Credit where credit's due. Everything else is free.

CCD CopyWrite

LICENSE TERMS SUMMARY:

The current CCD CopyWrite license text is written with the intent of being understandable to the layman while still providing adequate legal protection and clarity for the terms of the license.  The latter goal can interfere with the former, however, and as such a shorter summary of the intent of the license terms is provided here:

IN BRIEF:
This license is meant to mimic the "public domain", a concept particular to certain countries, which means that no copyright or patent claims are enforced.  This is modified by two points:
  1. Unlike the public domain, nothing licensed CCD CopyWrite can be subsumed under terms of a contrary copyright license.
  2. Legally enforced "reminders" to avoid plagiarism or misattribution apply to works licensed under terms of CCD CopyWrite.


SECTION BY SECTION:
  1. Identification: This section simply explains how the license should be identified.
  2. Applicability: This section addresses the legal applicability of the license.  It basically means "apply this license as faithfully as possible in your legal jurisdiction, and understand that you must identify a work as being subject to the terms of this license before its terms apply to the work".
  3. Definitions: This section lays out definitions of terms as they are used in the license text, so that legal confusion over how terms are used can be minimized.
  4. Copyright License: This section explains in brief the relationship of this license to copyright law.  It basically says you can do whatever you want with something distributed under terms of this license except change its license terms.
  5. Patent License: This section explains in brief the relationship of this license to patent law.  Like the Copyright License section above it, this section basically says you can do whatever you want with something distributed under terms of this license except change its license terms, even as applies to patent law — as long as the people who employed patented concepts in contributions to the work did so legally.
  6. Distribution: This section says you must
    • provide a copy of this license when redistributing a work under terms of this license
    • not omit copyright, patent, trademark, or attribution notices from a derivative work unless those notices do not apply to the derived work
    • preserve any attribution from a NOTICE file distributed with the work that still pertains to a redistributed copy or derivative work, so long as it is still relevant to the work, and you can add to the NOTICE file to reflect addtional attribution when distributing a derived work
  7. Trademarks: This section indicates that applicability of trademark law is not modified by this license.
  8. Revocation: This section warns that for anyone who violates the terms of this license, the permissions granted by it shall be considered to be revoked.
  9. Disclaimer: This section makes it clear that nothing in the license should be interpreted as a grant of warranty.
  10. Limitation of Liability: This section further makes it clear that in distributing the work, nobody should be held responsible for how it is used or misused, except where malicious intent or depraved indifference is involved.  In other words, if you don't mean for anyone or anything to get hurt, you shouldn't be blamed if someone or something is hurt.
  11. Warranty Acceptance: This section makes it clear that the Disclaimer and Limitation of Liability sections should not be interpreted to mean that nobody can offer warranties on the software, if they want to do so, but that they alone are then responsible for the warranty terms.
  12. Licensing: This section states the license version number and discusses the relationship between the license and the work.


The above summary will not exactly correspond with older, archive versions of the CCD CopyWrite license.

LICENSE TEXT:

CCD CopyWrite Version 0.8
http://ccd.apotheon.org

IDENTIFICATION:

    This document comprises an explanation of the legal terms and conditions for reproduction, distribution, and use of any work to which it is applied as a distribution license.  It shall be known as any of the following terms, though the preferred primary notice of license status shall be option number 2, preferably with date of the work's copyright appended.

        1.  Credit as Credit's Due CopyWrite
        2.  CCD CopyWrite
        3.  CopyWrite

    The terms "Credit as Credit's Due CopyWrite", "CCD CopyWrite", and "CopyWrite", as applied to this License for distribution, are protected by any applicable trademark and copyright restrictions.  This License should not be construed to apply to its own content except as explicitly defined within the text of this License.


APPLICABILITY:

    This License applies to any work which contains a notice by the legal copyright holder or as allowed under the terms of LICENSING below indicating that it may be distributed under the terms of the Credit as Credit's Due CopyWrite license.  The term Work as used in this document refers to any work (original or derivative) to which this License applies.  If any provision of this License is invalid or unenforceable under applicable law, it shall not affect the validity or enforceability of the remainder of the terms of this License.


DEFINITIONS:

    "Contribution" shall mean any work of authorship, including the original version of the Work and any modifications or additions to that Work or Derivative Works thereof, that is intentionally submitted to the Licensor for inclusion in the Work by the copyright owner or by any individual or entity authorized to submit on behalf of the copyright owner.  For the purposes of this definition, "submitted" means any form of electronic, verbal, or written communication sent to the Licensor or its representatives, including but not limited to communication on or by electronic mailing lists, issue tracking systems, postal mail, private emails, and source code control systems that are managed by, or on behalf of, the Licensor for the purpose of discussing and improving the Work, but excluding communication that is conspicuously marked or otherwise designated in writing by the copyright owner as "Not a Contribution."

    "Contributor" shall mean Licensor and any individual or entity on behalf of whom a Contribution has been received by Licensor and subsequently incorporated within the Work.
    
    "Derivative Work" shall mean any work, whether in Source or Object form, that is based on or derived from the Work and for which annotations, editorial revisions, elaborations, or other modifications represent, as a whole, an original work of authorship.  For the purposes of this License, Derivative Works shall not include works that remain separable from, or merely link or bind by name to the interfaces of, the Work and Derivative Works thereof.

    "License" shall mean the terms and conditions for reproduction, distribution, and use as defined by the content of this License document.

    "Licensor" shall mean the copyright holder or entity authorized by the copyright holder, directly or by terms of this License, that is granting the License.

