[sword-devel] Copyright, modules, mailing list

[refdoc at gmx.net]

Just as a reminder.

CrossWise does respect copyrights and takes in general a very cautious  view in these matters.

If there is a hint of a doubt regarding the public domain status we do not publish a text unless we have permissions. Whether explicit or via free licensing (Creative Commons and the like). If we believe we require explicit permissions then we welcome the assistance of community members to obtain these, but in the end it will always be the module team or the director who needs to receive the permissions from the copyright owner.

In this way we have on occasion forgone texts we really would like to publish and other projects felt free to publish, but we still believe that this approach has born fruit.

There are occasionally situations where people decided that the only likely approach to convince a copyright owner to grant permissions is to create a module as showcase. This is a potentially risky undertaking, but clearly who does so believes that the risk is acceptable for them personally. As long as such modules are not discussed (explicitely or implicitly)'or offered on the list for testing purposes or otherwise and as long as these people do not describe themselves as community members of CrossWire to the publishers, there clearly is little risk that this approach will affect the project negatively either legally or reputationwise.

Beyond the above, some jurisdictions will permit private use, reuse and transformation of texts otherwise restricted. This is great for individuals, but it does not enable us as an entity to assist with this. Please do not discuss your attempts in this way here. 

Further, we do not promote or permit onwards distribution of modules unless they are in the public domain or the copyright owners have explicitly permitted such onward distribution.To set up a "mirror" other that non publicly accessible strictly private is not acceptable. 

Finally there are of course valid debates to be had in general regarding copyright for Biblical texts  and many of us will have private views quite different from what we uphold as a project. That is fine, as long as we can maintain the commitment to the cautious corporate  approach described above as a community. Sword-devel is not the place to have lengthy debates on these matters and persistently pushing the boundaries in this or any of the above matters is not an acceptable thing to do. 

Sent from my mobile. Please forgive shortness, typos and weird autocorrects.




Sent from my mobile. Please forgive shortness, typos and weird autocorrects.