If you want this post to be discussion about the copyright status of posts on LW, then you should change the title. I expect that a lot of people who would be interested in commenting on that issue might skip over this post because the title gives no indication of the actual topic.
You obviously cannot retroactively change the copyright status of already published posts without the express consent of their authors, but I’d support a move to add a text saying “by pressing submit, you agree to license your post under [some CC license]” to the submission form. Or possibly an option to choose under which license you wish to publish your post, though that would more work for the site programmers.
Also, I hereby declare all of my past and future posts on Less Wrong to be licensed under CC-BY. EDIT: No wait, I can’t make such a declaration, because part of my posts are written for MIRI, who owns the copyrights according to the work-for-hire clause in my contract. I’ll try to mark these posts somehow, but ask me if you want to be sure.
I just want to draw attention to the following bit of Kaj’s comment, which seems like it should be really obvious but Rick’s original post seems to indicate wasn’t obvious to him:
You obviously cannot retroactively change the copyright status of already published posts without the express consent of their authors
You can “propose [] that all content on the site be subject to the [CC-BY] license”, but you can’t actually bring that state of affairs about.
I’d like to second a change for so that all future posts are explicitly under whatever license is needed. The mission of LW involves outreach, and you can’t effectively conduct outreach if every time a book is published or a podcast is made every author has to be individually contacted for explicit permission.
How do others feel about making this change for all future submissions?
If you want this post to be discussion about the copyright status of posts on LW, then you should change the title. I expect that a lot of people who would be interested in commenting on that issue might skip over this post because the title gives no indication of the actual topic.
You obviously cannot retroactively change the copyright status of already published posts without the express consent of their authors, but I’d support a move to add a text saying “by pressing submit, you agree to license your post under [some CC license]” to the submission form. Or possibly an option to choose under which license you wish to publish your post, though that would more work for the site programmers.
Also, I hereby declare all of my past and future posts on Less Wrong to be licensed under CC-BY. EDIT: No wait, I can’t make such a declaration, because part of my posts are written for MIRI, who owns the copyrights according to the work-for-hire clause in my contract. I’ll try to mark these posts somehow, but ask me if you want to be sure.
I just want to draw attention to the following bit of Kaj’s comment, which seems like it should be really obvious but Rick’s original post seems to indicate wasn’t obvious to him:
You can “propose [] that all content on the site be subject to the [CC-BY] license”, but you can’t actually bring that state of affairs about.
I’d like to second a change for so that all future posts are explicitly under whatever license is needed. The mission of LW involves outreach, and you can’t effectively conduct outreach if every time a book is published or a podcast is made every author has to be individually contacted for explicit permission.
How do others feel about making this change for all future submissions?
[pollid:376]
Voted CC-BY-SA, want CC-BY-SA with opt-out ability. I don’t imagine it being used often, but if someone really wants it, it should be there.
What would the default license be when someone chooses to “opt out of CC-BY”? Would it be CC-BY-SA?
I can’t edit a poll, but obviously option 2 was meant to read “allow”, not “require”.
I think your intent shows through anyway—content is available under CC-BY unless you specifically opt out.
I’ve changed the title, hopefully that brings everyone into the discussion.
If you can be bothered, it would be good to edit the posts to add the notice.
It would be, but I’m afraid that I can’t be bothered.
Entirely fair enough :-)