Wiktenauer:Copyright Policy

Most of the content on the Wiktenauer is not original, and falls under a variety of license terms or other conditions (including a great deal of content drawn from the public domain). The specific terms which apply to the content on each article is contained in the source table found at the top of its discussion page.

By default, all original Wiktenauer content is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0. This includes article text, all infobox content, and the directories and indexes used for navigation. CreativeCommons.org summarizes the license like this: “This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.”

Any questions about this policy may be raised on the discussion page, where an admin will address them. Any requests to examine the use of copyrighted content on this website can be sent to mchidester@wiktenauer.com. Copyrighted content which is not used in accordance with the terms below will be promptly removed.

These are the common licensing arrangements supported by the Wiktenauer:

Licenses

	An even less restrictive license than the default used by Wiktenauer, this license is summarized by CreativeCommons.org as follows: “This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.” Creative Commons Attribution License Terms The Creative Commons BY tag is added to a source table using the parameter “attribution” or the template {{CC-BY-4.0}}.
	The default license for Wiktenauer article content, as described above. Note that because this is the same license favored by the Wikimedia Foundation, such content may legally be copied from any site in the Wikimedia Network without need for permission. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License Terms The Creative Commons BY-SA tag is added to a source table using the parameter “commercial” or the template {{CC-BY-SA-4.0}}.
	Transcriptions and translations donated to the Wiktenauer (or produced by Wiktenauer editors specifically for the wiki) generally use the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License 4.0, as do many other works produced independently of the Wiktenauer. CreativeCommons.org summarizes the license like this: “This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.” In other words, it is similar to the standard license with the exception that the content cannot be reused for commercial purposes. As such, works released under this license may be added to the wiki without contacting the author for permission, though as a courtesy the author should be contacted if possible and notified that we are using his or her work. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License Terms The Creative Commons BY-NC-SA tag is added to a source table by leaving the license parameter blank or using the template {{CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0}}.
	Some content appearing on the Wiktenauer is used under the GNU General Public License; because the GPL is intended to protect software, this might be a mistake and intended as a reference to the GNU Free Documentation License. Both the GPL and the GFDL are associated with the GNU Operating System and sponsored by the Free Software Foundation. The GFDL is legally compatible with the CC-BY-SA-4.0 license used on the Wiktenauer Network, and for this reason such content may be transferred to the wiki without author permission, though as a courtesy the author should still be contacted if possible. GNU General Public License Terms | GNU Free Documentation License Terms This tag is added to a source table using the parameter “noncommercial” or the template {{GNU GPLv3}}.
	A few Wiktenauer contributors choose to employ a Linkware License, meaning that the work is free to use as long as a link to the original document is included. Permission from the original author is not needed in order to use content under this license, though again, the author should be contacted if possible to notify him or her. Either way, the terms of the license are satisfied by the Wiktenauer convention of placing a link to the original document in the source table as well as on the author's biographical page. This tag is added to a source table using the parameter “linkware” or the template {{linkware}}.
	Some authors release their work for any non-profit, educational, or academic use without defining more specific license terms, and these may also be added to the Wiktenauer without any additional permission from the author. As always, as a courtesy the author should be contacted if possible and notified of the work's inclusion on the wiki. This tag is added to a source table using the parameter “educational” or the template {{educational use}}.
	A few Wiktenauer contributors have stated that they consider their transcription or translation work to be merely an extension of the public domain fencing manuals they cover, and claim no copyright on them. To give this idea clear legal definition, Wiktenauer classifies these works under the Creative Commons 0 deed, which is defined by CreativeCommons.org in this way: “CC0 enables scientists, educators, artists and other creators and owners of copyright- or database-protected content to waive those interests in their works and thereby place them as completely as possible in the public domain, so that others may freely build upon, enhance and reuse the works for any purposes without restriction under copyright or database law.” This deed also applies to all scans which were made by Wiktenauer staff for use on the wiki. This tag is added to a source table using the parameter “public domain 0” or the template {{public domain contribution}}.
