It will be released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. So you can freely copy, distribute, transmit, or adapt the work, provided you (a) note who made the original, (b) don’t use the content commercially, and (c) make your adaptation free for others to copy/distribute/transmit/adapt in turn.
I don’t know much about copyright law, but I still don’t understand whether it’s okay to use this in a classroom setting. If it’s a free course or nonprofit, it seems it’s allowed, but what about:
A paid course offered by a for-profit institution where the reading material is linked to or provided for no additional (explicit) fee?
A course where excerpts are part of a reader that costs money?
I’ve been wondering this in general, not just related to this particular e-book, so if you know the answers, I’d appreciate it. Thanks!
I don’t think there’s any simple catch-all answer in the general case. The license’s wording (which just forbids use “primarily intended for commercial advantage or monetary compensation”) is deliberately ambiguous to give the licensor leeway in assessing each case. The licensor’s intent is what matters, so if you’re unsure about whether a specific real-world case would be likely to qualify as “primarily intended for commercial advantage or monetary compensation,” just shoot me an e-mail at rob@intelligence.org and I can explicitly confirm for you whether the use jibes with MIRI’s intentions.
Great project! What will the copyright be? I’m interested in putting a few essays into a course reader.
It will be released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. So you can freely copy, distribute, transmit, or adapt the work, provided you (a) note who made the original, (b) don’t use the content commercially, and (c) make your adaptation free for others to copy/distribute/transmit/adapt in turn.
I don’t know much about copyright law, but I still don’t understand whether it’s okay to use this in a classroom setting. If it’s a free course or nonprofit, it seems it’s allowed, but what about:
A paid course offered by a for-profit institution where the reading material is linked to or provided for no additional (explicit) fee?
A course where excerpts are part of a reader that costs money?
I’ve been wondering this in general, not just related to this particular e-book, so if you know the answers, I’d appreciate it. Thanks!
I don’t think there’s any simple catch-all answer in the general case. The license’s wording (which just forbids use “primarily intended for commercial advantage or monetary compensation”) is deliberately ambiguous to give the licensor leeway in assessing each case. The licensor’s intent is what matters, so if you’re unsure about whether a specific real-world case would be likely to qualify as “primarily intended for commercial advantage or monetary compensation,” just shoot me an e-mail at rob@intelligence.org and I can explicitly confirm for you whether the use jibes with MIRI’s intentions.
Seconded
Thanks!