Copyleft © 2003-2013. Unless otherwise noted, all work on this website is licensed under the Free Art License 1.3, GNU Free Documentation License 1.3, and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

This is a free culture project.

What does this mean?

You are free to:

• Use — to make any use of this work, which includes (if relevant) performing it
• Study — to examine this work and apply knowledge gained from it
• Share — to distribute, copy, and transmit this work, in whole or in part
• Remix — to adapt this work and share the changed versions of it

Under these conditions:

• Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or compatible license to this one.
• Attribution — You must attribute this work with a link (but not in any way that suggests endorsement of you or your use of the work)

Why?

We recognize that private ownership over media, ideas, and technology has deepened the subjugation of already oppressed people by encouraging the concentration and accumulation of control over those resources as well as the systemic appropriation of the work of marginalized people for private gain. We also recognize that the public domain has jointly functioned to contribute to that exploitation, as works in the public domain may be appropriated for use in proprietary works. Therefore, we use copyleft not only to circumvent the monopoly granted by copyright, but also to protect against that appropriation.

Integrity and credit

All of the licenses we use prevent derivative works from implying endorsement to protect against misrepresentation. They also all require attribution to the original publication of the work and clear indication that changes have been made. If you see someone appropriating our work with improperly implied endorsement or without proper attribution, please let us know.

Commercial use

Counter-intuitively, preventing commercial use retains a commercial monopoly on all rights associated with a work. The misleading name confuses many non-commercial projects into thinking this is an appropriate license, but permitting commercial use rejects those monopoly rights while copyleft protects it from being appropriated into a private work.

Cultural appropriation

Adopting ideas, artifacts, practices, and other elements from marginalized cultures is a behavior rooted in a long history of colonialism by which the resources of people of color have been made readily available for poaching. Without the existence of private ownership over ideas, media, and technology, people of color would still suffer greatly from cultural appropriation. We acknowledge that such circumstances would not simply solve the problem and undo colonialism, but without such means to monopolize resources, much of the possible gains from cultural appropriation would be greatly reduced. This increases potential for the creation of spaces attempting to redress harm caused by cultural appropriation.