intellectual property law, perhaps you can offer some expert advice.

You can help! — What safety measures do we need?

How do we ensure that somebody doesn't accidentally post content that is available under the terms of our license?

If somebody writes up a nice summary page about malaria, what do they need to agree to in order to post it on this site? Do we need to track which bits of content are copyright by which authors? Do we need authors to assign copyright to openagenda? If we use the Public Domain Dedication, does the author need to give up their own copyright? Can we ask people to agree to some terms when they first create an account at the site, or do we need to get their agreement every time they post anything? Can we accept contributions from anonymous authors? Do we let people post content that they themselves are not the author of?