Saturday 3 March 2012

Copyright and licensing of "A View from the Cycle-Path"

We provide the content of this blog as a service to our readers. It is free to access, but copyright remains with the authors.

Our content falls under international copyright law. This happens automatically for any writings or other creative content and we have never waived any of our rights under these laws. Many people have used our content, but they have almost always done so within the spirit of how we made our material available. We want people to be able to comment on what we do, and to build on what we do. This is what blogging is about.

Recent events have made it necessary for us to make clear where the lines of what we consider to be reasonable use lie. We have taken the decision to formally waive our rights in some cases but to retain our rights in other cases, as explained below.

Text and photos
Several different common situations where we consider use to be fair. When we discuss use of photos we mean that the photos should be kept whole. Removing a watermark from our photos or replacing it with your own is never acceptable:
  • Students and researchers: If you wish to use our material as part of research or in essays then you may quote small sections of text and use small numbers of photos, but you must attribute the source. Such quoting of part of our articles must be in accordance with the  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license. Please do not copy entire blog posts.
  • Individual not-for-profit bloggers: Individuals who have their own non commercial blog may quote sections of our text or use small numbers of photos. For these purposes you can consider our work to be licensed in accordance with the same Creative Commons license as above. Always include a link to the source. Please do not copy entire blog posts.
  • Individual blogs with a small income: We define people who run a blog which achieves a small amount of income, up to €500 per year, through advertisements or selling small quantities of goods as "NonCommercial". You can use our material with the same rights as people who do not make any profit from their blogs, always including a link to the source. Please do not copy entire blog posts.
  • Small to medium sized campaigning groups: Non-commercial campaigning organisations which have a small income through subscriptions and selling of small quantities of goods, which do not have paid staff and which have a membership no larger than the Cambridge Cycling Campaign (at the time of writing, approximately 1100) may also consider themselves to be "NonCommercial" and therefore make use of individual photos or quotes from our material on their websites and printed newsletters - with attribution. In some circumstances, you may wish to copy entire blog posts for your printed newsletter. Please contact us for permission.
  • Internal use by small to medium sized campaigning groups: Sometimes, campaigning organisations like to use our photos or text as part of presentations made to local government or other officials. This is encouraged, but please always include attribution to the source.
  • Blogs which belong to small bike shops. If you own your own bicycle shop with one location and also write a blog about cycling then you are in most cases free to quote from our text and use individual photos on your blog under the same conditions as the other examples above. Always include attribution in the form of a link to the source. Do not copy entire blog posts and do not use our photos or text overtly to sell your goods.
  • Please note that in all the above cases we have written about quoting small sections of our material. We are interested in seeing other people create their own new content which quotes from ours, but we do not wish to see wholesale copying of our content. If you feel you have are in one of the above categories and have good reason to want to copy a whole article then please ask for permission. We will almost certainly say yes.
Organisations which have paid employees, including large non-profit organisations, can expect under most situations to be asked for payment in return for our content. These include:
  • Large campaigning groups: We define "large" as any campaigning organisation which has sufficient income to pay staff salaries or which has a membership over 1100. In these cases, campaign groups should expect that under most circumstances they should pay for content. For purposes of comment, we allow "quoting" of a very small amount of text or occasional photos with attribution in the form of a link on the website or written on printed copies under the same terms as above. If like one of our articles enough that you would like to reproduce it, contact us for our rates.
  • Newspapers, magazines, commercial websites, TV channels: Newspapers and magazines should expect to pay for their use of photos or text. For purposes of reference or criticism you may quote very small sections of text with attribution in the form of a link on your website or written on printed copies. If like one of our articles enough that you would like to reproduce it, contact us for our rates.
  • Government or internationally funded agencies: Any organisation which is funded by government to promote cycling or for any other purpose can quote small parts of our text for reason of reference or criticism, with attribution. They should contact us before using our material for any other purpose. We have worked for government agencies in the past and we are available to do more of this in the future.
  • Companies: Any company run for private profit including but not limited to architects, building companies, bicycle manufacturers and bicycle shops should contact us for licence conditions. If you think you rightly belong in the "small bike shops" category, please explain why. Otherwise, please contact us for permission and pricing.
  • Advertising: If you want to use one of our photos for advertising, please contact us to ask for pricing.
  • Internal usage: If you wish to use our materials within your organisation, for training purposes or for internal presentations, but not on your website or in print, you should still ask for permission. This is use of the material that we produced, none of which has been placed into the public domain. We may be able to help you with training.
Videos
We have many videos on our youtube channel. Youtube makes it easy to embed these on your website or blog. We do not attempt to limit embedding of our videos and do not make any charge for doing so.

However, if you wish to download our content from youtube and re-upload it either as-is or edited to another video server, or you wish to download the video and use it as part of a presentation or other work, please ask for permission.

