[pmwiki-users] SALIENCE for the WikiSite's terms of use, copyright, copyleft, and etc?

[Monty]

> Any site running PmWiki is free to establish its own rules regarding
> copyright and contributions to that site.  PmWiki itself doesn't
> impose any special terms or restrictions upon a site's contents.

How does PmWiki help the WikiAdministrator to make links/buttons to the 
designated place for information on the copy rights and licensing?

To be enforcable, the WikiAdministrator has the onus under law of making 
links/buttons to "Terms of Use," including mandatory assignment of IP 
ownership *or* mandatory licensing under copyleft as a condition of 
participation in the WikiCommunity, *salient*.

To be salient, links/buttons to the copyright page must be, IMHO:
* in the page footer of every page in the WikiWiki (which naturally 
includes every main entry point into the site)
* on the Edit page (especially) where the WikiUser contributes I.P. in 
the form of copy, phonographs, photographs, or files

The legal agreement that a copy submitter "agrees" to, must be made 
known and "agreed to" (implicitly through use or explicitly through a 
"digital signature") if it is to be binding.

Therefore, it is *necessary* that templates accomodate these 
considerations of the legal contract between the WikiAdministrator and 
WikiUser over I.P. rights and licensing.

In my opinion, IP rights assignment is so important that it should be 
brought to the potential WikiAdministrator's attention when s/he 
downloads PmWiki, as something which *must* be decided on *prior* to 
launching her/his WikiWiki website.

Pm, do you disagree?  Template maintainers, do you disagree?

> Thus, a site administrator can make appropriate legal statements to the 
> effect that any contributions to the site automatically grant the site
> owner with an unrestricted license to use the contributed material,
> or whatever happens to be appropriate.  

The WikiAdministrator can create a page in the Main group called 
CopyRights and scrawl some text there about the IP agreement of 
WikiUsers for the site, but, that obscure page isn't salient and 
therefore is not binding or legally valid for the site.

> For example, some sites say that 
> contributions are automatically licensed under the GFDL or Creative 
> Commons license.  In this sense using PmWiki is little different
> from any other site that allows public contribution via a forum or
> other similar mechanisms.

Good ideas!:  It seems to me that the WikiPhilosophy lends itself to 
copyleft naturally, keeping a community ownership of all IP given to the 
community, instead of the default "all rights reserved" of 160 nations.

-M