Forum Creative Commons License

[sdennie]

It says at the bottom of the forum policy page (http://ubuntuforums.org/index.php?page=policy) that all content on the forums is automatically licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. Has anyone noticed that this license is blindly ignored by http://onlyubuntu.blogspot.com/ (which just word for word takes stuff out of Tips & Tutorials without attribution) or, even worse, www.swik.net which blindly takes the the former links information then slaps its own CC license on the information; essentially making the claim that they are the originating source.

I actually posted a comment on one of my own HOWTOs on http://onlyubuntu.blogspot.com/ and asked them to please attribute the original source and they seem to have rejected adding the comment. I want the information to be disseminated as much as anyone but, it really irks me to have someone point me at something I wrote and say, "Wow, check this out!" and there is no attribution to the original source.

[Oldsoldier2003]

There will always be people that are willing to rip off the work of others and pose them as their own works. In the end they usually lose since they generally just mindlessly copy and paste the work of others.

All I can say is that I now know one more site that isn't credible and I won't be citing them as a reference...

[banjobacon]

It says at the bottom of the forum policy page (http://ubuntuforums.org/index.php?page=policy) that all content on the forums is automatically licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

This doesn't really sound right to me. The Ubuntu Forums staff doesn't have the power to license its members' posts. At least it shouldn't.

[sdennie]

This thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=225453&highlight=forum+creative+commons+license), while old, makes me believe that if the author of the post waives the attribution rights, no attribution is needed. As the author of a post, I would assume that means you can do whatever you want with your own posts and that the CC license is only in place to protect against exactly what I've described above.

[reyfer]

This doesn't really sound right to me. The Ubuntu Forums staff doesn't have the power to license its members' posts. At least it shouldn't.
Just a thought:
Section I - General Policy:

By registering and participating in Ubuntu Forums discussions you agree to the following code of conduct. If you are unable to agree you have the right not to participate in forum discussions at any time.......
...........................................
more blah blah .......................


Public forum data is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
So it basically says that by participating, you are acknowledging you accept that part too.

[lisati]

This doesn't really sound right to me. The Ubuntu Forums staff doesn't have the power to license its members' posts. At least it shouldn't.
Would some kind of "license on members' behalf" option be more acceptable?

[LaRoza]

This doesn't really sound right to me. The Ubuntu Forums staff doesn't have the power to license its members' posts. At least it shouldn't.

Anything posted anywhere has some sort of license attached to it. This forum is owned and payed for by a company, and a license for the forum's contents has been chosen.

[banjobacon]

Anything posted anywhere has some sort of license attached to it. This forum is owned and payed for by a company, and a license for the forum's contents has been chosen.

But this company creates almost none of the content. Posters should decide how to license their contributions, not Canonical or the Ubuntu Forums staff.

[LaRoza]

But this company creates almost none of the content. Posters should decide what license they choose for their contributions.

No, then people would start demanding royalties or something.

[banjobacon]

No, then people would start demanding royalties or something.

From whom would people be demanding royalties?

[sdennie]

But this company creates almost none of the content. Posters should decide how to license their contributions, not Canonical or the Ubuntu Forums staff.

I'm not sure what the problem is. CC with Attribution is about as close to the GPL for non-software projects as you can get (as I understand it). That's the license that the vast majority of your OS is using. Why would you be offended that your posts are using something similar.

[Lostincyberspace]

if you want you can add what all you work is copyrighted under in your sig and then yours is special.

[banjobacon]

I'm not sure what the problem is. CC with Attribution is about as close to the GPL for non-software projects as you can get (as I understand it). That's the license that the vast majority of your OS is using. Why would you be offended that your posts are using something similar.

Because the forum staff should not be applying a license of their choosing to other people's work. The author should decide if a post has a special license attached, not the ISP. Certainly you would be upset if Google, Yahoo or some other large ISP applied a license of its choosing to all your emails, pictures, etc.

[LaRoza]

Because the forum staff should not be applying a license of their choosing to other people's work. The author should decide if a post has a special license attached, not the ISP. Certainly you would be upset if Google, Yahoo or some other large ISP applied a license of its choosing to all your emails, pictures, etc.

Au contrair, people shouldn't be applying their license of choice to a site they don't own.

This forum is the property of Canonical. Anything you put on it, you put on it by your own free will and accept the terms of use you agreed to follow when you joined.

[sdennie]

Because the forum staff should not be applying a license of their choosing to other people's work. The author should decide if a post has a special license attached, not the ISP. Certainly you would be upset if Google, Yahoo or some other large ISP applied a license of its choosing to all your emails, pictures, etc.

Actually, I would be very pleased if they automatically made every publicly available thing I put on their sites CC with Attribution. It means that people are welcome to use anything you publicly post as long as they attribute it back to you. To me, that's the very spirit of open source and Ubuntu.

Regardless, this thread has already been sidetracked. I'd prefer to get back on topic if possible.

[lisati]

Au contrair, people shouldn't be applying their license of choice to a site they don't own.

This forum is the property of Canonical. Anything you put on it, you put on it by your own free will and accept the terms of use you agreed to follow when you joined.
Nicely said. Something very similar had occurred to me when I first saw this thread, but LaRoza has said it more eloquently than I could.

[LaRoza]

Nicely said. Something very similar had occurred to me when I first saw this thread, but LaRoza has said it more eloquently than I could.

Tips for being "eloquent":


Latin phrases
French phrases
*nix commands
Other language phrases

[KiwiNZ]

Because the forum staff should not be applying a license of their choosing to other people's work. The author should decide if a post has a special license attached, not the ISP. Certainly you would be upset if Google, Yahoo or some other large ISP applied a license of its choosing to all your emails, pictures, etc.

You agree to the conditions of this forum when you take up membership.

The Forum staff have what ever authority the owner of the Forum delegates.

[hyper_ch]

nobody forces you to put anything on there... you can host your own site and just put a link to the content of your own site... that way the cc licence won't apply to you... you are also free to licence your work under different licences... if you add it here it will be CC, on your page you might want to have something else...

but as it has been pointed out, by signing up you did agree to adhere to the forums policies and forum policy is that things posted here will be under CC. So this leaves you the options of:
- accept this fact and continue posting
- accept this and stop posting
- whine about it

The Forum staff have what ever authority the owner of the Forum delegates.
Within the boundaries of the law ;)