Study Tours
This blog came into existence to help people who had been on our Study Tours to stay up to date with developments in the Netherlands. Through the blog you see only a glimpse of what is possible. The blog is not a substitute for the Study Tour. Relying on online content such as blogs, videos and Google Maps to view the nation from afar will only ever give a partial understanding of what has made the Netherlands the worlds' leading cycling nation. This can lead to emphasis on the wrong things a lack of progress on cycling.

The differences between countries where few people cycle, like the UK, and the Netherlands, are not so easy to understand as they may at first seem. We have a unique view which comes from having lived and cycled in both the UK and the Netherlands. It took us many years to gain our experience, and this is what we pass on in three days of Study Tour.

Contact Us
For licensing of existing material, to commission new material, to book a Study Tour or to book us as consultants, please contact us through our website.

Other content on this blog
Almost all the content on this blog was created by the authors. However, for the purpose of being able to make comment on what is happening elsewhere we have also occasionally used other people's material as a part of our blog posts. In some cases, these other items are in the public domain, or licensed in such a way that they are free to use. In other cases we have quoted from other publications, government agencies and blogs. In all these cases, we have sought to apply the same standards as we expect others to apply. Links to the source are provided. If you believe that we have used your content in a way to which you object, please contact us and we will remove or re-label the offending item.

Our licensing terms do not apply to text or photos which originate elsewhere.

9 comments:

  1. Glad to have you back David!!

    You may want to consider putting your copyright information on a separate "page" as well. I know blogger allows you to create additional pages (like an "about", FAQ page). That way it's easy to get to no matter what blog post folks are reading.

    Rona
    Hoogezand

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear David,
    I really like reading your blog posts and consider your blog to be one of the best. I've been looking for a way to pay for certain posts or to donate a small sum, but couldn't find out how - without booking a study tour or buying from your shop. Unfortunately I can't convince my wife to go on the tour and just now I don't need anything for my bikes. Could you please provide a possibility to pay you for your work? Maybe a paypal-button or the integration of something like flattr.

    Greetings,
    Patrick

    ReplyDelete
  3. Glad to have you here David. I very much respect the need to be clear in regards to copying/using your content. It should be understood but too few do.

    Blogs come and go but I felt quite a loss when finding that yours had gone dark (I doubt many would find mine much of a loss if it went dark :P)

    I agree with Rona, it is pretty easy to create a separate page in regards to copying as you have set up a structure that makes things very clear and it would only be appropriate for folks to be able to easily find said page instead of going back in the archives.

    Thanks for being here David, I know many many folks appreciate what you do and have learned quite a bit. Until I get a chance to go on a tour, this is the best chance I get to see how it is really done.

    Thanks
    John
    Community Development Department
    City of Cambridge, MA USA

    ReplyDelete
  4. Patrick (and someone else whose comment I unfortunately deleted by accident): Thank you for your idea. I've added a donate button the right hand side, however I certainly don't want anyone to feel obliged to make a donation. The content is free to read.

    Rona suggesyed putting copyright on a "page", I think that's also a good idea and I may move it there. However, there's also a link on the right which takes people to the copyright pages on the blog.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I"m also very glad to have your blog return. I have learned a great deal about infrastructure and perceived safe cycling from your blog. Not in any specific sense but rather in gaining an understanding, a different view from vehicular cycling, one that is far superior to vehicular cycling. Your blogs information has armed me with the knowledge not just that there has to be a better way, but a lot of what that way looks like, and that some one has already done it.

    What you blog hasn't told me is how to start the changes, but it lets me know that as we push to change how cycling is included in urban design, we can point developers to the Netherlands to see a goal for development, and to learn how to make those changes.

    ReplyDelete
  6. David - thank you so much for reopening the blog. You are uniquely and singularly responsible for so much knowledge and inspiration for amateur UK cycle campaigners.
    When I started many years ago I was a staunch vehicular 'safety in numbers' believer, you have opened my eyes to the reality of what really works and it's so much better than I could have imagined. Also to the fact that it's not just about the bike but the whole transport approach.
    Have you considered putting some of your postings together in a book? I'd buy one! :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. +1 to see your blog back David,
    and +1 on the book idea (maybe I am old fashioned, but for me long articles, especially with diagrams..., are more comfortable in an armchair with a large book !) (maybe there are print-on-demand services that would avoid you having to take the risk of a print run ?)

    ReplyDelete
  8. There is a website called "Blog2Print" that will print your blogger.com website into a book. It seems pretty reasonable and does all the work for you.

    Might be worth looking into.

    -Rona
    ronajustine.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  9. Welcome back, I thought you were gone for good. This website is the best cycling site around, and that's the reason people rip you off, you are too damn good.

    You probably have been, more than once, pitched the idea of writing a book about cycling/urban planning. Then again, people who write such books don't seem to make any money out of it, and such books are usually huge and expensive for the common consumer.

    But, if only someone wrote an everyman's manual on common issues about cycling, something affordable, easily approachable, like a tool for converting the unbelievers etc. That would be splendid.

    ReplyDelete

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