The freeB.E.A.G.L.E.S.'s Ethical Open Documentation License (fBEODL)
© freeB.E.A.G.L.E.S., October 2001
Copying and distribution of this license of permitted provided that:
a) The license is copied in its entirety; and
b) That no modifications are made to the text of the license.
A License to Regulate the
Distribution, Use and Modification of
Written, Artistic, Audio or Audio-Visual Works
on Paper, the Internet, Broadcast Media, or as
Stored Digital Information
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1. Scope:
This license applies to any of the work that have been written by members
of freeB.E.A.G.L.E.S, or by any other groups or individuals who accepts
the principles contained in the Open Documentation License produced
by the electrohippie collective, and who wish to use the license
to govern the distribution of their works. The terms of this license apply
to any transmission, supply, distribution, copying, reproduction or modification
of any artistic, written, broadcast, digitised or audio/audio-visual recorded
material made available for distribution by the owner of the rights to/the
originator of the work.
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2. Licensed activities:
The originators of any work made available under this license, produced
by a of member of freeB.E.A.G.L.E.S. or any other groups or persons
subscribing to this license for the purposes of distributing their own works,
retain all rights - both moral and economic - to the works they have authored
or originated. However, for the purposes of encouraging or assisting the
sharing of information freely for the benefit of civil society, via electronic
media, the Internet, or other means, persons may:
- take copies of documents or other media made available under this
license, by freeB.E.A.G.L.E.S. or others subscribing to this
license, whether provided on paper, some storage media or supplied via
the Internet, and make multiple copies for distribution, either on paper,
on some storage media, or via the Internet, provided those copies are
circulated free of charge; and
- extract or quote or reproduce unlimited amounts of any work made available
under this license, by freeB.E.A.G.L.E.S. or any other groups
or persons subscribing to this license, for the purposes of distributing
their own works, for non-profit purposes, or personal educational
activities, provided that -
- all extracts are clearly identified as being produced by, and
being the property of, the group/person who originated the work,
and giving the relevant title and date of the work, and
- provide a contact postal address, telephone number, email address
or Internet address for the originator(s) of the work (where this
has been provided as part of the original work), and
- reference is made to the electrohippie collective's web
site address - http://www.fraw.org.uk/ehippies/ - to enable others to undertake
follow-up enquiries regarding the current status/version of the
Open Documentation License; and
- extract or quote sections or parts of any work made available under
this license, produced by members of the collective or any other
groups or persons subscribing to this license for the purposes of distributing
their own works, as part of profit-making purposes, excluding
commercial publishing or broadcasting, but including non-publishing/broadcasting
commercial uses, non-personal educational work or academic research,
provided that the extraction of any one document does not exceed 5%
of the total work, or the maximum permitted under the 'fair dealing'
principles of national copyright law (if greater), and providing that
this material is not forwarded/reproduced in its own right (i.e., without
commentary or interpretation provided by the forwarding party) to another
party in return for any type of payment (use of material within commercial
publishing or broadcasting is always limited to that permitted under
the 'fair dealing' provisions of national copyright law); and
- translate any work made available under this license, produced by
members offreeB.E.A.G.L.E.S or any other groups or persons subscribing
to this license for the purposes of distributing their own works, into
a different language, provided that the terms on the copying/distribution
and the 'for profit'/'non-profit' uses outlined above are not violated,
and providing that this license is also translated into the same language
for circulation if a copy of this license in that language does not
already exist.
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3. Translation, dubbing or subtitling:
Where the translation of any work - including the subtitling/dubbing of
any audio-visual production, or the dubbing of any audio production - takes
place, no charge may be made for the translated version, and no charge may
be made for the subsequent distribution of the translated version of the
document. All translations of works under this license are, by subsidiary
rights, required to apply the terms of the latest version of freeB.E.A.G.L.E.S.'s
ethical open documentation license to their distribution, and should
the current version of this license be amended those translating works should
ensure that the latest version of the license is translated and circulated
as soon as possible after the publication of that new version.
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4. Ethical standards:
The use of any work made available under this license, originated by freeB.E.A.G.L.E.S.
