Copyrights and Licenses

We often need images, drawings, text and so on, while creating teaching aids for CSpathshala. If we are using patent work created by someone else, then we may be using it without permission of the original creator. This can be a potential violation of the IPRs Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) of the author/creator. Let us understand IPRs and its usage.

We are used to various brand names, trademarks, service marks, patents, copyrights and so on. All these entities comes under IPRs. The owner of such names, images and so on, own the rights for its usage. Trademarks and service marks are associated with the logos, brands and so on. Patents are given for new and innovative work. Writings, photographs, images, graphics and software programs have copyrights. We are primarily concerned with copyrights and will discuss more on it. There are laws for protecting the rights of creator in various countries. In India, we have Copyright act that governs all copyright matters.

This is what Indian Copyright office says in their handbook about copyrights: What is copyright? Copyright is a right given by the law to creators of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works and producers of cinematograph films and sound recordings. In fact, it is a bundle of rights including, inter alia, rights of reproduction, communication to the public, adaptation and translation of the work. There could be slight variations in the composition of the rights depending on the work.

Why should copyright be protected? Copyright ensures certain minimum safeguards of the rights of authors over their creations, thereby protecting and rewarding creativity. Creativity being the keystone of progress, no civilized society can afford to ignore the basic requirement of encouraging the same. Economic and social development of a society is dependent on creativity. The protection provided by copyright to the efforts of writers, artists, designers, dramatists, musicians, architects and producers of sound recordings, cinematograph films and computer software, creates an atmosphere conducive to creativity, which induces them to create more and motivates others to create.

For us, it is important to know that copyrights are gained by the author/creator automatically for their Own, Original Work. As such, whenever you write an article or a blog or a poem or a painting or take a photograph, you automatically get a copyright of the same. There is no need to explicitly acquire a registered copyright for the work. However, you are free to register your work with the copyright registrars.

It is obvious from the mentioned information, that if someone wants to use the work of any other creator/author, then they should have permission from the creator/author so that the rights are duly acknowledged and compensation (if any) for the same is given to the creator.

Not all creator/author want to share their work publicly for the general benefit of the society. However, many creator/author release their work under a suitable LICENSE. If we want to use their work, then we have to accepts the terms and conditions of the license and then we can use the work freely. GNU Free Document License (FDL) is one such license and the other most popular license is the Creative Commons (CC) License. These licenses are created and used with the work so that people can use/share the creators work easily without any legal hassles of copyright violation.

As per the CC license, you are free to use, share and redistribute the work. Additionally, depending on the variations of the license, attribution to the creator, permission to be used for commercial COPYRIGHTS AND LICENSES purposes and so on, are added. If there are no restrictions mentioned, it is called CC-zero which is equivalent to public domain work.

Other variations of the CC licenses are as follows:  CC-BY: Creative Commons, Attribution required  CC-BY-SA: Creative Commons, Attribution required, Share Alike  CC-BY-SA-NC: Creative Commons, Attribution required, Share Alike, cannot be used for commercial purposes. For commercial use, owner permission is required.

FDL also has similar terms and conditions.

Please understand that copyrights and licenses are legal matters and must be respected and adhered to. While using any text, images and so on, in the presentations or elsewhere, the same must be under any of such Free/Open licenses. We will be using any material strictly under FDL or CC- zero or CC-BY. All the content created for CSpathshsala shall be released under CC-BY license. CSpathshala shall hold the copyright for all the content. Contribution of all volunteers will be acknowledged and attributed at appropriate places.

Following are the instances where copyrights and licenses will matter:  Templates for presentations.  Images used in presentations such as background images or other images.  Text used from other websites/books and so on.  Various animations, drawings, sounds and videos.  Fonts: The license of the fonts used on your system should be verified. The fonts may not be freely distributable, usable. Dos and Don'ts

Do 1. Create your own images/text and use it in the work. (that is the best way to do things) 2. Use images/photos/animations/drawings and so on, that have free/open licenses. Use files that have maximum resolution/size. 3. Use text from other places directly, provided that text is also under free/open licenses. 4. Use Wikipedia and sister projects extensively. The material present at these sites is with free/open licenses. Various images, drawings, audio/videos and so on, are available on http://commons.wikimedia.org. Many useful articles in English are available on http://en.wikipedia.org. Articles are available in various other languages at Wikipedia. To get the article in your desired language, replace the language code from en. For example, For Marathi Wikipedia, use http://mr.wikipedia.org . You can also use Wikipedia in simple English. This is primarily for non-native users of English language. Check out http://simple.wikipedia.org . For other projects such as Wikiveristy or Wikibooks and so on, visit http://wikimedia.org for more information. 5. Prepare a list of the images/content used and from its source. Mention the source at the end of the work you have created, so that its license is verified by the volunteer. 6. If work is already created using external files and the licenses is not known, then avid usinge such content and replace it by licensed files. 7. Create your work that is technology neutral. The users will not necessarily have the same infrastructure that you have while creating. Some may be using PCs/laptops and others may be using tablets/mobiles. Use open formats to facilitate this. 8. Create your work that is vendor neutral. Usage of Proprietary operating systems, applications should be avoided. Not all the users will have those systems/applications. COPYRIGHTS AND LICENSES

Remaining vendor neutral always helps.

Don’ts

1. Do not use any material without the permission of the copyright holder, if the license does not allow and you have any queries or confusion regarding the material. 2. If the mentioned material is already used in the work, then remove it and replace with licensed material. 3. Do not directly copy-paste text from the source. Modify it slightly in your own way. 4. Do not use proprietary products, names, formats and so on. For example, ppt and pptx to be avoided. 5. Do not redistribute patent work without proper license/permissions. 6. Do not modify patent work without proper license/permissions. 7. Do not forget to give attribution to the creator even if it is not mentioned in the license.

References and recommended reading: 1. GNU FDL: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.en.html 2. Creative commons licenses: https://creativecommons.org/licenses 3. Wikimedia commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page 4. Wikimedia commons category: Computer science: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Computer_science 5. Creative Commons FAQ : https://creativecommons.org/faq/ 6. CC-BY license : https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 7. Indian Copyright office website: http://copyright.gov.in

PS: By default, google search does not display any text or images. (Exceptions are Google's own work that comes up in the search). It display content from various websites. The content such as images are not created by Google. Check out the author and the license for such images before using. It is wrong to use the term “I use Google images for presentations”

COPYRIGHTS AND LICENSES

Terms and Conditions

I have read and understood the above write up about copyrights and licenses. I am willingly working for CSpathshala as a volunteer and do not have any commercial interest in the project.

I hereby declare that in my current contribution,

I have created my own text, images that are used in my contribution and I have released it under CC-BY 4.0 license.

I have used somebody else’s work that is under CC-BY license in my contribution. The names of the author/creator and the source from where it is taken is mentioned at the end of my contribution work.

I have used somebody else’s work for which I have not taken any permission and/or I do not know the license for the same. CSpathshala is free to remove such content and can replace it with any other content without my permission.

I am also committing that whatever contribution I do henceforth for CSpathshala shall be under CC- BY 4.0 license. Also, if I have to use somebody else’s content, I shall ensure that it has a proper license and I shall mention the source and the author along with the same.

I am accepting that the copyright for the work in which I am volunteering shall be with CSpathshala and I shall not claim any rights on the same. I am releasing my work without any liabilities to me or to CSpathshala.

Signature: ______

Name: ______

Dated: MM/DD/YYYY