Project:Inclusion policy
Contents
Wikilivres Purpose
The purpose of Wikilivres is to host creative works, primarily texts, and images, that in the public domain, or under a free license.
Copyright Notification
The copyright status of all texts and other material hosted here must be indicated where it appears, or by an appropriate link to a discussion page or to the head page of a multipage document.
Public Domain in Canada
This site was first hosted in Canada and therefore it followed Canadian copyright law. Works clearly in the public domain were all legally acceptable. The relevant parts of the law are summarized at public domain in Canada.
The principal rules of thumb for Canadian copyright law include:
- Copyright lasts for the life of the author plus fifty years, at the end of the calendar year.
- Canada follows the rule of the shorter term.
- The exception to this are works from Mexico or the United States, due to membership in NAFTA.
- This means that both Mexico and the US copyright material has at the very least Canadian-length copyright protection, as long as it had not entered the public domain before NAFTA ratification.
- This has no practical impact regarding US material.
- In Mexico copyright law, there have been a variety of term lengths in the past.
In 2018, due to pressure from the US, Canada decided to sign up to a deal which among other things retroactively increases the time works remain in copyright to life +70. For this reason Wikilivres moved servers and its legal position to South Korea. Under South Korean law, works enter the public domain 50 years after the beginning of the year after the author's death.
The site was briefly hosted in Korea before moving to New Zealand.
Public Domain and Copyright Licences Welcome at Wikilivres
Wikilivres accepts texts in the following copyright licences:
- Public Domain under Nes Zealand Law - (PD-NZ)
- Creative Commons Attribution (4.0 or later) - (CC-BY-4)
- Creative Commons Attribution, Share-Alike (4.0 or later) - (CC-BY-SA-4)
- Creative Commons Attribution, Share Alike, No Derrivatives (4.0 or later) - (CC-BY-ND-4)
- Creative Commons Attribution, Share Alike, Non-Commercial, No Derrivatives (4.0 or later) - (CC-BY-NC-ND-4)
- Gnu Public License v3 or later with font exclusion - (GPL-3-FE)
Copyright Licences Not Hosted at Wikilivres
Previously works had been accepted under three licenses which are no longer allowed:
- CC-BY-NC-SA
- CC-BY-NC
- GnuFDL
Both the CC-BY-NC-SA and CC-BY-NC licenses can create orphan works, as argued by Stallman.
- For works already licensed CC-BY-NC-SA, these works cannot be relicensed properly to be hosted at Wikilivres.
- For CC-BY-NC licensed works, these can be relicensed under CC-BY-NC-ND.
The GnuFDL has several issues which create problems for works under that licence. The main issue is that it has an exception for parts of a text that cannot be changed, and has a problem insofar that only a part of the work can be modified, but other parts might not be modifiable. This hybrid problem is solved at places such as Wikimedia Commons by dual licensing under CC-BY-SA, however these are not compatible licenses. Because these issues are best avoided, GFDL licensed works cannot be hosted at Wikilivres.
By restricting the three licences above, the intent is to remain true to freely licensed works. In all cases, the freedom to distribute the works are preserved.
Previous Licensing Restrictions at Wikilivres
Between mid 2012 and early 2017, CC-BY-ND and CC-BY-NC-ND were no longer accepted at Wikilivres. This policy has been reversed and as of 01 May 2017, those works are once again welcome at Wikilivres. The main clarification is that in discussion with the community, it became clear that works under such a license preserved the freedom to distribute such works, and rejecting them from Wikilivres is counter to the idea of hosting freely licensed works.
Languages Supported at Wikilivres
This site currently accepts material in the English (including Middle English), French, Russian, German, Spanish, Chinese, Czech, and Polish languages. Additional languages may be acceptable on condition that sufficient skills are available for the curation of material in such languages. Small collections of Albanian, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Georgian, Hebrew, Neapolitan, and Turkish material are also hosted here.
We encourage derivative works in translation at Wikilivres. Many of the works here are translations.
Disclaimer and Use Agreement
In the face of a credible challenge to a work, whether on copyright or other legal bases, the work may be temporarily made unavailable but still available for restoration if the challenge is later determined to be invalid.
All editors at Wikilivres agree to follow South Korean law, and the law of their home country regarding copyright, trademark, obscenity, pornography, libel, defamation, hate speech, and other applicable laws.
Wikilivres abides by the Canadian Notice-Notice procedures, and other international copyright complaint procedures where appropiate.
Wikilivres reserves the right to temporarily or permanently restrict access to a work, either completely or via geolocation filters, to comply with relevant court orders. Furthermore Wikilivres reserves the right to make alterations to works hosted to comply with relevant court orders.
