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Hey, first question -- on copyrights

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Learning K:
Hi all. 

I have other maps to post online, but need to replace the images with ones that are NovaMind graphics, public domain, or purchased -- hopefully in the first two categories.

As I look through images to post from Clip Art sites, some of the ones which are licensed for sale seem to have an agreement which goes something like this:  I will sell you this image for use x, but you cannot share it electronically with others.  Since all of this is new to me, I wonder if I/we post an image on a map for others to see and download, then perhaps such a license would not cover this use.

Is this covered in your agreement?  Do we add a statement to the image:  "licensed image", or something like that just to cover us and NovaMind?  Is this a specific question for the image owner/seller?

Anyway, I will err on the side of not using anything questionable until I am clear.

Thanks for your help.
Kathleen

Gideon:
Hi Kathleen

The whole issue of licensing can be very confusing, and there are many different types of license out there - both standardized and custom, and multiple versions of the "standard" licenses which are often incompatible from version to version, as people discover nuances they hadn't thought of.

Public domain is always OK to share.

Apart from "public domain", they all have some sort of restrictions in place. Some of the image libraries you purchase allow you to share so long as the image is used in some composition (like in a Mind Map) or derivative work (this is the case for the image libraries we have licensed for NovaMind, and hence why we store them in an encrypted library to make it harder for people to just use the images anywhere).

The restrictions fall mainly into the following categories:
Permission - Re-users must ask the copyright holder's permission before using the work.
Notification - Re-users must notify the copyright holder when they use the work.
FullText - Re-users must display the full text of the license every time they use the work.
Attribution - Re-users must attribute the work to the copyright holder when they use it.
ShareAlike - Re-users who create derivatives of the work must release the derivatives under the same license as the original work, if they choose to distribute the derivatives.
NonCommercial - The work can only be used for non-commercial purposes.
NoDerivatives - Re-users are not allowed to distribute derivatives of the work. Essentially the work cannot be modified.

Now with NovaMind connect being an open forum for sharing of Mind Maps - essentially "public domain", with no specific means of passing on licensing information, anything that requires permission or notification is not going to be honored by the majority of users. Anything with a "full text" license would have to have the text of the license visible on the Mind Map itself because a lot of the sharing is going to be the Mind Map image, which is obviously not really feasible.

Similar, but perhaps not quite so bad is the attribution - you might put a key off to one side in an attached text saying "images by..." and list the owners.

ShareAlike is generally ok, so long as the original license allows the public sharing.

Non-commercial is unenforceable on NovaMind connect, as it may well be used in some commercial context by someone. NoDerivatives probably means that you can't use it in a Mind Map anyway as that may be considered a derivative work (not sure about that one), but anyway, as you don't know how someone else may change it, I don't think that really works anyway.

Sorry this is a long post, but essentially it needs to be a public domain or similar license in order for you to be able to legally share it with everyone on NovaMind Connect. This should not be construed as a legal opinion or statement - just my interpretation of what I have seen of the different licenses that are out there and how they relate to the open sharing that we want to foster on NovaMind connect.

Whenever I share an image of a Mind Map from NovaMind Connect, I will almost always give attribution to the author and a link back to the original document on NovaMind connect, so that people can go to the author's profile and find out about them and the other maps they have posted. Note that if you have some commercial business where you use the Mind Maps (as I suspect you, Jean-Pierre, Jeremy, and Viktor do), I would strongly suggest that you put a link to your web site in your profile, so you can get some business benefit out of it.

I hope this helps, and if there is anyone with more experience than me on this question, feel free to chime in.

Learning K:
Thanks so much Gideon.  I will attempt to err on the side of caution.  Your long discussion alerts me to questions to ask when I obtain images.

I don't have a website, yet.  I was waiting to be able to use NovaMind to create one.  Your NM Connect allows me to see what others are doing, and also to learn about important topics like copyrights first.

Kathy

Learning K:
Hi.  This is from the ClipArt.com site.  I have paid to download images for a period of time.  By these words below (under Permitted Uses in the license agreement), I think that as my "intention" is not to allow the images to be used apart from the map context, my use in NM maps would be OK.  Does anyone have a different interpretation of this?

Use the Image(s) in any print or electronic media (except in computer software and electronic video and computer games which require a separate license. See Section F(IX) below), including advertising and editorial use, provided such use is not intended to allow the re-distribution, re-use of the Image(s) or access to the image(s) apart from a product or service.

Thanks again.  I am trying to get this right as I do more online work.
Kathy

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