CC Forum » General CC questions and answers [English]

Frugal Scam Artist - Is this allowed?

(3 posts)

  1. danq
    Member

    Hi,

    The Web site http://www.fruwiki.com claims to be licensed under BY-NC-ND 3.0, though fine print claims that the submissions to this wiki do not fall under BY-NC-ND 3.0 when applied to the Web site's owner, only to its visitors and contributors (http://www.fruwiki.com/index.php?title=FruWiki:Copyright_information).

    The owner is planning on commercializing the material on the page, essentially ripping off contributions from myself and the other contributors.

    It is my understanding that any waivers to BY-NC-ND 3.0 must be signed in writing.

    Are per-user applications of the license allowed? It is also important to note that the Creative Commons logo and metadata are present on the wiki's pages, which could suggest inappropriate use of Creative Commons trademarks.

    Posted 8 months ago #

  2. FruWikiMeg
    Member

    As Danq has taken upon himself to misrepresent what's going on at FruWiki and make clearly LIBELOUS statements about me personally (e.g. "Frugal Scam Artist"), I thought I would clarify some things.

    I am not "planning on commercializing the material". While that may someday be the case, that is not and was never what this was about. I simply announced on the front page of FruWiki that I am "considering" changing the CC license to one that allows commercial use since it may at some point allow us to share content with other wikis with that license or possibly even GDFL -- something that would benefit readers much more than me since it would also mean that I would no longer be (possibly) the only one who could commercialize the material. I also added a link to the copyright information talk page encouraging discussion as I investigate the legalities.

    The "fine print" that Danq refers to is a clear, simply written copyright information page that is linked to at the top of the General Disclaimer page and is also listed at the "Disclaimers and Policies" page that is linked to at the top of the homepage -- where I clearly state: "If this is your first time here, please take a moment to check out the disclaimers and policies here." The copyright information page is hardly "fine print". It is a few paragraphs written by a non-lawyer in the belief that that would be sufficient and perhaps a much better alternative to legal obfuscation.

    You can see for yourself what I have written on the "Copyright information" page here: http://www.fruwiki.com/index.php?title=FruWiki:Copyright_information . I have never tried to hide anything there. And please, if I have said something that I shouldn't have, please let me know. And please let me know if the CC change is a possibility. I am not a lawyer, nor do I have the money to hire one. I am just a private citizen who is first and foremost on FruWiki trying to create a useful resource for others. And if you run a wiki, you probably realize how laughable the thought is that a scam artist would choose, of all the ways to make money unethically, to set up a frugal wiki site to rip off contributors by using their contributions.

    Thank you for your time.

    Posted 7 months ago #

  3. danq
    Member

    I am calling it "the fine print" because of the use of the Creative Commons logo on every page, with the logo linking to the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 page, when if you look at only one page you will see there is a catch.

    I am questioning the legality of Meg's actions because the Creative Commons license specifically forbids making exceptions outside of a signature in writing, which the "fine print" does not take into account.

    Posted 7 months ago #

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