    "Object" form shall mean any form of the Work distributed under terms of this License resulting from mechanical translation or transformation of a Source form, including but not limited to compiled object code, generated document, binary data or content file, compressed file, and conversion to any other media types.

    "Source" form shall mean the preferred form for making modifications, including but not limited to configuration files, documentation source, markup format, musical notation, plain text format, and software source code.

    "Work" shall mean the work of authorship, whether in Source or Object form, made available subject to the terms of this License.

    "You" shall mean any individual or entity exercising permissions granted by this License.


COPYRIGHT LICENSE:

    Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare Derivative Works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute the Work and any Derivative Works in Source or Object form.


PATENT LICENSE:

    Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only to any patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are either explicitly identified as licensed, or infringed by their Contribution alone or by combination of their Contribution with the Work to which such Contribution was submitted.

    
DISTRIBUTION:

    You may reproduce and distribute copies of the Work or Derivative Works thereof in any medium, with or without modifications, and in Source or Object form, provided that You meet the following conditions:
        A. You must provide to any other recipients of the Work or Derivative Works a copy of this License.
        B. You must retain, in the Source form of any Derivative Works that You distribute, all copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices from the Source form of the Work, excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of the Derivative Works.
        C. If the Work includes a "NOTICE" text file as part of its distribution, then any Derivative Works that You distribute must include a readable copy of the attribution notices contained within such NOTICE file, excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of the Derivative Works, in at least one of the following places: within a NOTICE text file distributed as part of the Derivative Works; within the Source form or documentation, if provided along with the Derivative Works; or, within a display generated by the Derivative Works, if and wherever such third-party notices normally appear.  The contents of the NOTICE file are for informational purposes only and do not modify the License.  You may add attribution notices within Derivative Works that You distribute, alongside or as an addendum to the NOTICE text from the Work, provided that such additional attribution notices cannot be construed as modifying the License and do not contradict applicable surviving attribution notices from earlier versions of the Work or Works from which Derivative Works are derived.


TRADEMARKS:

    This License does not grant permission to use the trade names, trademarks, service marks, or product names of the Licensor, except as required for reasonable and customary use in describing the origin of the Work and reproducing the content of the NOTICE file.


REVOCATION:

    Any violation of the terms of this License shall constitute a revocation of the terms of this License for the violator and restriction of any use of the content of the Work, in total or in part, by the violator, in perpetuity.  All right to use or distribution of the licensed Work, or profits garnered from use or distribution, shall be forfeit.


DISCLAIMER:

    The terms of this License shall not be construed to imply warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including, without limitation, any warranties or conditions of TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. You are solely responsible for determining the appropriateness of using or redistributing the Work and assume any risks associated with Your exercise of permissions under this License.


LIMITATION OF LIABILITY:

    In no event and under no legal theory, whether in tort (including negligence), contract, or otherwise, unless required by applicable law (such as deliberate and grossly negligent acts) or agreed to in writing according to the terms of WARRANTY ACCEPTANCE below, shall any Contributor be liable to You for damages, including any direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages of any character arising as a result of this License or out of the use or inability to use the Work (including but not limited to damages for loss of goodwill, work stoppage, computer failure or malfunction, or any and all other commercial damages or losses), even if such Contributor has been advised of the possibility of such damages.


WARRANTY ACCEPTANCE:

    While redistributing the Work or Derivative Works thereof, You may choose to offer, and charge a fee for, acceptance of support, warranty, indemnity, or other liability obligations and/or rights consistent with this License. However, in accepting such obligations, You may act only on Your own behalf and on Your sole responsibility, not on behalf of any other Contributor, and only if You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold each Contributor harmless for any liability incurred by, or claims asserted against, such Contributor by reason of your accepting any such warranty or additional liability.

   
LICENSING:

    This License constitutes Version 0.8 of the Credit as Credit's Due CopyWrite License (CCD CopyWrite, or CopyWrite).  It may at the discretion of any distributor or redistributor (You) be replaced with later Versions of the CCD CopyWrite License for inclusion of CopyWrite notice with distributions of the Work, whether as the original Work or a Derivative Work.  Where individuated reference to any given Version of the License is not specified, it is to be assumed that the most recent Version of the License is applicable.  The text of this License may be reproduced and redistributed in unmodified form, in its entirety, at will.  Excerpts may be reproduced and redistributed as well, subject where applicable to terms presented under IDENTIFICATION above.  You may not redistribute any Work subject to the terms of this License under any other license except as explicitly set forth in this paragraph.

RELEASE VERSION ARCHIVE:

CCD CopyWrite v0.2:

This was the first release version of CCD CopyWrite.  Its form was based on the Creative Commons Attribution License, with very brief verbal endorsement by telephone from a representative of Creative Commons.  Unfortunately, I don't recall who it was, and I'm sure they didn't even bother to write anything down on a sticky note in relation to my call.  Regardless, the CC Attribution License was the closest in form of any existing license to achieving what I wanted, legally speaking.  Very (relatively) few alterations needed to be made to get the first release version off the ground, allowing me to start stamping emails, administration scripts, and online essays with a URL pointing at the CCD CopyWrite license.

CCD CopyWrite v0.8:

Development of version 0.8 actually began as development of version 0.6, but 0.6 never materialized.  The point, of course, was to alter the format of the CCD CopyWrite license to simplify the language of the license significantly from its 0.2 release version.  Version 0.8 was put together by gutting the development version 0.5 and adding clear English language, inspired to some extent by other licenses like the BSD licenses and Apache License v2.0, some of the legal language of which might be clearly recognizable as inspiration for version 0.8 of CCD CopyWrite.