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Types of material on REStuff:
1) Downloads: These are resources that you are hosted on our site. They can be recognised by the fact that you get an option to "save as". For these files please read the Copyleft information.
2)Links: Although you still click the button labelled download it results in opening a page on a third party site. These files are not owned by REStuff and your use of these falls under the 3rd partys copyright.
3) Linking to files: It is bad practice to link to external PDFs or pictures please link to the html or php page that contains the file in question.
My copyright has been breached
CopyLeft
The license REStuff grants is free access to our content in the same sense as free software is licensed freely. This principle is known as copyleft. That is to say, ReStuff content can be copied, modified, and redistributed so long as the new version grants the same freedoms to others and acknowledges the authors of the material used (a direct link back to the material satisfies our author credit requirement). ReStuff articles therefore will remain free forever and can be used by anybody subject to certain restrictions, most of which serve to ensure that freedom.
To fulfill the above goals, the materials contained in ReStuff is licensed to the public under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). The full text of this license is at Text of the GNU Free Documentation License.
- Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.
- A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
- A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
The English text of the GFDL is the only legally binding document; what follows is our interpretation of the GFDL: the rights and obligations of users and contributors.
IMPORTANT: If you want to use content from REStuff, first read the Users' rights and obligations section. You should then read the GNU Free Documentation License.
Users' rights and obligations
If you want to use ReStuff materials in your own books/articles/web sites or other publications, you can do so, but you have to follow the GFDL. If you are simply duplicating the resource, you must follow section two of the GFDL on verbatim copying.
If you create a derivative version by changing or adding content, this entails the following:
- your materials in turn have to be licensed under GFDL,
- you must acknowledge the authorship of the article (section 4B), and
- you must provide access to the "transparent copy" of the material (section 4J).
You may be able to partially fulfill the latter two obligations by providing a conspicuous direct link back to the Material hosted on this website. You also need to provide access to a transparent copy of the new text.
Example notice
An example notice might read as follows:
- This lesson is licensed under the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html">GNU Free Documentation License</a>. It uses material from the <a href="http://www.restuff.co.uk">Lesson "What the Bible teaches about prejudice "</a>.
Fair use materials and special requirements
All original content iis distributed under the GFDL. Materials may include images, sounds, or text quotes used under. Copyright law "fair use" doctrine. It is preferred that these be obtained under the most free (libre) license (such as the GFDL or public domain) practical. In cases where no such images/sounds are currently available, then fair use images are acceptable (until such time as free images become available).
In such a case, the material should be identified as from an external source (on the powerpoint notes, or on the document, as appropriate).
Image guidelines
Images and photographs, like written works, are subject to copyright. Someone owns them unless they have been explicitly placed in the public domain. Images on the internet need to be licensed directly from the copyright holder or someone able to license on their behalf. In some cases, fair use guidelines may allow a photograph to be used.
U.S. government photographs
Works produced by civilian and military employees of the United States federal government in the scope of their employment are public domain by statute. However, note that, despite popular misconception, the U.S. Federal Government can own copyrights that are assigned to it by others (for example, works created by contractors). Be careful, however: not all images on .mil and .gov websites are public domain. Among other reasons, the site may be using commercial stock photography owned by others. It may be useful to check the privacy and security notice of the website, but only with an email to the webmaster can you be confident that an image is in the public domain. It should also be noted that governments outside the U.S. often do claim copyright over works produced by their employees (for example, Crown Copyright in the United Kingdom). Also, most state and local governments in the United States do not place their work into the public domain and do in fact own the copyright to their work. Please be careful to check ownership information before copying.
UK Crown Copyright
The UK Office of Public Sector Information states:
- Crown copyright protection in published material lasts for fifty years from the end of the year in which the material was first published. Therefore [for example] material published [fifty-one years ago], and any Crown copyright material published before that date, would now be out of copyright, and may be freely reproduced throughout the world. [1]
Celebrity photographs
This is based on the image guidelines at IMDB, so it especially applies to celebrity photographs, but also can apply to other pictures. Legitimate photographs generally come from three different places with permission.
- The studios, producers, magazine publisher, or media outlet that originally shot the photograph.
- Agencies that represent the photographers who shot the photos or the photographer themself (the latter especially for amateur photographs)
- Submissions from the celebrity himself or herself or a legal representative of the celebrity.
Contributors' rights and obligations
If you contribute material to ReStuff, you thereby license it to the public under the GFDL (with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts). In order to contribute, you therefore must be in a position to grant this license, which means that either
- you own the copyright to the material, for instance because you produced it yourself, or
- you acquired the material from a source that allows the licensing under GFDL, for instance because the material is in the public domain or is itself published under GFDL.
You retain copyright to your materials. You can later republish and relicense them in any way you like. However, you can never retract the GFDL license for the versions you placed here: that material will remain under GFDL forever.
Using copyrighted work from others
If you use part of a copyrighted work under "fair use", or if you obtain special permission to use a copyrighted work from the copyright holder under the terms of our license, you must make a note of that fact (along with names and dates). It is our goal to be able to freely redistribute as much of the material as possible, so original images and sound files licensed under the GFDL or in the public domain are greatly preferred to copyrighted media files used under fair use.
Note that copyright law governs the creative expression of ideas, not the ideas or information themselves. Therefore, it is perfectly legal to read an encyclopedia article or other work, reformulate it in your own words, and submit it to REstuff. (See plagiarism and fair use for discussions of how much reformulation is necessary in a general context.)
If you are the owner of REstuff content being used without your permission
If you are the owner of content that is being used on ReStuff without your permission, then you may request the material be immediately removed from ReStuff email us . We will, of course, need some evidence to support your claim of ownership.
