"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled copyright-beleaguered writeups yearning to breathe free..." 
- Adapted from The New Colossus, by Emma Lazarus

While the new proactive E2 Copyright policy is prudent in our increasingly litigious world, it's also painful for those with lots of nodes that need to either change or die.  In the grand old spirit of E2 as a community, here's a chance for all of us to put our shoulders to the wheel and push right on through this rough patch in the road.  

This quest is intended to help rescue writeups containing copyrighted lyrics or poems and soften the blow of the new policy on our fellow noders who are most affected by it. It's an altruistic feel good kindness cookie barnraising kind of event and you can pick up some easy XP in the bargain!

Here's the drill, save a writeup, get XP.  It's that simple.  

Noders with writeups that they've updated to meet the new E2 Copyright policy can send us a message with the writeup title.  We'll review it for compliance then dole out a sweet reward for your good work.  We'll publish the list of rescued nodes and get the best of them some new exposure on the Cool User Picks list.  Bringing the existing writeups up to the new standard will involve mostly mechanical steps like, truncating extended quotes, sending request forms to authors and publishers, adding some explication text etc.  This isn't rocket science, just tedious and necessary work

For some examples of lyric nodes that meet the new standard see: Bright Eyes and Les Fleur.

We're offering an XP bounty for each writeup you bring up to the new standard.  You can probably do two writeups an hour once you get it down, so some serious XP accrual is possible.  You can do the math.  How high do you want to rise on the E2 User's List? We will also be liberally doling out C! for the best examples we encounter, so your old lyric nodes can get some fresh time in the limelight.

E2 really IS a community, and Community is a fragile and precious thing in this chaotic old world.  We need to nurture and cherish it wherever possible.  Let's begin here.

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Details and more details...

Time Limits:  
The Quest begins today and ends along with the E2 Copyright amnesty period (including any extensions it may receive from the E2 Administration).

Rewards
XP will be awarded for each writeup you successfully bring into compliance based on the following schedule:

  • One Upvote for each minimally compliant writeup.  
  • One Upvote and a 10 XP Blessing for 2/3 or more of original explication.
  • One or more C! for extra meritorious effort, including Permission Request letters, sources properly cited, etc.

The points will be awarded once the compliance of your rescued writeup has been verified by the quest compliance team.  A current list of rescued nodes will be posted here. Selected shining examples will be prominently displayed in the Copyright Compliant Lyrics and Poems Hall of Fame writeup for the E2 community to read and vote on.

Copyright Guidelines (excerpted from E2 Copyright policy with permission of the Author)

Lyrics and poetry.

  1. Cited material cannot exceed 250 words if the work is longer than 250 words 
  2. If the cited work is less than 250 words then the entire work can be cited.
  3. Original material must exceed cited works by 2/3.

Public Domain

  1. Works that are in the public domain may be cited or transcribed in their entirety.
  2. Although not required, the inclusion of original analysis or review is highly encouraged.
  3. Hardlinks to author and citations for work are required.
  4. The work must be noded under its original title.
    1. If the work is too large to include in one node, arrange nodes by chapter and title by original chapter headers if available.
    2. The node of the work’s title should contain a table of contents with hardlinks to chapter nodes.
    3. hardlink both backwards to the previous chapter and forwards to the next chapter are required.

Even if your writeup falls under the guidelines outlined above as Fair Use, you should attempt to obtain permission from the original author or publicist.

Rescuing deleted writeups
Authors with a writeup that has already been nuked can submit the node title to the quest. If someone volunteers to rescue the work, the author will be responsible for providing a copy of the original work from Node Heaven.  The rescued node will be reviewed for compliance then the reward will be issued.  

Obtaining Permission from Authors
For information about asking for copyright permission, plus sample letters of inquiry, read the IUPUI Copyright Management Center's "How to Secure Permission to Use Copyrighted Works" at: 
http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/permsec.htm

Also see: All-purpose, handy-dandy Copyright Release/Permission Request Form, Using copyrighted works, Grateful Dead Lyrics,  and E2 FAQ: Assimilating old write-ups

Copyright Expiration Dates
Noders are expected to determine on their own if a work is still in copyright or not. This can be somewhat complicated; be sure to read "How to Investigate the Copyright Status of a Work", which is available at:

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ22.html

Compliance Monitoring Team
The quest is also looking for volunteers that are willing to help with compliance reviews of the rescued writeups.  The E2 Editorial staff will review applicants for this team and arrange appropriate XP rewards for their valuable behind the scenes efforts.  If you are interested in helping in this way, please /msg me.


How to submit a writeup to the Copyright Redemption Quest

  1. Review the E2 Copyright policy and determine what you need to do to bring your writeup unto compliance.  Some typical steps might be: 
    • - Determine if the work you are quoting is in the public domain, 
    • - Truncate your lyric or poetry quote if necessary to bring it below 250 words total
    • - Add original text that is 2/3 longer than your quote.
    • - Prepare a letter of request for permission to use the original work.
  2. Send a message to Content_Salvage submitting your revised writeup to the quest. Include in your message any special notes about the writeup, such as whether the work is in the public domain and if you requested permission.  
  3. We'll send you a confirmation that your writeup is being reviewed.  We'll also follow up with any questions and the results of the compliance review.
  4. We anticipate distributing the quest rewards as we go along, so you'll soon see some payback for your hard work.

The E2 Copyright policy is our compliance "Bible," so any issues that arise will be resolved using it as a reference.  Lord Brawl has agreed to act as our Copyright Redemption Quest Ombudsman, so he'll be the arbiter of any disputes.

Please feel free to send a message to Content_Salvage with any questions regarding the quest, or copyright compliance in general.  We're here to help and if we don't know the answer, we'll find it.

 

-- Check out the Copyright Compliance Hall of Fame --

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