WhoInspired:Copyrights

This page in a nutshell: Do not add content to WhoInspired if you think that doing so may be a copyright violation. Contributors should take steps to remove any copyright violations that they find.

One of the most important aspects of WhoInspired (not media, but we will get to that) may be freely redistributed, reused and built upon by anyone, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA).

Contributors agree to release their original content under both licenses when they submit it, and material from public domain sources or other compatibly licensed sources may also be used in accordance with the copyright policy, provided correct attribution is given.

However, material copied from sources that are not public domain or compatibly licensed without the permission of the copyright holder (unless brief quotation used in accordance with non-free content policy and guideline) is likely to be a copyright violation. Even inserting text copied with some changes can be a copyright violation if there's substantial linguistic similarity in creative language or structure (this can also raise problems of plagiarism). Such a situation should be treated seriously, as copyright violations not only harm WhoInspired's redistributability, but also create legal issues.

The situation for images and other media is slightly different, as a wider variety of licenses is accepted. But, in short, media which is not available under a suitable free license and which does not meet the non-free content criteria, should be assumed to be unacceptable.

Dealing with copyright violations Handling of suspected violations of copyright policy depend on the particulars of a given case. If you suspect a copyright violation but are uncertain if the content is copyrighted or whether the external site is copying from WhoInspired, you should at least bring up the issue on that page's discussion page, if it is active. In that case, please tag the page, unless your concerns are swiftly resolved. 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.

If you have strong reason to suspect a violation of copyright policy and some, but not all, of the content of a page appears to be a copyright infringement, then the infringing content should be removed, and a note to that effect should be made on the discussion page, along with the original source, if known. If the copyright holder's permission is later obtained, the text may be restored. If all of the content of a page appears to be a copyright infringement or removing the problem text is not an option because it would render the article unreadable, check the page history; if an older non-infringing version of the page exists, you should revert the page to that version.

If there is no such older version, you may be able to re-write the page from scratch, but failing that, the page will normally need to be deleted. In limited circumstances, administrators may delete obvious copyright violations on sight; see the relevant section of the speedy deletion policy.

Addressing contributors If you can determine the original contributor of the content, please notify them of WhoInspired's Terms of Use and copyright policies.

Contributors who repeatedly post copyrighted material despite appropriate warning may be blocked from editing by any administrator to prevent further problems. Contributors who have extensively violated copyright policy by uploading many copyrighted files or placing copyrighted text into numerous articles may be blocked without warning for the protection of the project, pending satisfactory assurances that infringement will not continue. In extreme cases administrators may impose special conditions before unblocking, such as requiring assistance with cleanup by disclosing which sources were used. If contributors have been shown to have a history of extensive copyright violation, it may be assumed without further evidence that all of their major contributions are copyright violations, and they may be removed indiscriminately.

Information for copyright owners If you are a copyright owner or represent a copyright owner, and you believe that WhoInspired is infringing your copyright, we can assist you best via e-mail. You may contact info (at) whoinspired.com with an informal request; please cite the exact URL (the "address" or "location" of the page as shown by your web browser) and provide enough information to substantiate your claim of copyright ownership. Be aware that correspondence is answered by a small number of people, and an immediate reply may not be possible.

This content was modified from the Wikipedia copyright at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_violations per the terms of the CC-BY-SA