| From
inception in 1999 through February 2015, the Virtual Fossil Museum
maintained a copyright of all content. This was well intended to
protect the intellectual property of many people to selflessly
donated images and provided descriptions. This policy was counterproductive
to the sites mission, and was also detrimental to those who contributed
images and other intellectual property. This copyright policy is
now deprecated (see old Fossil Museum copyright notice here), except
as otherwise specifically noted for specific content.
In January 2015 a real Internet professional who consults to
large companies donated a half day to me to explain how the Internet
and
search engines work and have changed over time. The shift to
the (CC BY-NC 4.0) license was a direct consequence of this lesson.
The
details of the reason for this change are outlined below, straight
from my lesson notes, so I do not forget:
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1)
The copyright policy was intended to prevent content from
being commercially used
except by permission. Permission was always granted
to all publishers unless the intent was to support non-scientific
arguments such as creation and intelligent design. It was
also intended to prevent plagiarism for purposes such as
selling on
e-bay, or any
other venue. While some say plagiarism is the highest compliment,
it is strictly forbidden in science, and is otherwise theft
and just plain wrong.
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2)
Without a doubt, the intent was not realized. We found that
publishers were either discouraged
from contacting us
for permission, or delayed
when we were hard to reach, such that legitimate and
intended educational use was compromised to some extent.
At the
same time, we have found
that a copyright notice does not deter thieves and
plagiarizers, even those who profess to be Christians with
better than
normal morals.
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3)
As the Internet evolved over the last decade, so too did
the manner in which search engine algorithms
worked. Many
of the changes were
to combat link spam and content scraping (duplication
of large amounts of content). While I do not understand
this
fully, some highlights
are: numerous blogs, social sites, and the juggernaut
Wikipedia ascribed no follow commands to external
links, including
content references;
in this case, the intellectual property owner’s
website received no “link credit”.
This, in turn, led to many fine and small website
falling
into obscurity, while large sites (e.g., Wikipedia),
including those of academic rose in visibility,
increasingly dominating
search engine results. Most of the small sites
met extinction, and many really fine sites created
and
maintained by professional individuals
or passionate amateurs now garner a tiny fraction
of former visitors (e.g., Palaeos, Panda’s
Thumb, and even Berkeley’s online
museum). Adding to the “no credit” links
more recently has been duplicate content penalties.
For example, it is possible
that a search engine could conclude that content
from a site that was largely copied to Wikipedia
was actually
plagiarism by the site
owning the content, and that entire site could
be penalized by search engines – I mean,
they have to decide who the rightful owner is.
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4)
My link policy in the Virtual Fossil Museum
from inception was to minimize external links,
because they
were often broken,
and thus
required constant checking that consumed enormous
time. This sites benefactors acceded to this
policy for the
right reasons.
But, I
now know that generous individuals have been
penalized for this very generosity (a prime example that,
indeed, no good
deed goes unpunished).
I intend to right this wrong, though over a
protracted
period of time as it involved a huge amount
of work in content revision.
In
working with benefactors, we’ve arrived
at a pseudo-optimum approach to give credit
where
credit is due, while assuring links
and especially broken links are kept to a practicable
and manageable level.
-
5)
Finally, be forewarned if you are inclined to plagiarize
and re-use
content outside the
criteria
for attribution
defined by CC BY-NC
4.0. We now understand that it also hurts
this education resource in many ways. Going forward,
we will be watching
with some easy-to-use
software tools given to us, and we will
take selective action on a case-by-case basis. It’s
really better and maybe less painful to simply
do the right thing.
Also
see: About The Virtual Fossil Museum Virtual
Fossil Museum Copyrights and Use Terms
Virtual Fossil Museum Content Use and Link Policy
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