Copyright Information

Pages I have written are under a Creative Commons License

For all pages written by myself throughout this site please note the following copyright statement:

© Copyright 1998–2009, under a “Creative Commons License”: This work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Visit the above link for a simple summary of the license terms.

Any conditions in the license terms can be waived if you get permission from me, the copyright holder. To do so, contact me. In most cases you won’t need to contact me—the license should cover most needs.

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Why hide this work behind copyright?

Some may wonder: Why this copyright notice when it is not strictly needed, and why do I appear to be hiding behind copyright? Why won’t I let people use this work?

In recent years, for most countries, copyright notices are not explicitly needed. However, by default, this then means that nobody may use this work, except under fair use, or until many decades after I die!

That is not what I want. People regularly ask to reuse this content, and I am happy and honored to oblige. I just wish it to be done in a certain way to ensure proper attribution, and so, this notice.

Furthermore, this notice allows you to avoid having to spend time contacting me in most cases and then waiting for me to respond.

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Examples of common requests I receive for using content

Can an excerpt, a page, or more be

• Reproduced in a publication?
• Re-posted to one’s own site?

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My typical response to those requests

Generally, yes, if you bear in mind all the following:

1. The page or pages in question must be those written by myself, Anup Shah;
2. Only reproduce parts of the page; do not copy the entire contents.
   • Then, towards the end of your reproduced part, explain that the rest of the article is at globalissues.org and link to the exact article (not the home page) for the reader to continue.
   • Why? This is so that as I update pages (which can happen at any time) the reader mostly accesses the updated content; where mistakes might be corrected, newer or updated information is provided, etc.
3. Please provide proper credits and link back to the original source. I am flexible in how you do this, but consider the following:
   • You must link back to the specific page or section on this web site that you cited so readers can read the rest of the article if the wish.
   • Please mention the original article name and author for example, when introducing the reproduced portion of content, or after it when explaining where to read the rest of the article.
   • You could use the article name as the text of the link back to the original source.
   • Mention the last updated date of the original page, (as well as, or instead of, the date the page was created). Reason: Pages I write I intend to update from time to time, so this information may be useful for people to know.
   • See the bottom of most articles for an example of how you could link back.
   • A general link to the global issues home page is not going to be as useful for your readers, so please do not use that.
   • Of course you may additionally place a link to the home page as well if that is useful for your readers. If it would be redundant, simply do not bother!

If the above is ok, you do not need to contact me again. Of course it is nice if you let me know, but not mandatory. Save yourself the effort!

If the above is not possible, is difficult to comply with, or you are simply not sure, please contact me—I am quote flexible!

Remember, the purpose of this copyright is not to be mean, nasty, and restrictive but just to ask for proper credit and to ask you to address the fact that I attempt to update pages when I can, and would like to ensure your readers easily access that updated content.

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When does the copyright NOT apply?

The news stories in the news section of this web site are powered by Inter Press Service. They have copyright to the stories and any images presented there. If you wish to obtain copies you can use on your site, you will need to contact Inter Press Service for permission.

Some pages (or portions of pages, especially a number of images) on this site are material that may be copyrighted by other owners, and I have received permission from them. Or, I have been able to reuse such material under “Fair Use.”

Most pages have icons for features such as emailing a friend, contacting me, viewing printer-friendly versions of the site, etc. Many of these icons come courtesy of Mark James, from his web site famfamfam.com. Please download the appropriate icon set from his web site instead.

The Creative Commons License described above does not apply to such materials, of course. To use such materials you need to contact the owners of those works.

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