20 replies to this topic

[Nameless_]

Hello people... after a long break from Trap17 working on my blog, I have come to find that Trap17 is now working on a Creative Commons License. You can see that this is true from the Creative Commons License Buttons on the bottom of the forum... And after looking at the license, it seems like everyone and anyone can now take what we have posted here on Trap17 and change it or say that it is their own work.

Now, I have a few works that I have posted on here, and I do not wish for anyone to take it as their own, so is it possible for me to edit my works so that they are now gone? Also, I have posted on under the (No post count) forums. If I edit it, does that mean that I will lose myCents?

Thanks... I didn't know that Trap17 was on Creative Commons... -Sky-, you better watch out, because your Chronicles of Niko might get taken by someone else and they might put it up on their site instead soon....

Nameless_

[OpaQue]

The Creative Commons License clearly says

Quote

Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

The Notice at the bottom of the page says

Quote

Notice — For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page.

So, not only your work gets its right value but you are also able to reach a wider audience. I believe the resource on the internet should be free, Hence the Creative Commons License.

[mahesh2k]

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And after looking at the license, it seems like everyone and anyone can now take what we have posted here on Trap17 and change it or say that it is their own work.

Are you worried about it ? If so, don't be. Advertisers and readers don't flock at blogs or sites who rip off content of others and present as theirs(without any credit). There are many black hat SEO people out there and i came across many9from warrior forum) who get content from creative commons forum or blogs and just aggregate at one place. Monetize and earn from it. Advertisers and readers can easily find out the rewritten(or copied) articles and once they find out then such sites go down. How you can confirm this ? Just go to any scraper or rip-off blog.

For example, this blog rips of personal profiles of orkut people and post it on blog. This blog never got warning about duplicate content from google but google warned blogger about posting testimonials and profile info on his blog without permission. If more people report such scrapers then i'm sure this scraping and rip off business will be out soon. I don't know when such blogs will go down. Blogspot.com is heaven for Black hat people or scrapers and spammers.

As far as taking pictures from blog or forum, i don't think it makes any trouble unless photograher has any commercial interest. If any, then we better respect his work.

For me, we have contributed lot of stuff here on trap17. I don't mind people taking it out and rewrite it and have some cash cause it is in creative commons and they have to credit us back for the stuff we have here. If they don't then they are thieves, and don't expect some rational moves from those who steal. We should do what good needs to be done from side, let some parasite survives their own way.

[manish-mohania]

Hi,

I think CC license means, others can:

1. create a new work based on your work.
2. create a derivative of your work.

but on a condition that others have to give credit to you for your work.

It doesn't mean others can steal your hard work. It just allows others to share your work.

I think it will allow more people to have access to your content/work and will thus bring more fame to you

-- edit --
Ooops ... I missed the two posts above .. sorry ..

Edited by manish-mohania, 12 December 2009 - 08:08 AM.

[Nameless_]

Perhaps that might be the case, but what if I want to post them on my blog, or something like that? Also, yes, people do copy, and they might get caught, but many of them don't. It's not the posts that I am worried about, it's my articles and my works... in particularly the Train Journey article that I have written and the two psychic phenomena tutorial articles... apart from that, I have no worries.

I mean... well, unless people are absolutely sure that I did this thing, I don't want anyone copying it... or making a deviation out of it, especially the Train Journey one, because I like that idea a lot and it is rather original and unique to me... Can you provide me with other means of persuading me that I shouldn't take those three posts down?

Thanks, Nameless_

[mahesh2k]

If you are worried about your posts in your blog getting copied. You can do two things:

1) Copyscape protection widget(sane one will stop by seeing this,insane one will continue).
2) Use Copy-protection plugin that don't let people select text on your blog.

These are your safeguard for your own blog. For wordpress i can guide you for such plugins cause i'm using it on my blog cause i have found few rippers from my own country doing that. So i installed the plugin and i don't have to worry about copy now.

For Drupal i'm not sure of any such plugin, but you can always ask about this to drupal bloggers or on drupal forums.

[BCD]

Nameless_, on Dec 12 2009, 02:15 PM, said:

I don't want anyone copying it... or making a deviation out of it...

May be this issue can be sorted out like this. First to know what was the posting policy at the time you posted the posts here. If it said posters were the sole copyright holders of their posts, then you are indeed the righteous owner of the post, because you posted it in accordance with rules at that time. So trap17 can also put at the footer below cc banner, that the posts dated before so and so belong to their respective posters. This might solve your concern.

