WikiPathways:License Terms
From WikiPathways
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Overview
If you are like us, issues about licensing, copyrights and trademarks are boring at best and quickly become frustratingly opaque. At the same time, we recognize that they are important issues, especially when it comes to promoting and protecting data sharing in scientific domains. So, we have done our homework here at WikiPathways and have settled on an approach developed by Science Commons. We are going to do our best to explain the strategy in clear terms. Please feel free to give us feedback on these issues and voice your opinions and questions on the WikiPathways discussion mailing list.
Our strategy has three main components:
- The License - this is the legal code applicable to the content at WikiPathways. We are using the very permissive CC-BY license with terms of use specified in clear English. More details below...
- Terms of Use - this is where we define our own terms for how we expect WikiPathways content to be used. This is not a legally-binding code, but rather an explicit declaration of expectation that is enforceable by the entire community of content contributors and consumers. If you find someone violating the terms of use, let us know and we'll let the community know that they are not playing fair and are not endorsed by our effort. We believe this approach will be less costly than legal action and, at the same time, more effective at discouraging unfair use. More details below...
- Trademark - this is the really clever bit. We can use the trademark of WikiPathways as badge of fair use. Anyone using or redistributing WikiPathways content under the terms of our license and terms of use can proudly display the WikiPathways trademark as evidence of being a trusted member of the community participating in our effort. If you are in violation of either our license or terms of use we can legally enforce the removal of our trademark and you will no longer be identified as a trusted member. We will actively discourage patronage of resources that can not be trusted. This community is not so big... so you had better play fair! More details below...
The License
WikiPathways content is covered by the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license, which states that you are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit) and remix (adapt) the work as long as you attribute the work in the manner specified in our terms of use. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of the work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page. Again, this license if fairly permissive, so you shouldn't feel paralyzed by legalese if you are interested in using or redistributing WikiPathways content. Just be sure to read the terms of use and if you have any questions about fair use, don't hesitate to contact us.
Terms of Use
A common sense explanation of how we expect WikiPathways content to be used.
Contributing
When editing an existing pathway or creating a new pathway, your contributions to WikiPathways content should reflect your best understanding of the biology you are representing. Whenever possible, contributions should be referenced by published, peer-reviewed literature. You can transcribe content from the following resources with appropriate attribution:
- text books
- research articles and reviews
- public databases and pathway resources: KEGG and Reactome
- trusted online resources, including wikipedia
- your own research and hypotheses (reasonably tested)
You should not make contributions based on work presented by other researchers yet to be published or based on proprietary sources (purchased databases, company secrets, etc).
Downloading
You can download WikiPathways content in any of the available data and image formats we provide, including but not limited to: gpml, mapp, text, eu.gene, html, png, svg, jpeg. But you must cite or give appropriate attribution. See Attribution below
Using
You are free to use the pathway images in presentations, documents, websites and publications. You are free to use the pathway data in analyses, qualitative or quantitative. But you must cite or give appropriate attribution. See Attribution below
Redistributing
You are free to redistribute WikiPathways content on your website, as part of your own resource, with your own software application. You are free to charge for services associated with WikiPathways content, but you are not allowed to charge for the content it self. This does not prevent you from redistributing the content on a CD along with software that you are charging for as long as it is made clear that the content is free and freely available from WikiPathways.org. This does not prevent you from charging for services including additional curation, modification or analysis of the content as long as it is made clear that the content is free and freely available from WikiPathways.org. You may even sell modified versions of the images of the pathway content, e.g., as art, on your website as long as it is made clear that the content is free and freely available from WikiPathways.org. We think you get the idea: do not charge for the content as provided by WikiPathways and if you do associate the content with something are are selling, make it clear that the content is free and freely available from WikiPathways.org. See Attribution below
Adapting, Dissecting, Augmenting
You are free to download, use and redistribute any part of a given pathway at WikiPathways according to the terms of use. You are free to augment, extend and build upon the content outside of WikiPathways and then use or redistribute according to the terms of use. You are free to edit, subtract from and change the content outside of WikiPathways and then use or redistribute according to the terms of use. Of course, it is always better to make edits to the content within WikiPathways to grow the content and share alike, but this is not strictly required. If there is a feature or function you require in order to perform an edit to the content, do not hesitate to contact us and participate in the design and implementation of the new feature yourself. This is an open source project, after all!
Attribution
- When using or referencing WikiPathways or WikiPathways content in an article, you should cite our latest publication:
Pico, A. R., Kelder, T., van Iersel, M. P., Hanspers, K., Conklin, B. R., and Evelo, C. (2008). Wikipathways: Pathway editing for the people. PLoS Biology, 6(7):e184+. PMID:18651794
- When using, referencing or redistributing content, you should provide a hyperlink or printed URL to the main page:
- When using, referencing or redistributing an individual pathway in an online medium, you should provide a hyperlink directly to the pathway, like so:
http://www.wikipathways.org/index.php/Pathway:Homo_sapiens:Apoptosis
- Feel free to use our trademark (our logo) to indicate your participation in our community with using, referencing or redistributing WikiPathways content. See trademark terms below
- Attribution to individual contributors is not necessary. WikiPathways will track and display contributions from individual authors and curators to each pathway on each pathway page. So as long as hyperlinks are provided to WikiPathways, the evolving list of contributors will be indirectly referenced.
Trademark
The WikiPathways trademark (our logo) can be reproduced with any use and redistribution of WikiPathways content. You do not necessarily have to ask permission before using the logo, if you are confident that you satisfy the license and terms of use. However, we always appreciate hearing about related efforts, so please drop us a line. We will have a wiki page dedicated to listing such efforts.
If you do not satisfy the license or terms of use our first measure will be to contact you and request that you change your behavior. Failing that, we will require that you remove the WikiPathways trademark from your site or resource. We will also have a wiki page dedicated to listing these efforts as well :)
References
- Freedom to Research - a clear explanation of the motivation behind the Science Commons Protocols for Implementing Open Access Data.
- Open Access Data Protocol - a protocol for implementing Open Access Data by Science Commons.
Definitions
- Content
- The pathway information (in part or in whole) represented in data and image formats at WikiPathways.
