How are Lemmy.world posts and comments licensed? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Stackoverflow, and the rest of the SE network, explicitly says that all user-generated content is licensed under CC-BY-SA. (link here). So, while SE has the right to do whatever they want with user content, they have to attribute the users who made it, and they have to keep the same or similar open license on the content. I know users can't really fight a big company on equal footing, but an explicit license like that is an implicit commitment to respecting, at least to some degree, users' ownership of their content.

On the other hand, Reddit's user agreement includes this: "...you irrevocably waive any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to Your Content...." So, reddit asserts the right to use user content however it likes, with no rights to the users who generate it.

Recent events make me much more interested in knowing how the content I generate will be licensed. I know a cc license on Reddit content wouldn't change most of what makes the recent decisions so terrible, but it would give some standing to the people upset with how reddit plans to use what they've contributed.

I looked a bit, but didn't see an explicit statement about how the content in this server (lemmy.world) is licensed. (That's not a criticism; I think the admins have been busy with a few other things, and I really appreciate it!! I'm asking about this because I'm hoping to see more and more here.)

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[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

The creators are believers in copyleft, so I'd assume your stuff becomes public domain.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Copyleft is nothing like public domain. Licenses like the GPL would be considered copyleft, where the license itself is required to be maintained when distributing the work, allowing access to the sources that made the work.

It's also something that would have to be explicitly stated in the Terms of Service or something similar.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I assumed it would be on an instance by instance basis.

[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

I guess, but then federation makes it complicated.

If I have an account on instance 1 and make a post on instance 2, and someone else sees it on instance 3, each having a different set of licenses...

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Lawyers always ruin everything :D

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Or help if you get the ambiguity out of the way up front. So later when somebody says “hey… I’m going to use your art to sell this multi-million dollar product” or to advertise some unsavory service you’d rather not have your stuff asssociated with there’s clarity on what they could and couldn’t do. And it makes any recourse (if it requires going the legal route) easier.

Like a dentist, always cheaper and better to go with their advice in order to prevent more costly issues down the road.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I think that we should just assume at this point that if you post anything online, it will be used by other people with or without your consent.

Therefore if you want to protect your creations (whether they be text or other), you should obtain copyright for and host your content yourself or through a privately-owned service that protects your IP, then share a link or embed that content into social media. I'm not a lawyer, but I expect that this is sort-of how it would need to be. While there are some international agreements like the Berne convention that protects IP from the moment it is created, I do believe that it can both be waived by the creator in a ToS, and in order for you to pursue legal action (in the US at-least), you often need to go through the complete process of obtaining a copyright, trademark, patent, etc from the government.

While I love the ideology of copyleft and I am a socialist at heart, if you live in a capitalist economy and want to earn a living, there are compromises you have to make.