[rvalkass]

Nameless_, on Dec 12 2009, 08:45 AM, said:

Perhaps that might be the case, but what if I want to post them on my blog, or something like that? Also, yes, people do copy, and they might get caught, but many of them don't. It's not the posts that I am worried about, it's my articles and my works... in particularly the Train Journey article that I have written and the two psychic phenomena tutorial articles... apart from that, I have no worries.

I mean... well, unless people are absolutely sure that I did this thing, I don't want anyone copying it... or making a deviation out of it, especially the Train Journey one, because I like that idea a lot and it is rather original and unique to me... Can you provide me with other means of persuading me that I shouldn't take those three posts down?

Thanks, Nameless_

Before the Creative Commons licence was added to the forums, all works were copyright to you and you were providing a licence to Trap17 to show them on its website. Now the content is still copyright to you but people are free to use portions of it elsewhere as long as they cite you as the source - usually by providing a link back to the original location if they are reproducing it online. Therefore, by law, people have to make it clear where they got the content from and who originally created it. The same goes if people make derivations from your work.

Personally I would have preferred the CC-by-nc-nd licence.

[manish-mohania]

@BCD
I agree with you. It can be done... but I think posting policy at that time was not that liberal and it didn't give the poster sole right to it's posts. I do not exactly remember ... I might be wrong.

@Nameless_

Nameless_, on Dec 12 2009, 02:15 PM, said:

I mean... well, unless people are absolutely sure that I did this thing, I don't want anyone copying it... or making a deviation out of it, especially the Train Journey one, because I like that idea a lot and it is rather original and unique to me...

From the logo being displayed at trap17 footer. I realize that it is CC (by-sa) license and NOT CC(by-nd). CC(nd) prevents any derivative work from the original work.

Quote

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia....ommons_licenses
Attribution + ShareAlike (by-sa)
which means, a derivative work should also apply the same license to itself.

Attribution i.e credit can be given in many ways;
Others have to give attribution to "the best of their ability using the information available".
see wikipedia for details.

In reality, people usually don't sue for copyright violations unless and until it involves large sum of money. Best way to fight copyright violations is to make more and more people aware of your work. Let people know that it is your work.

Ah ... thank god .. good souls still live on earth

[anwiii]

my take on it is this. there are pros and cons just like with anything else. i don't know why you have your panties in a twist nameless. trap17 is public. anyone from anywhere can copy your posts and use them as their own. nothing is stopping anyone from doing that in the past....before the ccl. the ccl, in my opinion is more of an agreement than a license and i question it's legal validity on a forum where most of the original work is coming from the users of the forum and not the forum owners.

but....dude....grab your purse and relax a little because everything is going to be the same as how it always was. the license just gives permission to share your work and even edit it before sharing it. this is no different than before....legally or illegally in how people can always copy and paste across the net

i wouldn't delete any of your posts. what are you thinking?!?!? nobody from another website even knows who you are bud...why would you ever care to give up some of your copyrights? worse case scenario is they make money off your content but i think you are protected against any commercial use. but what if you weren't. who the @#$% cares. if you want your information private, don't post it publically unless you have a good lawyer and willing to take someone to court. BFD! all your commotion caused your panty hose to rip so just chill.

as far as your website, trap17 is not affiliated in any way with it and your content is yours and reproducing it without your permission would be illegal....although there are some court findings recently that are questioning the legalities of copying someone elses work for non commercial use. i am curious how that is going to unfold.....

BUT! you have no means to take anyone to court so when you host a website with original content, just go on the assumption that it will never be protected in the eyes of the law. this is how you have to look at things. now. if you were eventually making money off your website and had $5k to fight someone in court for stealing you content when they themselve were making money off it too, then by all means....take appropriate actions.

are you gettin' me yet? although there are laws which give you rights, it's hard to enforce those laws so you have to do things with a grain of salt. life is far from fair sometimes. maybe you should write about that in your next blog

i personally am all for sharing of information. god knows i have recieved more than i have gave on the internet. for that, i am gratefull and i don't mind giving back. but this so-called license wont really change much of anything because most people do whatever they want anyway....

[truefusion]

The only thing that i would say would cause problems is when it comes time to figuring out if the post is legit. No doubt the Creative Commons license encourages sharing the material provided herein, but as mentioned, not everyone will quote their source in these external sites, and it is uncertain whether or not these external sources will provide a post date for us to differentiate which one came first.

Other than that, it should be the case that if you state that you do not want your post shared outside of Trap17 in your post, i would suspect that to be a "moral right," which you are entitled to. Albeit, you may have to read their complicated version of the license in order to really determine what "moral right" means.