or any other groups or persons subscribing to this license for the purposes
of distributing their own works, by any person receiving a copy of that
work shall not, through the independent production of the software or scripting
tools, mechanical or electrical devices, or other intellectual, social,
tactical or engineering constructions described within the work, violate
any of the ethical standards described outlined below:
- Preservation of the minimum standards within the ethical license
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freeB.E.A.G.L.E.S. have specified minimum ethical standards within
this clause, and these standards are expected to be applied by, and
actively policed by, any persons receiving or distributing copies of
the works made available under this license;
- Non-corruption of the author's intention in creating the work -
The work must only be used within the guidelines or specifications provided
in its identified accompanying information/technical manual, and no
modification, adaptation, use or display of the work should infringe
the standards or safeguards provided or described within accompanying
documentation;
- Openness, accountability and traceability -
The work must be used in a manner that enables all those persons who
originate a work made available under this license, or a modified
version of a work originally made available under this license, to be
traced by the state, or by a private person, for the purposes of investigation
or legal action, through the use of a contact address that is traceable
by any national law enforcement agency, or through the use of a court
order to cause disclosure of the originating individuals' address or
current location (e.g. the attachment of a written note, mark or embedded
information that easily identifies the reproducer/distributor of the
work);
- The protection of human, civil and political rights -
This license cannot be used to regulate the production or distribution
of any work that advocates the general restriction of a person's human,
civil and political rights, as enacted through the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Convention on Civil and Political
Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights;
- Proportionality in advocating action where this may infringe a
persons' civil or legal rights -
Where any cause or action advocated within any work released under this
license may cause temporary infringements of a persons civil, legal
or political rights, for example as a result of legal or protest action,
that infringement must be justified on the basis of the prior actions
of that person. The action must also be proportionate to the perceived
offence, both in its scope and its duration. This justification must
be clearly demonstrated, through the use of evidence, that the actions
of the target person -
- are implicated in the breach of the human rights to life, freedom
from torture, freedom from slavery or forced economic exploitation,
freedom from discrimination based upon race, religion or sexual
preference, freedom of expression, assembly and political or labour
representation (note: any citing of a human rights justification
must include reference to the relevant article of the global or
regional human rights convention concerned), or
- can be directly related to actions specifically intended to restrict
or eliminate the public debate of issues of national or international
importance that impact the freedom of the individual to express
preferences in relation to economic or trade controls, trade, labour
and or environmental standards, or the operation or maintenance
of processes that have been shown by recent scientific studies to
damage the natural environment and human or ecological health;
- In any dispute regarding the ethical standards involving material
distributed under freeB.E.A.G.L.E.S. open documentation license,
freeB.E.A.G.L.E.S. will be the final arbiter of whether the ethical
standards have been breached, and in such cases all rights to the use
of this open license will be revoked. In particular, all privileges
conferred through this license are revoked where the use of any work
protected under this license, directly or via third parties, is knowingly
accepted by the originator for the direct or indirect support of -
- the abuse of the human rights identified in international and
regional conventions; or
- interfering with the rights of individuals to organise to express
their preferences on their own racial identity, sexual orientation,
religion or political allegiance where the activities of these groups
are not prejudicial to the personal rights of others; or
- the lobbying or action to restrict or remove trade or environmental
standards, or the operational or maintenance standards for processes
that have been shown by environmental regulators to damage the natural
environment and human or ecological health.
Given the above responsibility of the work's originator to police the
ethical standards of this license, as expressed through under this clause
of the license, irrespective of the privileges described within this
license, the originator's of a work made available under this license
may summarily revoke the some or all permissions granted for the use
of their works where, in the opinion of the works originator, the person
or organisation's use of the material breaches the moral or ethical
standards stated in the license.
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5. Warranty and liability:
This license is intended to provide an additional standard of flexibility
over and above the terms of national intellectual property/copyright legislation
to enable the distribution of works whilst reserving the economic and moral
rights of the author. As nothing has been agreed between the originator
of the work, and those parties obtaining copies of the protected work, it
does not apply to persons unless they chose to accept it. However, unless
those accepting or obtaining works accept this license in full then none
of the permitted uses of the work that this license permits will be available
to them. It is assumed therefore, in accordance with this clause, that any
use, supply or modification of information produced by any person of any
work protected under this license, in excess of the 'fair dealing' provisions
of relevant national copyright legislation, creates and implicit acceptance
of the terms of this license. If the work is received before the person
receiving that work becomes aware of the terms of the existence of this
license (for example via the Internet), they may upon learning of this license
simply delete or destroy the work without incurring liability. However,
if before accepting the terms of this license a person wishes to negotiate
exemption or clarification of certain clauses then they are free to contact
the originator of the work identified under this license (originator's must
not take an effectively 'shrink-wrap' license as being ultimately binding
for all persons where a person can provide a valid reason for why certain
parts of the license should not apply to them). As the terms of this license
require that all works be transferred free of charge, and hence accepted
as seen, no warranty is provided, or liability accepted, for works provided
in accordance with this license.
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6. License modification and compliance:
freeB.E.A.G.L.E.S. reserve the right to vary or revoke this license
at any time, without notice, and in such situations the latest version of
the license shall be deemed to apply to all works made available under previous
versions of the license. Where a license modification introduces new clauses
which users of a work object to they may cease use of that work within seven
days of discovering the license modification without penalty. If use continues
after seven days of that person learning of the modification then it will
be considered, by implication, that the new license terms are accepted.
END