Holography Wiki

[Kaveh]

Great idea, Colin.



What is the status with copyright on this? Is copyright that of the primary author of an article? I want to make a contribution, but I want to be free to use parts of that in future in another publication, or even in a book. Any guidance on this?

[JohnFP]

I would hope the author still maintains rights. Either that or the Author should sign a contract and collect royalties on each view or download.



Colin, I in interested in this question also.

[MichaelH]

There are no royalties to collect John. Colin isn't making money on page views at least for now. I doubt that he's planning on taking advertising anytime soon.



Having said that, now is the time for this sort of discussion.



Since articles can be locked, imo it's appropriate for copyright and use notices to be placed on those articles that the writers want to maintain control of use over.



In other words, if you want to keep the copyright of an article you've placed in the wiki, you need to also place a notice on how the article or portions may be used by third parties.



What's your opinion Colin?

[JohnFP]

There are no royalties to collect John

I know that, that was my point. If there is no contract and no money involved, I believe the Author maintains all rights. But again, I am not a lawyer so I could be way off here.

[MichaelH]

There are no royalties to collect John

I know that, that was my point. If there is no contract and no money involved, I believe the Author maintains all rights. But again, I am not a lawyer so I could be way off here.

imo all articles in the wiki should be in the public domain unless a copyright is explicitly stated. It's Colin's baby though.

[JohnFP]

So are we talking the Author loses the right to "own" the article

or

are we talking the Author still owns and may use and publish the article elsewhere but any member of the Wiki can use it freely?





Then, can another Wiki Member use it without acknowledgement to the author?

[MichaelH]

So are we talking the Author loses the right to "own" the article or are we talking the Author still owns and may use and publish the article elsewhere but any member of the Wiki can use it freely?

That would depend on the terms of the copyright. If you retain copyright you should state how other people can re-use your work on each article you release. This is always true regardless of how a work is published. In general the author of a work owns the copyright unless he explicitly gives it up but even that interpretation is dependent on the country in which you live.

I think that most articles in the HoloWiki should follow the same rights as those used in Wikipedia. Namely, they're all freely available for use and further use of copyrighted works is covered explicitly by their license.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights

Then, can another Wiki Member use it without acknowledgement to the author?

"can?" I don't think it should be specifically allowed or encouraged but we can't prevent other people from re-using what we put on the web. I think a high level of credit should be maintained in the Wiki so that people are properly credited and encouraged to contribute.

[Colin Kaminski]

I will allow articles to be copyrighted by the author. However, I would hope that they place the information into the public domain. I will have no copywrite on any of the Wiki.



Remember, we are trying to make a public resource that will benifit generations of holographers.

[Kaveh]

Who would have thought ... "Holowiki" is an existing surname. Just Google it.

[JohnFP]

I was sort of hoping there would be more input on the Wiki Site. I have been trying to add what I can but there are many, many, many areas that would benefit from knowledgable input unbeknown to me.