[Nameless_]

truefusion, on Dec 13 2009, 03:43 AM, said:

The only thing that i would say would cause problems is when it comes time to figuring out if the post is legit. No doubt the Creative Commons license encourages sharing the material provided herein, but as mentioned, not everyone will quote their source in these external sites, and it is uncertain whether or not these external sources will provide a post date for us to differentiate which one came first.

Other than that, it should be the case that if you state that you do not want your post shared outside of Trap17 in your post, i would suspect that to be a "moral right," which you are entitled to. Albeit, you may have to read their complicated version of the license in order to really determine what "moral right" means.

This is so complicated. That's why I don't like posting stuff on the internet... Unless I have a certain proof that this post is made by me, seriously, anyone can pose as the random user "Nameless_ from Trap17" and claim the post as theirs. This is so hard... I don't know what to do now.

I think, to be very very honest with everyone, it is just mainly the fact that I didn't post the Train Journey thing in the right place (I posted it in the no post count area), and therefore didn't get anything for that and that is why I am going crazy about it... ARGH!!! I mean, at least I published it in the school magazine. That counts as proof, right?

I don't know what to do now. Should I delete the three posts or WHAT? I am in a dilemma now.

At mahesh2k: Yeah... I'll see if there is a module for that (plug-in for wordpress) on Drupal so that people don't copy my posts, but I can't use that for Trap17, can I?

[anwiii]

it says the user must attribbute the work in the mannor specified by the author. this can mean a whole bunch of things. but it's clear that if you have any conditions, you should put disclaimers on all your posts. what is morally correct is relative. the fact is, the internet is the life blood of researching and sharing information. it always has been. you don't need a so-called license to reinforce it. hardly anyone is going to read it anyway....

[mahesh2k]

Quote

At mahesh2k: Yeah... I'll see if there is a module for that (plug-in for wordpress) on Drupal so that people don't copy my posts, but I can't use that for Trap17, can I? tongue.gif

Now i'm with anwii for this type of thinking of yours. Are you worried about your text from this site will be copied and people will make money from it ? This is just too much. I can understand about your own blog but are you worried about your text in another site(this forum) which is paying you in return ?

Besides truefusion,rvalkass,haslip and anwii and many others have already written worthy content that can be easily copied and can be used to get some green bucks. I don't see them getting turned off this Creative commons. I just want to know at what post in this forum made you think that the content you put is of utmost value and shouldn't be copied ? In that case, why you posted that much valued post here ? Isn't something like that should be on your blog ? You know if you are starting to think this way,you'll hardly reap any benefit from internet. I failed to see how people will catch your blog and be long term reader. Don't worry about parasites. For 100 parasites that stick to your posts here or on your blog, you should concentrate on atleast 5 good reader which will bring long term benefit to your blog. For most of us, information on internet was more valuable than our posts, so more we can contribute lesser we feel like contributed. I'm less worried about my stuff from here getting copied and even if it does, i know what to do if that info is in anyway hurting me.

Quote

anyone can pose as the random user "Nameless_ from Trap17" and claim the post as theirs. sad.gif This is so hard... sad.gif I don't know what to do now.

If someone can do that in my case. I'll find it out and i'll screw that ripper my way. You're just worried about something which is not that of problem as far i can see. Look at the replies people posted here.

[rvalkass]

Nameless_, on Dec 12 2009, 10:12 PM, said:

This is so complicated. That's why I don't like posting stuff on the internet... Unless I have a certain proof that this post is made by me, seriously, anyone can pose as the random user "Nameless_ from Trap17" and claim the post as theirs. This is so hard... I don't know what to do now.

I'm not entirely sure what you're worrying about. People could claim to be you before the forum switched to Creative Commons, so nothing has changed in that respect. The difference now is that people can quote parts of your work, but they must make it clear that you are the original author of that work. For example, when I use Creative Commons images from Flickr (currently using them on postcards) I add a line like the following to the back of the printed postcard:

Image "image-name" by user-name released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence. (depending on the exact licence used)

The same now applies to content on Trap17. People can quote it but must cite the original poster as their source, make it clear that they are the source and not mkae any claims that the work is their own, or apply any affiliation between themselves and the original author. Before the introduction of the Creative Commons licence people were not explicitly told that they had to cite the original author (although most countries laws legislate that they must). You can technically sue anyone who uses your content without citing you as the source, although I'm not sure you are that protective over it.

Nameless_, on Dec 12 2009, 10:12 PM, said:

I don't know what to do now. Should I delete the three posts or WHAT? I am in a dilemma now.

Why would you want to delete them? Legally, people still have to cite you as the source. If anything the Creative Commons licence hammers this point home and will make people more likely to cite you as the original author than before it was introduced.

