Copyright Terms of Shlomi Fish’s Homesite

Global Copyrights’ Terms

It’s hard for me to assign a permissive copyrights term (like one of Creative Commons licences), to my entire site. The reason is that I don’t wish it to be abused in any way as a whole.

The works I create and put there, are usually explicitly licensed under a more permissive licence, and they are generally a much more usable part of the site. So, for now, one can assume that the site itself is in under a restrictive copyrights terms, while everything that was noted as such is not.

If you want to re-use part of the content of this site, that has no explict copyrights terms, then drop me a note and I’ll see what I can do. Chances are that I can give you permission to use it or even license it under a permissive licence.

How I interpret the Creative Commons Licences

Since I’m using some Creative Commons for various original resources on this site and elsewhere, here is how I interpret them and their implication on you who may wish to reuse or redistribute them.

The Public Domain / CC-Zero

If the work is marked as public domain, then you can freely redistribute it, modify it or build upon it, even without giving me credit. If you wish you may consider the work as licensed under the MIT/X11 licence, the CC-by licence (see below), or any other licence. What you cannot do is claim that you originated the original version, or sue me for any damages caused by using or misusing the information.

All of that put aside, if you find works under this licence useful, you are encouraged to credit me; share them under similar liberal licences; make a small donation, either in money for me and/or for a good cause, or by buying me interesting books, cool T-shirts, or alternatively audio or video files (only as digital files, for I lack the energy for pesky circular physical media), and naturally by sending me an appreciation note that you enjoyed them or found them of value. But I’m not forcing you to.

I’m using this licence for most of my photos (but not all of them), for some of my presentation material, and for some of my old code, or code that I find useful to dual-licence under it and the MIT/X11 licence.

CC-by interpretation (Creative Commons Attribution Licence Unported)

First of all, unless noted otherwise I’m always using a certain version of this licence and “at your option, any later versions.”. In addition to the Public Domain, when you see this licence, you need to attribute the works to me by the following means:

1. Spelling my full name - “Shlomi Fish” - in English or in your native alphabet.

2. Linking to my homepage - http://www.shlomifish.org/. You can link the name to my homepage. A rel="nofollow" attribute is OK.

3. Linking to the URL where the original CC-by resource appeared. You should include the full URL (possibly split into several parts if there isn’t enough width in your text box), but if it’s split into two, also try giving a shortened URL, unless such shortened URLs are blacklisted by the interface.

Otherwise, you are free to redistribute the work, mirror it, sub-license it, quote it, and make any other use of it.

And like what I said in “The Public Domain”:

All of that put aside, if you find works under this licence useful, you are encouraged to credit me; share them under similar liberal licences; make a small donation, either in money for me and/or for a good cause, or by buying me interesting books, cool T-shirts, or alternatively audio or video files (only as digital files, for I lack the energy for pesky circular physical media), and naturally by sending me an appreciation note that you enjoyed them or found them of value. But I’m not forcing you to.

I’m using this licence for most of my essays and articles, and for many blog posts.

CC-by-sa interpretation (Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike Licence Unported)

I’m using the Share-Alike variants of the Creative Commons licence for most of my original novellas, my original screenplays/scripts, and for most bits and collections of aphorisms or factoids. The way I see it, in addition to the restrictions in the CC-by licensing any significant derivative work of those should be licensed in the same way should be licensed under the same licence. Naturally people may claim their own copyright on derivative works (though I’d appreciate if they disclaim all rights to their derivative works and thus allow me and others to reuse these works.)

Such derivative works include:

1. Translations to foreign languages.

2. Conversions to different computerised formats.

3. Reuse and publication on online or offline mediums.

4. Adaptation into media of audio, video, illustrated text, etc.

5. Corrected or enhanced versions of the texts.

It does not include the following:

1. Parodies (fall under Fair Use).

2. Literary criticisms or analyses or other critiques (fall under Fair Use as well).

Note that by virtue of being CC-by-sa, the derivative work should be freely redistributable both commercially and non-commercially, may not be encumbered by copyright-protection scheme (or at least one cannot enforce this copyright protection to not be broken), and one can still freely distribute this work.

And like what I said earlier:

All of that put aside, if you find works under this licence useful, you are encouraged to credit me; share them under similar liberal licences; make a small donation, either in money for me and/or for a good cause, or by buying me interesting books, cool T-shirts, or alternatively audio or video files (only as digital files, for I lack the energy for pesky circular physical media), and naturally by sending me an appreciation note that you enjoyed them or found them of value. But I’m not forcing you to.

If we take making a film out of one of my artworks as an example, then these guidelines to the CC-by-sa apply to everybody, from an underage kid who prepares a vector graphics animation out of one of my stories, to a mega-milliard dollar Hollywood film studio which would like to prepare a large budget film with live actors, filmed on location.

That put aside, if you wish, I can exempt my cultural artworks from the CC-by-sa and allow you to prepare a CC-by-nc-sa derivative (or possibly a different licence), for the right amount of compensation. This time I naturally will discriminate between the various people and organisations who are interested in that.

CC-by-nc-sa interpretation (Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike Licence Unported)

In addition to the CC-by-sa, this licence prohibits commercial use, meaning any use that aims to garner a substantial amount of money. If you sell each copy of my work with a profit of 1 USD and intends on selling many works like that, it is still commercial. On the other hand, if you just sell a single printout of a work for a very small profit, or set up a freely accessible torrent of it (along with possibly some other works), then it is not a commercial use.

Note that while putting a CC-by-nc-sa work on a freely-accessible site (or one that allows for gratis registration) which contains web commercials may be considered as commercial use, I make an explicit exemption from that and allow for web and Internet commercials. However, note that if you plan on publishing a derivative work or a copy with different kinds of commercials (television, cinema, newspaper advertisements, audio commercials, etc.) you are not exempt from getting me clearance from the licence. I request all the creators of derivative works based on my CC-by-nc-sa, assuming they will apply a derivative copyright, which they are allowed to do, to also exempt people from Internet commercials.

I’m currently using CC-by-nc-sa for the series of screenplays The Blue Rabbit Log (which is still incomplete as of March, 2011), and for some of the Flickr photos, which I’ve published and contain photos of my personal friends.