The Tender For Law

Volume 13

Mar 02, 2016 2:32 PM

Steven Sharp

"DO NOT DISTORT, OMIT, EDIT, OR CONCEAL WHAT I SAY!

DO NOT CHANGE THE WORDS BECAUSE IT SOUNDS "COOLER".

ABOVE ALL, DO NOT LIE ABOUT WHAT I SAY!

STOP SPREADING LIES. IF YOU ARE TOO STUPID TO KNOW YOU ARE LYING, YOU ARE LYING FOR SOMEBODY ELSE!" -Scott Duncan

I have a question as regards the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, specifically the part about deriving works(the "DO NOT DISTORT, OMIT, EDIT, OR CONCEAL WHAT I SAY!" part).

I often wish to quote one of Scott or Tara's published 'Notes', to shut down some idiotic discussion in some other forum. But the relevant quote is often buried half-way down the Note-For-Idiots.

I'm wondering if its acceptable to quote a line or paragraph from one of those notes(which would be distorting/omitting/editing/possibly concealing) as long as I link directly to the original work?

If not, is there no other option then just posting the link, and hoping people read and dig through it to find the part I found relevant?

Read Comments

Tara Duncan

This is an excellent question. Thank you for posting it.

Anyone who has ever attended school, or considered a career in journalism, has been introduced to the concept of plagiarism; and the possible repercussions for not attributing existing works you reproduce, alter, paraphrase, or include (in any way) in your own creations.

According to the Creative Commons Corporation (US) article, "Best practices for attribution" (https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Best_practices_for_attribution#This_is_an_ideal_attribution),

"You can use CC-licensed materials as long as you follow the license conditions. One condition of all CC licenses is attribution."

Correctly attributing source material is described in detail further down the page, in the section entitled, "Title, Author, Source, License".

Another document, written by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (www.cci.edu.au) provides informative, illustrated examples of how to use Creative Commons' licensed materials properly. This information is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia licence, and can be found here ==> http://creativecommons.org.au/materials/attributingccmaterials.pdf.

An excerpt from this document provides additional details:

"What to include when attributing

The same principles apply to providing attribution across all CC licences. You should:

- credit the creator; - provide the title of the work; - provide the URL where the work is hosted; - indicate the type of license it is available under and provide a link to the licence (so others can find out the licence terms); and - keep intact any copyright notice with the work.

This may sound like a lot of information, but there is flexibility in the way you present it. With a bit of clever formatting and linking it is easy to include all this information, particularly in the digital environment."

If all your thoughts, ideas, drawings, code, photographs (you get the idea), are completely original, no attribution should be necessary. Otherwise, anything you produce, especially if it enters the public domain, should include an investigation of how to correctly attribute work originally produced by others.

In the case of Creative Commons, Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0), license, a description of how materials may be used can be found here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ which includes:

"You are free to:

Share � copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms."

Make sure you read and understand the terms of use described in: "Under the following terms:"

Most commercial works have licensed restrictions relating to their use and distribution; and both commercial and non-commercial works can utilize the Creative Commons licenses (yes, more than one category). Before using anything originally attributed to another person, business, entity, you should take the time to familiarize yourself with how it is licensed, and if, and how, it can be used.

TL;DR: When using material licensed under Creative Commons, Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license, quote the information you are using directly, reference the article name (if it exists) and author, and provide a link to the information. In all cases where you can't be bothered to research how to attribute someone else's work -- don't use it, say nothing.

Steven Sharp

Seeing as how your works are, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, PUBLISHED under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, they don't allow derivatives.

I'm concerned that quoting a line or paragraph can easily be used/taken out of context.

I suppose the root of my original question was; does quoting a line, or paragraph from one of your works(even if I correctly credit and attribute, and link to the full piece) count as a derivative of it?