In all honesty if you do find someone copying your content and not citing you then you have a few options:

• Send them an email/letter politely asking for the content to be removed, or adding you as the source.
  
• Contact their hosting provider and make it clear that this person is breaching copyright law.
  
• Make use of that evil piece of legislation (if you're in the US) known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
  
• Speak to your solicitor.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but it just as much a legal issue as someone copying articles from a newspaper and publishing them in a book without permission for example.

[OpaQue]

rvalkass, on Dec 12 2009, 03:31 PM, said:

Before the Creative Commons licence was added to the forums, all works were copyright to you and you were providing a licence to Trap17 to show them on its website. Now the content is still copyright to you but people are free to use portions of it elsewhere as long as they cite you as the source - usually by providing a link back to the original location if they are reproducing it online. Therefore, by law, people have to make it clear where they got the content from and who originally created it. The same goes if people make derivations from your work.

Personally I would have preferred the CC-by-nc-nd licence.

Very Very Good Suggestion Rvalkass... I want more opinions on which licence is to be used on Trap17. I put the Logo there because I felt it looks Cool and might scare some leeches off.

As for as Plagiarism is concerned, Copying Content is something taken for Granted on the Internet because most of the information is in the form of TEXT. Tasks like copying, pasting, saving and distributing text is basics. All of us here know that and I m damn sure every Trapper knows what CTRL+C is.

[Nameless_]

Hmm... OK then... I guess I will just leave them on the site then... But thank you very much though. I guess I am just a paranoid person... yeah well, because those weren't exactly discussion posts, they are similar to articles, so people can just copy and paste on their blog and not change anything, but I suppose you are right...

Who is going to read it anyway? No one. Well, maybe one or two... should be fine though... and that is what I hope. And if they like it, they might want to come to my blog to see what I have to share as well... so maybe it is a good thing after all???

It's not only the Creative Commons thing though. I was wondering whether to take them down way before that. But anyway... Cheers, Nameless_

[mahesh2k]

No, you did right thing by raising this question. As later someone will going to raise this issue anyway. So as we already have thread on this we can redirect new discussion to here. So thanks to you we got different opinion on CC.

My suggestion is still the same for your blog: If you are worried then it is better to use Copyscape widget or Module that don't let user copy your blog text. Why i'm suggesting this is that cause your blog is in self-help sub niche or pure (philosophy). Which may drop into rippers attention if you post any self-help topics. So instead of fearing about rippers it is better to use copy protection if you really get worried about it.

[truefusion]

OpaQue, on Dec 13 2009, 07:12 AM, said:

I want more opinions on which licence is to be used on Trap17.

I'd vote for the same one, if we were to stick with Creative Commons. Then again, i'm not sure if the other, non-Creative Common licenses would fit this environment.

[xtrap]

truefusion, on Dec 14 2009, 11:08 PM, said:

I'd vote for the same one, if we were to stick with Creative Commons. Then again, i'm not sure if the other, non-Creative Common licenses would fit this environment.

So you are referring to this License correct?
http://creativecommo...s/by-nc-nd/3.0/

[anwiii]

you could do all those things without a creative common license. i am still unclear how a license of this sort is implimented with forum postings. how does a visitor know this forum is under a creative common license to begin with? also, what happens with the posts that were published before the creative common license? does the author need to put the license in their signature or something since the forum owners aren't the authors? wouldn't users have to agree to a creative common license? is it already in the terms( i haven't read them). if an author want to dictate how the post is to be handled within the creative common license, do they just do that within' the post itself? what if someone copies something from somewhere and post it on trap without it being detected. how would the creative common license come in to effect? we are literally giving permission to allow someone to post it elsewhere even if it infringes on copywrite law?

now those are my questions. i don't really see any problems with a creative common license. i am just wondering also the legalities of it and the enforceable aspects of it as well. i am wondering the benefits of it when an author can easily give up their rights on their own terms without a creative common license. i find a creative common license on a forum to be a little tricky...but on a personal website, not so tricky.

rvalkass, on Dec 13 2009, 05:10 AM, said:

why would you want to delete them? Legally, people still have to cite you as the source. If anything the Creative Commons licence hammers this point home and will make people more likely to cite you as the original author than before it was introduced.

In all honesty if you do find someone copying your content and not citing you then you have a few options:

• Send them an email/letter politely asking for the content to be removed, or adding you as the source.
  
• Contact their hosting provider and make it clear that this person is breaching copyright law.
  
• Make use of that evil piece of legislation (if you're in the US) known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
  
• Speak to your solicitor.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but it just as much a legal issue as someone copying articles from a newspaper and publishing them in a book without permission for example.