	The treatises indexed on Wiktenauer are hundreds of years old, and therefore they undeniably exist in the public domain; unfortunately, the status of reproductions of two-dimensional public domain works is less clear. Lacking a more clear answer, it is the policy of Wiktenauer (and our primary sponsor the HEMA Alliance) to treat Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. (1999) as the governing legal precedent regarding such images. Wiktenauer considers all manual scans to be public domain documents and they should be treated as such, even when the source table is linking to a digital gallery on a library or museum website. However, we are not interested in antagonizing the institutions that preserve our source works, and so every attempt is made to work with rather than against them (such as by linking to scans hosted on library sites rather than directly hosting them on our servers). These two concerns counterbalance each other to shape the specifics of our policy: Institutions which already license their images under a Creative Commons or other free license (such as the Herzog-August Bibliothek) should have that license indicated rather than the public domain mark. This includes scans hosted on WikiMedia Commons, which technically fall under the same CC BY-SA license that governs Wiktenauer. This also notifies users what legal terms they are assuming if they reuse the images. Institutions which have communicated with us and specifically authorized us to host scans should have this indicated with the “permission” parameter or {{PD-permission}} template. Any comments or disclaimers that the museum requests we attach (including copyright claims) should also be noted (and if the institution specifically requests the "copyrighted" parameter, we will do that as well). Institutions which have acknowledged the public domain status of their scans (such as the the J. Paul Getty Museum's Open Content Program) should use the “public domain” parameter or {{public domain}} template. Any comments or disclaimers that the museum requests we attach (including copyright claims) should also be noted. Images scanned from printed books which are themselves legally in the public domain should use the public domain mark; this applies to both printed fencing treatises and to facsimiles of manuscripts which were published before 1923. Authors creating such scans for the Wiktenauer should publish them under the CC0 deed (see above) to clarify their public domain status (and authors of existing scans should be contacted when possible and encouraged to do the same. The CC0 tag is added using the parameter “public domain 0” or the template {{public domain contribution}}. Scans which don't meet any of these descriptions generally shouldn't be added to the Wiktenauer at all (and should instead be uploaded to WikiMedia Commons). Occasionally an administrator may approve the inclusion of such scans under the rationale that they are of negligible value to the holding institution (most often in the case of microfilm scans). These scans should also use the “uncertain” parameter or {{uncertain}} template. Finally, most of the works from the 19th Century HEMA Revival have entered the public domain, meaning that the transcriptions and translations appearing in those works can be used freely on Wiktenauer; these works also use the {{public domain}} template and “public domain” parameter.
	Many Wiktenauer contributors choose to grant us only a narrow license to host their work on our site and retain all other rights. These works are subject to all normal copyright laws and cannot be duplicated outside of the Wiktenauer Network without separate permission from the original author. Some of these contributions are drawn from books and other formal publications, and the value of those publications would be undermined by additional unauthorized duplication. This tag is added to a source table using the parameter “copyrighted” or the template {{copyrighted}}.
	In a few articles, we have found it necessary to excerpt short passages of transcription or translation from larger published works. These have been produced by researchers outside the community and contacting them for permission is not feasible (in some cases, the authors are not even alive). As we believe these excerpts legally fall within the bounds of fair use, they are marked as such and their copyrighted status should be kept in mind for anyone interested in re-use. This tag is added to a source table using the parameter “fair use” or the template {{fair use}}.
	After much internal discussion, Wiktenauer has decided to continue hosting so-called orphan works. Orphan works are unfortunately common in HEMA as previously-active practitioners drop out of the community over time. While this policy remains controversial, Wiktenauer believes that the importance of preserving these transcriptions and translations as a foundation for future research outweighs the potential for legal entanglements. If all attempts to contact an author fail, the content may be added to the Wiktenauer Network with the Orphan tag; an administrator must approve all orphan works before they are entered, and orphan content will be removed immediately should the author request it. This tag is added to a source table using the parameter “orphan” or the template {{orphan work}}.
	This tag will only appear on the talk pages of treatises whose transcriptions were pieced together from multiple documents with incompatible licenses. To see the license terms for a particular portion, refer to the more detailed source table on the index talk page.
	Works of uncertain licensing status are marked with this placeholder tag. We will not tolerate the violation of copyright, and will watch items marked with this tag carefully and remove such content after a short time if a proper license isn't applied. Wiktenauer is based in the United States, and is therefore bound by U.S. Copyright Law above all else. Even were it not, as members of the HEMA community the administrators of the Wiktenauer Network could not in good conscience tolerate taking the work of fellow HEMA researchers without recognition and, for non-free works, recompense. For these reasons, permission must always be sought from the creators of any potentially-copyrighted material that you wish to add to the Wiktenauer. If we receive a complaint that material was added without consent, that material will be promptly removed and, if we deem it necessary, the offending editor will have his or her editing privileges suspended or removed. This tag is added to a source table using the parameter “uncertain” or the template {{uncertain license}}.