Copyrights and Use Terms
 

 

© 2001-2015, The Virtual Fossil Museum

Virtual Fossil Museum Copyrights and Use Terms

The policies stated below are only applicable if specifically referenced -- if not referenced, all site content is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0, as explained on the use policy page.

Also see: About The Virtual Fossil Museum Virtual Fossil Museum Content License
Virtual Fossil Museum Content Use and Link Policy
Content in The Virtual Fossil may be used or modified in any manner for personal use, teaching,
research or in scientific and other publications as long as appropriate credit is given to the web site as:

The Virtual Fossil Museum www.fossilmuseum.net

Content in The Virtual FossilMuseum.net may not be copied, resold, used or modified in any manner for commercial purposes such as web sites, popular press and educational books or for any other commercial use, without the written consent of the webmaster: . In this case, credit should be given as above in print, and a link included for content placed on the Internet or within electronic or social media.

Further delineation of terms of use:

The Virtual Fossil Museum’s purpose and mission is fostering scientific education, and we operate on a non-profit basis, having benefactors who supply all VFM needs. The board considered changing the site to a more open license, but ultimately rejected the move due to extensive and repeated copyright violations by creationist and intelligent design websites and publications (see example at Pharyngula). Because of this, for now, we will retain restrictive copyrights, and will in no circumstance give permission for use of Virtual Fossil Museum content to individuals, organizations, or publishers, for use in non-scientific purposes such as creationism or intelligent design, which are antithetical to our own purposes and beliefs.

For others, the permission process is simple and overarching. Teachers, educational institutions and organizations, individuals and organizations promoting the teaching of evolution (or countering creationism and intelligent design) are given non-exclusive rights to use Virtual Fossil Museum assets for non-profit purposes, provided:

  • Credit is given to the Virtual Fossil Museum. For websites, cite image courtesy of the Virtual Fossil Museum, www.fossilmuseum.net, with link to the museum For publications cite: image courtesy of the Virtual Fossil Museum, www.fossilmuseum.net. For websites, provide a link our home page.
  • Inform the webmaster of intended use at:
  • Usage is not so extensive as to replicate a portion of the museum. It is rather subjective as to what “extensive means”, so e-mail the webmaster that will make a determination, based on the value to the educational community.
  • In the future, the VFM may charge a small fee for image use of for-profit publishers. This will not become the case until the VFM has designed a means for said fees to be donated to the educational community.

For now, we have ceased to obtain and retain and provide high resolution images above 72 dpi because it was simply too time-consuming, and the files are too large for e-mail. We do, however, file large images (normally 1600x1200) that do not have the Virtual Fossil Museum name on them, as would be desired by most publishers.

We apologize for being slow at answering e-mails; there is simply not enough time, and there is too much spam. Hopefully, the above guidelines will allow your proceeding when we are slow or remiss.

Finally, remember the immortal words of Crosby Stills and Nash, to Teach Your Children Well.

Roger Perkins, Virtual Fossil Museum Webmaster