Why Licencing is important
Software preservation is not easy work, but intellectual property and copyright laws make it even more difficult. We have spent many frustrating hours trying unsuccessfully to trace copyright owners to get permission to undertake software conservation work. In many cases, companies from the 1980s and 1990s have disappeared, leaving few records on who owns what. In most cases, this early software will not be worth any money, given it runs on obsolete systems, but it is certainly of historical interest. Current commercial copyright laws, however, prevent it from being conserved.
This is why we are suggesting that as people upload their early software works, they make their wishes about what they want to happen to the work clear. If they want their work to survive and are happy to have conservation work done on it, then selecting a licence that makes this possible at the time the work is uploaded will make the whole process much easier.
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If you are uploading assets like images or sounds
If you are uploading image or sound files, or wish to specify licences for assets incorporated within software, we suggest you consider using a Creative Commons licence.
You can find out more about Creative Commons and the different licences offered at www.creativecommons.org. There is a great animated movie that explains more about Creative Commons here. Their FAQ is here.
Creative Commons is not against copyright. It is an alternative to copyright’s "all rights reserved", offering a "some rights reserved".
Creative Commons licences are non-exclusive, so selecting a licence on this site does not mean that you cannot offer other people different licences.
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Different Creative Commons Licences and Choosing one to suit you
The following are some of the Creative Commons Licences that you might like to consider for non-software assets, or for specific assets within a piece of software (e.g., the music):
Attribution-noncommercial
Attribution-noncommercial-sharealike
Attribution
Attribution-Share Alike
Public Domain
Sampling Plus
Noncommercial Sampling Plus
There is a handy tool on the Creative Commons site here that helps you to choose a licence to suit your situation.
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The GPL: A Licence specifically for Software
If you are uploading software, and you have and own the source code, we recommend you use the GNU GPL (General Public) Licence. Being a relatively mature software licence, the GPL has a number of benefits over other Creative Commons licences, which are not intended for software. Your content will also be visible to others interested in Creative Commons and software. The GPL is available here. There is a Creative Commons wrapped version of this licence here.
The GPL requires that source code be made available, so please remember to send this to us.
The GPL provides both recognition for the authors of software, and the freedom for others to study the software, adapt it and redistribute copies of the modified software. As such, we think it is the best currently available licencing option for historic software.
If you want to facilitate the preservation and archiving of your software, this licence gives latitude to allow the copying, format shifting and distribution that current software preservation requires.
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Public Domain
If you want to offer your work with no conditions, choose the Public Domain. Public Domain means that anyone can use or adapt the works for any purpose, including for profit.
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And if you don’t like any of these options?
You can, of course, choose a different (Creative Commons or other) licence if you want to. There is a list of open source licences here.
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Once you have selected a licence
We will then place the Creative Commons "Some Rights Reserved" button on the site, near your work, and make available any content that you have consented to share with others.
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Sample CC Logo
This is one example of the icon and message that will be displayed with entries that have licenced code submitted.
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